Jo’s Weekly Questions – September, 2022
Categories Blog Memes & Asks Personal

Jo’s Weekly Questions – September, 2022

Image from Pixabay. Because pretty.

I totally forgot to answer to Jo’s weekly September questions So here’s the whole month in one go!

1. How important is it to you that people remember, spell, and pronounce your name correctly? Why?

Very important! Because one is my name, the other is not to quote Data from TNG.

My real first name (Piia) is spelled with two “i” letters, and all through my school years I had to specify that, because it can also be spelled with one “i” and all the teachers tended to assume that the one “i” was the correct form for me too, not the two “i”s one. To confuse the matter further, another girl in my class had very nearly the same name and that name (Mia) could also be spelled with either one or two “i”s… but her name was spelled with one “i”. So we both had that problem, just in reverse! Teachers were always confused about our names! My parents apologized so many times for giving me such a troublesome name – it hadn’t even occurred to them that the one “i” spelling would be also an option and often assumed. Probably because the one “i” version is a foreign/Swedish version, and the two “i”s version is the Finnish one. But both spellings are probably both used as much so one isn’t more common than the other.

Even now, when I have to give out my name for a new doctor or a nurse, if they don’t have my information on their systems yet, I have to make sure they catch it’s with two “i”s, not one!

Pronouncing is always correct because no matter if it was one or two “i”s, it is the same.

2. Are you a hugger or a non-hugger? Why?

When I was growing up hugging wasn’t really a thing in except in the immediate family (so children and parents, sometimes grandma), at least in my family, and I’ve lived alone since I was 17 so I’ve never got used to hugging most people. My friends, cousins and I don’t ever hug, it’s just not something we do except in exceptional circumstances like when somebody died or something like that. I don’t see them hugging their friends when we meet as a group, only their kids and SOs and parents. I do sometimes miss hugging/physical closeness with someone while living alone like I do.

That said, I have liked the “stranger” hugs I’ve received when my Dad died so I’m not categorically opposed to it or anything. It’s just not something my circles normally do. I normally only hug my Mom. And my Mom’s best friend and I sort of half-hug each other these days. It’s nice. Continue reading Jo’s Weekly Questions – September, 2022

Health Update
Categories Blog Health Personal

Health Update

This week has been a trying week!

On Sunday my period started two days early which – okay, good at least it’s not late which is used to be a common occurrence so I rather they start early than come late. But means that I have steady stomach pain for however many days I bleed and that’s felt like an extra cruel punishment on top of everything else ever since I got sick in 2008. Then on Tuesday Crohn’s Disease decided to join in on the fun and cramp really well! I was SO much pain for two hours before the pain meds kicked in – cold sweat, white face, weakness and feeling like I’ll faint, I got it all 🙁 Then after the pain meds kicked in, pain gone but felt still weak and weird and because it happened in the evening, a little of the weird feeling continued the next day too. This happens sometimes during my period since I got the Crohn’s diagnosis, so luckily I knew that the meds would help and I just had to wait for them to kick in so I didn’t really worry about whether I should go to the hospital or anything like that like the first time it happened.

Then on yesterday (Thursday) a migraine and lower back pain, and last night again a mild migraine and today Friday also the same lower back pain. I don’t get why the back pain all of a sudden – I used to have bad lower back pain in my 20s when I had too heavy periods and even in between, but when we got me bleeding less the back pain got better too and I’ve only gotten a little bit of a back pain during my bleeding days for almost two decades now. But yesterday and today it was bad again like it was before, although it has eased up the more I have moved. I don’t think I’ve pulled anything, but maybe I’ve slept in a bad position or something? I don’t feel it when I lie down but when I get up in the morning, I feel shooting and nasty twinges at first and then it starts to ease up but doesn’t go completely away as I move about. I hope this back pain doesn’t become a feature outside my period – I don’t want to have to deal with anything more – at least, not any more pain! Fingers crossed.

Other health related things… after I had the iron infusion in March, I noticed that my eyes focus better and don’t get what the optician and my doctor told me was “age sight”: that eyes get tired faster and it’s hard to focus them when you get older. I used have many times a week trouble focusing my eyes even first thing in the morning even though I had slept through the night. This went on a couple of years and nothing helped, not even getting new glasses. But after the iron infusion, it stopped happening until it started happening again now in September. My hand joints also stopped hurting after the infusion, and haven’t restarted yet. I don’t know what my ferritin is currently – in May it was 80, and in March before the infusion it was 20. At least ferritin of 100 is recommended for IBD patients in literature here, but that directive isn’t followed at all. I’d been trying to raise ferritin by taking oral iron supplement for years but it didn’t help. I didn’t think the infusion helped with the exhaustion, but maybe it did a little bit – because the last couple of weeks I’ve been terribly exhausted again, like I hadn’t been for a little while but I can’t swear the last time was before the infusion. It also could just be the legal stuff I’ve been dealing with (re: the adoption which I’ve written in another post) the last two months, and my Mom’s health stuff as well. It’s been mentally hard since the start of August so that could a major reason for my exhaustion too. Because I’m a spoonie and don’t have enough energy even for normal days, anything extra, whether it’s physical or mental, can hit me hard and mostly it seems to show as exhaustion and tiredness.

Sometimes I feel bad about always posting bad things when I do these health updates, but the truth is that I don’t have good weeks. My weeks are “okay” usually, and “bad” more often than I’d like. When days and weeks are “okay”, there’s nothing to write about. They’re just full of just routine and usual typical things which in my case, are either neutral (like going to grocery shopping, paying bills etc. etc.) or some kind of negative (the adoption thing, or when I have to deal with bureaucracy of being sick and/or unemployed etc.) or major or minor pain (I have pain every day, just the intensity and location varies)… things that don’t stand out of the rest. I’m so limited in what I can do due to pain and exhaustion that I don’t do things like go to concerts or movies or see my friends weekly that’d be positive to make updates about. I’m mostly limited to just being home on my own.

Good days happens sometimes but often I realize it actually was a good day only the next day (because if a day has been good but then I get a migraine in the late evening, well that doesn’t feel much like a good day anymore then because you mostly just remember the throbbing head pain) when I see that I had no notable headache the day before. And good day doesn’t mean I did something out of the ordinary – it just means I had notably less pain than most days. A truly good day is when I have no notable pain *and* I see my best friend or Mom, and these days are so rare – maybe only once or twice a year now. So “okay” is my reality the vast majority of time but it does make for boring updates. But actually I’m grateful for “okay” because back when I didn’t have Crohn’s Disease diagnosis yet and my headache/migraine was much worse than it is now, “bad” was 100% of the time for many, many years. So I’m okay with “okay”. Although I hope for more good days!

Oded Fehr Fanfic Archives Are Now On AO3
Categories Celebrities Information Oded Fehr Server Problems & Fansite News

Oded Fehr Fanfic Archives Are Now On AO3

The import of Oded Fehr fanfic archives Weaver Of Dreams and Land Of Dreams to AO3 via the Open Doors project is now complete, and the old URLs (https://oded-fehr.so-obsessed.com) redirect to the AO3 Collection: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/weaverofdreams/

I’ll continue as the Weaver Of Dreams admin, and the Collection is open for new works and updates to existing works! If you wish to share/update your works centering around Oded Fehr and/or his characters, just sign up (https://archiveofourown.org/invite_requests) for AO3 and while posting a new work, select “Weaver of Dreams (weaverofdreams)” as the Collection.

I think posting to AO3 is very easy, especially if you’ve posted to fanfiction.net or efiction software before. But AO3 has detailed FAQs on all this at https://archiveofourown.org/faq?language_id=en and this is the Posting & Editing FAQ: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/tutorial-posting-a-work-on-ao3?language_id=en

If you’d rather watch a video about how to post, just google it – there are many videos about it, such as this one

 
The Friday Five for 23 September 2022: We are made of star stuff
Categories Blog Memes & Asks Personal

The Friday Five for 23 September 2022: We are made of star stuff

Answers to today’s questions at The Friday Five @ Dreamwidth.

1. How many stars can you see in the sky at night where you live? (Not looking for an exact number here, just a general description.)

Too many to count! On a typical clear winter night, the sky is full of stars!

In the fall when it starts to get dark earlier and then in the winter when the nights are long, you can see lots and lots of stars as long if it’s cloudless. The skies are often cloudy though.

Even in the biggest cities the light pollution isn’t so bad that you can’t see the stars if it’s dark out and clear weather. I love that! Most of the summer, the midnight sun night makes the night skies too bright so if you’re looking to stargaze in Finland make sure to come here between September and April or thereabouts. Northern Finland/Lapland is probably the best place for stargazing because all the bigger cities are in the south of Finland but even in our biggest city starry skies are normal due to less light pollution than in say New York or Paris and unpolluted air! Because our biggest combined cities, the Helsinki Metropolitan Area only has about 1 million inhabitants so even our big cities are tiny compared to metropolies of the world (and our entire country has only about 5,5 million people) so our skies are much clearer pollution and light pollution wise. As an example, I live about 20 minute bus ride from Turku city center (about 5 minutes by car), one of t ihe biggest cities in the country, and only have to step out my front door and see all the stars just by looking up if the sky is clear! In the mid-winter a day’s dark time is about 20 hours so plenty of time to observe the sky.

My favorite time of day is in the late fall and winter, when it’s at least almost freezing and the air is crisp and clear and it’s dark and quiet because it’s late, or early, and people are in their homes so the traffic is less than during the day, and you can see all the stars. That’s my favorite time to go for a walk, it’s so peaceful!

2. What is your favorite constellation?

I don’t care about the constellations. But my favorite nebular is Carina Nebula and this is one of my favorite photos of it that I’ve found:

I have so may images of Carina Nebula that I use as my laptop wallpaper!

3. Are you able to see and identify any planets in the sky? Which ones?

I think they can be seen here, but I can’t identify them.

4. Have you ever seen a satellite orbiting above the earth?

As far as I know, only on TV!

5. Have you ever seen a rocket blasted off into space?

Nope, only on TV! It’s my understanding rockets in general including the Finnish rockets, satellites etc. and ones Finland is involved in the creation and use of are blasted off into space by NASA in USA and/or ESA in French Guiana? In locations that are always in the Southern Hemisphere while we are almost at the top of Northern Hemisphere. I’ve never visited those places.

The Friday Five for September 16 2022
Categories Blog Memes & Asks Personal

The Friday Five for September 16 2022

Better late than never! Answers to last Friday’s questions @ Livejournal.

1. Do you tend to remember book titles or authors the most?

Authors! When I read a book from a new-to-me author and like it a lot, I make a point to check out their other books. Just this summer I’ve had a lot of trouble with as an example, Anna Jansson’s Marian Wern books because I can’t remember which ones I’d already read from the titles alone, or even the synopsis. I haven’t been reading her books for about 6 years, and can’t remember whether I was all caught up when I stopped reading her. Also, when I read many books by the same author in a short amount of time the stories blur together and I can’t remember which title was which story. But I never really forget an author, they just get dropped or put on back burner if I get disappointed with their new stuff, or they don’t publish new stuff. But I never really forget an author.

2. Do you play any memory games to try and improve your memory?

Nope!

3. What is the very first movie you remember seeing in a movie theatre?

<em>Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes</em> (1984) with Andie MacDowell and Christopher Lambert. It’s also the first movie I remember wanting to go see a second time but my Mom and Dad said no. I was 10 when it came on in the theatres and my weekly allowance wasn’t enough to pay for the ticket myself.

4. What sense do you tend to rely upon the most?

Sight, no doubt!

5. When was the last time you felt lonely and what made you feel better?

I’m not sure I ever have. I live alone (I just realized I’ve lived alone exactly 30 years this fall! Since I moved out to study library sciences at 17.) but I can’t remember ever truly feeling lonely. It’s true that sometimes I wish I had someone to share a bad thing or a happy thing with, or take care of half the financial burden on me, or to share a remark about some minor thing happy or otherwise but that’s too little/minor/transitory to make a phonecall/e-mail about it… but that’s it. I’ve often read up about how feeling lonely is for other people and it never matches with my feelings.

The closest I remember ever getting to feeling lonely was during those recesses in school when my best friend’s class (we were in different classes, but had about half our classes together due to how the two classes were divided and joined for certain subjects) had already gone home, or did the last two hours back-to-back in order to be released home a little earlier. But that was partly because we were teased (read: bullied) usually by the high schoolers sometimes (probably not even weekly but still, it wasn’t a nice experience), and it felt safer and nicer when there were two of us on the recess. So some of it was a low level fear instead of loneliness.