by This year spiffikins at Dreamwidth put together daily questions for the year 😀
1. Are We Becoming ‘Numb’ to School Shootings?
In Finland? No. I think we’ve only had 5 incidents of violence in schools that led to deaths and only two of those were gun violence. So school shootings are not a common occurrence here and we’re not getting numb about about them.
2. What Words Do You Hate?
I don’t hate any words.
3. What Recent Events Will Most Likely Be Featured in History Museums Someday?
COVID-19.
4. When Do You Choose Making a Phone Call Over Sending a Text?
When it’s something that needs to get answers or relay information ASAP.
In case of family and friends, when I want to hear the other person’s voice because we haven’t talked in a while. Or when there’s a lot of stuff to talk about and writing it all out feels cumbersome.
5. What Temperature Do You Set the A/C or Heat To Be Comfortable?
Most Finnish homes don’t have A/C as a rule so I can’t do anything truly working about comfortable during the summer when it gets hot. But in the winter, I try to adjust the radiator so that the indoors temperature is 20-21 degrees celcius.
6. What Are Your Favorite Works of Art?
I have a lot of musical favorites but not things like paintings. Here’s a few:
Porz Goret by Yann Tiersen
The Last of the Mohicans soundtrack tracks by Trevor Jones. I also love the cover by <a href=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKIfQB8OhR8“>Shamrock Redheads</a>, one of the best ones I’ve heard!
7. How Do You Remember What You Need to Remember?
I used to be able to just keep it all in my head, but since being in daily pain for going on 16 years now, I’ve noticed I can’t remember things anymore. So it’s paper lists, yearly paper appointment diary, and two digital calendars for me now!
8. Have You Ever Stumbled Upon a Cool Public Performance?
Live? Nope. I’ve seen some Youtube videos though.
9. What Are the Animals in Your Life?
Unfortunately I don’t have animals in my life at all. We used to have an adorable, wonderfully loving and completely nuts Beagle, Caro, but she passed 20 years ago this year. I still miss her!
10. What Did/Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?
An starship officer and a scientist aboard the USS Enterprise. Or barring that, a librarian.
11. What Are Your Favorite Viral Videos?
Don’t have one. I don’t really do social media, and I guess that’s where viral videos are because I never come across them.
12. Should a College Education be Free?
Yes, and it is, in a way. Thus far, at least. The far-right wing government is planning to change that.
13. When Did You Last Have a Great Conversation?
Today.
14. How Do You Feel About Valentine’s Day?
It’s a commercial day among other commercial days.
15. Is Shakespeare Too Hard?
Nope. But it’s boring.
16. Are You the Same Person on Social Media as You Are in Real Life?
Nope. I’m very little on social media, and only post with my fannish persona there what little I post.
17. Does Punctuation in Text Messages Matter?
It does to me! Texting didn’t exist until I was around 25, so writing and reading text speak takes more effort and brain power than just writing the normal way for me.
18. Where Do You See Yourself in 10 Years?
The same as now – mostly likely unemployed and poor because of chronic illnesses. I hope to be on disability retirement by then but it isn’t very likely.
19. Do You Speak a Second, or Third, Language?
Yes, English. Finnish is my mother tongue, I’m fluent in English and have some very rudimentary understanding of Swedish because it’s Finland’s second official language and forcibly teached in all schools at all levels.
20. Did You Like School?
Nope. I hated school when I was a kid and teenager because the other kids were loud, rowdy and generally behaved like idiots literally all the time.
The occupational and library schools were better because the youngest people in my classes were already at least 20 years old and several were closer to 30 or even 40 who were getting formal certificates or switching careers. But I still didn’t like it – it was just more tolerable.
21. Is It Harder to Grow Up in the 21st Century Than It Was in the Past?
I does sound like school is harder now than in my day (80s and 90s). It sounds like there’s been a lot of new methods of teaching adopted in the last 20 years and lately there’s been lots of outpouring from parents that the methods aren’t working and the kids are expected to basically teach themselves and each other without help from teachers. That the teachers just hand over all the tasks for a season and the kids are expected to plan their schedules and learning themselves. Which is just insane. It certainly wouldn’t have worked for me. No wonder our PISA scores are falling! No wonder kids don’t learn reading, or math, anymore! I’ve also heard that there’s a great pressure already in years 6-9 to plan and study to get great grades for high school and university and what career you’re going to have, to make the right choice. And the school isn’t considered for civilization anymore, but just to produce productive workers for companies and society. Don’t know how true that is.
22. Have You Ever Performed for an Audience or Shared Creative Work With Others?
I’ve shared creative work with others online a lot, and do that regularly.
I’ve never performed for an audience. Except for the small, few minutes presentations we had to do in school a few times a year. But nothing like that since finishing library school in 1995. Performing for an audience is a nightmare of mine. I hated those school presentations and they’d make me a nervous wreck. I hate being the center of attention.
23. Should Terminally Ill Patients Be Allowed to Die on Their Own Terms?
Yes.
24. How, and by Whom, Should Children Be Taught Appropriate Behavior?
Parents or guardians. School.
25. Do You Like to Exercise?
Hate it.
26. What Places Do You Remember Fondly From Childhood?
My Dad’s Union’s camping site. We spent most of all our summers there until Dad got ill. When I think of my childhood summers, the first thought is always the adventures I had on that camping site. There was a big forest on one side and ocean on the other, so we spent our summers wondering in the woods, climbing the big rocks and swimming in the sea. My family had sort of like an house tent which had a kitchen area and a separate sleeping compartment, and often a friend or another of mine would stay with us for week there. When we got a little older, around 8 or so, Mom and Dad erected a small tent just for us kids that we’d sleep in while they slept in the big tent with a separate sleeping compartment. Back in those days, there still were mobile stores (a normal size bus converted into a grocery) and one such came once (or twice?) to a stop near-by, and we’d go and buy whatever groceries we were running out of… or just for ice cream! It was also usual that our friend families woud visit us on the camp site in the summer for an afternoon of fun, swimming and good food.
27. Can Graffiti Ever Be Considered Art?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen graffiti that appealed to me personally, but I have seen a lot of graffiti that made a dull, gray concrete wall more fun than it was as before the graffiti. I think graffiti can be considered art when you can see there’s a plan to it and it isn’t just random scribblings and squirts.
28. Do You Believe in Ghosts?
Nope.
29. Are Digital Photographs Too Plentiful to Be Meaningful?
I don’t know that the number of them is a problem. It’s more that the quality can be lousy, or taken unnecessarily of a situation or a thing.
