Category: Personal

Almost late!

1 – International Day of Older Persons: David Bowie once said that ageing is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been. Do you agree?

I think I do! I certainly am much more comfortable in my own skin now in my late 40s than ever before.

2 – World Architecture Day: Are you a keen observer of architecture, or do you mostly notice it when you see architectural oddities, e.g. a particularly ugly building, or a very unusual house design — that sort of thing?

I do notice architecture a lot! Even if a lot of my notice is on the “Oh my that’s ugly!” or “Or that’s very (old &) pretty!” side. I find modern architechture unattractive, and a lot of historical buildings a lot nicer to look at. I do appreciate it when TPTB do try to make a newly built building more attractive, usually with lively colors – mostly it feels like everything’s made of either gray concrete elements here or gray glass and metal elements, so buildings that are painted with actual colors, sometimes several of them that go together, is great.

I’m also known to pause movies and tv shows to google building blueprints because I’ve gotten stuck on the thought “what the hell kind of floor plan is that” or “the carage being there and opening into the ktichen the way it does doesn’t make any sense”. Friends and The Golden Girls just to name two. When I rewatched The Tudors a few years ago, I googled the manors and castles featured in the show a lot.

3 – Virus Appreciation Day: OK, so it’s been almost three years since Covid rocked the world. Is there ANYTHING you appreciate about that particular virus — well, maybe not the virus itself, but the impact it had on workplace arrangements, or social norms, etc.?

I’m glad that healthy people got some taste of what it’s like to be chronically ill and severely limited in what you can do and what it’s like when you spend most of your time at home. Too bad most people seem to have forgotten it already! Same with being unemployed and how the very basic unemployment benefits are really small.

We seem to have to gone back to what was before COVID-19 as far as work goes and forgotten all the lessons. Or so it seems to me looking in from the outside. I guess my circles do take a little bit more notice of things like the flu and not visiting each other when one very clearly in in the middle of it. Continue reading Jo’s Daily Questions – October 2023

The Friday Five for 27 October 2023 – https://thefridayfive.dreamwidth.org/121019.html

1. Which website do you go to more often than any other?

Technically gmail because I have my inbox always open in a tab as well as my phone. Other than that, probably https://www.yle.fi which is the national news site and Reddit which has both fandom subreddits and subreddits which talk about Finnish news.

2. Which website have you stopped going to, that you used to go to a lot?

Livejournal.

3. What is the weirdest or most unusual website you have bookmarked?

I don’t think I have either types bookmarked. Others may think some of them are weird but I don’t!

4. If you shop online, which online store do you buy from most often?

There’s no one single online store I buy more from than any other. They are divided by product category; here are a few of my most used (but not necessarily more than a couple of times a year):

https://www.lumingerie.fi is the only shop I buy bras from.

https://fountainfeder.de/ is a shop I buy a lot of the fountain pen/ink stuff from and only one I buy ink samples from since Brexit. But it isn’t the only shop I buy fountain pen stuff from.

Amazon UK and Amazon DE are the two I use the most for buying DVDs & Blurays and calendars/yearly diaries.

https://www.yliopistonapteekki.fi/ for things like vitamins and cosmetics when they’re in a good sale.

5. Which online store do you browse but almost never buy from?

I browse Etsy a lot, and while I do buy from there, compared to the browsing, it’s a tiny amount.

 

Friday 5 for October 27: Lessons – http://f.riday5.com/2023/10/27/friday-5-for-october-27-lessons/

1. What were your high school teachers wrong about?

I quit high school after three months and was absent most of those three months, so I’m answering this based on my primary/comprehensive school and the first year of vocational school (the first year was general education, the years after that were for training in vocations).

The teachers were completely wrong when they said that when the baby boomer generation retires, a mad number of jobs will open up and we will have no problems getting a job if we’re even half way decent at what we do. They were so totally wrong.

Instread of steady jobs, there was a serious depression which started in 1990. Companies went under and unemployment was high. If you graduated to a profession during the depression or in the years immediately after it, what those people got were temp and part-time jobs at best, unemployment at worst. In the public sector jobs did more and more of cuts and offices, libraries, hospitals etc. run on minimal staff and people are only hired when it can’t be avoided to this day. In the private sector the same, but the service industries such as restaurants, shops etc. only hire part-time and only bosses are full-time. And everywhere technology has taken over human work, so a lot of people who aren’t cerebrally minded are unemployed because simple jobs don’t exist anymore, and they are not up to reading to be engineers, doctors or coders etc.

2. Which high school subject (or specific lesson) turned out to be more useful than you expected?

I think history. I’ve many times been grateful for the general education I received about varius countries, their histories and their relationships to one another, and what ideas, events, sentiments lead to various historical upheavals. It’s made following international news much easier when I know at least something about Russia’s history, or Hamas or Israel or whatever.

3. From which high school courses do you remember most and least?

I remember history the most, I think. Just because I loved learning about Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece. Least – Chemistry and Physics. I feel like I never much learned anything, or at least don’t remember much. Mostly I remember there being too few work stations and boys dominating them, so whenever we got to do experiments/see something work, boys got to do the thing and girls watch from the side :/ You can’t really learn well when you don’t get to do stuff yourself.

4. How many of your high school classmates are you still in touch with?

None. I didn’t like school, and only had “school” friends, not ones that I wanted to spend any time with outside school. Of my real friends, one was in the same school as I but in a different class, and the rest went to a different school.

5. Which specific songs bring you back to specific memories of high school?

Not song, but band: Duran Duran. And not school itself, but rather singing Duran Duran songs after school with my friends, and doing my homework while listening to WIld Boys and Save a Prayer.

From last week:

friday 5 for october 13: capitalizing on opportunity – http://f.riday5.com/2023/10/13/friday-5-for-october-13-capitalizing-on-opportunity/

1. When did you last visit a building where legislation or executive governing take place?

The last time was when I went to the police station to collect my new ID. It was during COVID-19 but I can’t remember whether it was in 2021 or 2022.

2. What do you carry on your person, in a bag, or in your car, just in case?

Don’t have a car, but in my backpack I always have water, migraine pills, diarrhea pills and if I’ve been having a worse-than-normally bad bowels symptoms day/week/month, I also a carry a change of panties, trousers (and if it’s autumn/winter, also winter leggins) in case I have an accident, and also plastic bag to carry the soiled clothes back home.

3. When did you last lower yourself (physically) through an opening of some kind?

Um… when I was a little kid and climbing on a kids climbing scaffolding thingy? Don’t know what they’re called in English. They’re made of metal or ropes and taller than kids are.

4. How do you feel about the death penalty?

I don’t feel much of any kind of way. My country doesn’t have death penalty. I’ve never had to really think about it. Part of me mildly thinks there are crimes that deserve death as punishment, but also part of me thinks that if a person commits such a crime, then the society has failed them and that society has no right to take anyone’s life.

5. Which vocalists most impress you with their ability to sing in the upper register?

Dunno about upper register, but I love Ofra Haza’s voice. She sings “Love Song” without musical accompaniment and it’s wonderful. Oh, Whitney Houston had an impressive upper register I thought! And Sarah Brightman has a wonderful voice too!

The Friday Five for 13 October 2023 – https://thefridayfive.dreamwidth.org/120779.html

1. Are you superstitious?

Nope. Although sometimes I wonder when I’ve lost something such as one of my cheese slicers, search for it for months with no luck, finally cave in and buy a new one – and then two days later, find the missing old one! Things like this seem to happen to often!

2. Which superstitions do you believe in and act on?

None.

3. What superstition does someone close to you believe in and act on?

None that I’ve noticed.

4. Do you take any extra precautions on Friday the 13th?

Nope. I don’t normally even notice that “today’s the day with the bad number of the month and the day of the week that combined is said to be bad” unless somebody points it out to me.

5. Do you secretly judge superstitious people?

Nope. Only if their superstitions affect other people negatively and then I judge them publicly.