personal

Got my 4th COVID-19 vaccine yesterday! Finally! Felt like THL sure did sat on it this time for my medical risk group despite the number of cases sky-rocketing during the summer 8-O and despite saying that the protection against serious disease only lasts a few months. At one point they said Finland would wait for the updated vaccines before starting the 4th round except for the worst medical risk group. Only thing was that at the time it wasn't even known when those vaccines would be approved for EU and then for Finland, so there was an out-cry that it might be November/December by then and much too late for the autumn COVID-19 cases increase and THL changed their stance. Luckily. 

I got my 3rd vaccine in early December so I've been feeling more or less in danger all through the summer. Avoided crowds and kept safe distance from other people because of that, while still trying not to become a hermit.

So far the jab site is slightly red and the arm muscle is a little sore, but not nearly as bad as the previous times. Yesterday I suddenly got a worsening headache 1,5 hours after the jab, and I think it's because of the vaccine. It came on much faster than my migraine usually does, and responded better to the headache meds. So I'm thinking it was a vaccine side effect, but can't really be sure.

I don't get it - the authorities and politicians handled the first two years of the pandemic so well, why has this year been so bad and the attitude even by the authorities seems to be that it's over even though the hospital system is suffering due chronic under-funding and under-staffing of nurses and devalue of nurses' jobs? As if suddenly COVID-19 isn't putting more pressure than normal on the system that was already cracking under the weight of the pressure long before COVID-19 came along? Why add to that by risking having even more patients because they're in risk for serious disease and complications and that then happening by not vaccinating them if the powers that be themselves admit that the vaccines prevents deaths and long intensive care stays or even hospital stays altogether? I trust science and doctors and tend to believe that organizations like THL does what is best for the nation, but sometimes it's very hard.

Image from Pixabay. Because pretty.

Answer’s to Jo’s weekly questions over at Dreamwidth.

18. Using only one word per person, what was your first impression of each person present with you now?

I'm alone so can't answer this.

19. What books on your shelf are begging to be read?

Two books from the library: the crime novel by Anna Jansson I'm a little more than half-way through right now, and another crime novel by Elle Griffiths, because they're new enough that other people are waiting for them and am likely unable to renew them!

20. What do you do if you can’t sleep at night? Do you count sheep, toss and turn, or get up and try to do something productive?

I suffer from insomnia and bad quality/short sleep; I'm always sleep deprived and tired. I usually try to rest anyway, to get myself quiet and peaceful because I've noticed that even if I can't sleep, I function better the next day if I can rest.

21. Which do you do more often: hum or whistle?

I can't whistle so humming wins... but I rarely do that either.

22. When you’re alone at home, do you wear shoes, socks, slippers, or go barefoot?

Barefoot if it's summer, socks if it's winter. Indoor shoes aren't a thing here: it's considered the epitome of rude to wear shoes inside and everyone automatically takes them off right after stepping through the front door, even people like plumbers unless you specifically tell them that they can keep their shoes on. Some people, usually grandmas and grandpas, wear slippers.

23. Who’s the biggest “pack rat” you know?

Myself, I think. Only with certain types of items of which books is the most common. I can't go to book stores or book fairs because they're much too dangerous places to me - I always want to BUY ALL THE BOOKS!!!! and I don't have enough physical space anymore to buy new ones.

24. What is your most unusual nighttime or morning ritual?

I don't have a morning ritual, but my nighttime ritual is that I must read fiction for at least 10 minutes before turning out the lights. Sometimes this is very hard when I'm so tired my eyes have trouble staying open, but if I don't read for at least ten minutes, even a book I've read a hundred times times already, I'll feel out of kilter all day the next day.

25. How do you get rid of pesky phone calls from telemarketers/scam callers?

My country has this Robinson list that you can put your number on, and reputable telemarketers respect it and don't call. The telemarketer calls really slowed down when I added my number about a decade ago: now I only get about two or three calls a year.

A new phenomenon is scam callers from abroad - they speak really, really bad English so it's easy to know they're scammers immediately: because no service I use calls me in English especially not without me agreeing to it beforehand and knowing to expect the call on a certain day at the certain hour. And domestic services call me only in Finnish. Foreing services I use contact me via e-mail. So I hang up right away when somebody starts to talk bad English on the other end. The first few I got said they're calling from Microsoft and have I noticed my Windows has been hijacked. I got these scammer calls four or five times last year, or was it the year before, but haven't gotten them now for a long while. The scam was in the news here and warned about everywhere.

26. Have you ever square-danced or line-danced? When was the last time you did any sort of dancing (not counting when alone in your home!)?

Nope and nope. In school. I don't care the sort of places and/or events where dancing happens because they're too crowded and LOUD and I'm always uncomfortable when forced to go into one and only want to go home.

27. When you leave a room, do you turn the lights off behind you or keep the lights on throughout your house most of the time?

The kitchen has the light on all the time when I'm up (except when I'm having a migraine attack that's when all the lights are off) - the kitchen and living room is one long room, and the light in kitchen lights the living room portion as well just right for me because I can't handle full on brightness of lights (I have very light sensitive eyes, always have had; it's probably to do with the migraine). I do have a light in the living room as well but the only time it's on is when I'm dusting and/or vacuuming. I also usually keep my night light on in the bedroom because I often go read in the bed during the day and don't feel like turning it on and off all the time. This last one I'm actively trying to change as of two weeks ago to putting the light out every time I'm not there to save on the electricity bill because the price of electricity is going up so much.

When I'm staying at my Mom's, whose apartment has more separate rooms and a clear difference between the kitchen and the living room unlike I do, I do turn off lights if I don't go back to the room immediately after just fetching something from somewhere else or something like that. Because that's how they do things there, and guess I've just picked up their habits while I'm there.

28. How frequently do you purchase lottery tickets?

Really randomly and rarely. I haven't bought any for the last 12+ months. I usually transfer 10 euros to Veikkaus account, and then buy from that over several months until it runs out. Then the next time I do it might be a year or two later. I'm not really interested in lottery, I forget it exists and also I don't have the money usually to waste money like that. But it's nice to dream about not having money problems so very occasionally I do like to buy some lottery tickets because that's the most likely way for that to happen to me.

29. Have you ever been an audience member for any television shows? Which ones? If you haven't, would you like to be? For which shows?

Nope and nope.

30. When was the last time you sat on a park bench for more than ten minutes? Describe the occasion.

I can't remember. I'm not a park person these days and there aren't any "park" parks near me and to go to a proper park, I'd have to make an effort and a special trip. So before I got ill back in 2008. I'm in too much pain and too tired to make a trip to a park, walk + spend time around in the park, and then to make another trip back and also, such a trip would take out all my energy for 2-3 days after. So no parks for me! Back when I was healthy, I wasn't much of a park person then either - I wouldn't go to a park just to spend time, I'd be walking through it on the way somewhere. Usually with my best friend. But we would sit on the benches if time allowed and the sun wasn't too hot. But yeah, parks haven't ever really been a feature in my life.

Now sitting on a bench while going out for a little stroll on a little walking path on the field or the woods five minutes from my home? Sign me up! No particular occasion but it was in the spring before the temperatures got too hot. I try take take 2-3 stroll outside every week in the fall/winter/spring and a lot of the walking paths around here have benches along them every now and then. I like to sit on one, drink from my water bottle and watch the dogs that hopefully go by! Sitting a spell also lets me make a little longer stroll, if I have to walk without rest, it'd have to be a shorter walk to avoid wiping me out for for the rest of the day.

31. When something is funny, do you usually laugh raucously, hiss, snort, chuckle quietly to yourself, or smile and nudge the person next to you?

Chuckle quietly to myself because I'm usually alone. But if I'm with a friend or my Mom, I snort or laugh outloud - not raucously (it's rarely that funny) and depends on the kind of funny it is which reaction it is. I also nudge the other person if they haven't noticed it yet.

Snagged these language-related questions from annaserene@Livejournal

What would you consider your native language?

Finnish.

What was your first language learning experience?

We started learning Swedish (the second mother tongue here in Finland) in the third grade when I was nine. My memory of learning Swedish in the 3-6 grades is that all the lights were put out in the class room and as if the curtains were drawn to shut out the sun and like I would die of boredom. I remember this is not true, but the Swedish teacher made me feel this way - very sad, very dark... it was all about her manner of being. She wasn't bad, or nasty, or unfair or anything. Just that I wasn't into Swedish at all and then we had a complete and utter chemical failure between me and that particular teacher that made it so bad and boring.

What languages have you studied and why did you learn them?

Swedish for six years, starting with grade 3 when I was nine. It's a required subject, and is forced on students in school.

English for 3 years, starting with grade 6 when I was 12. It's a required subject, but I was very happy to start learning! All my fave tv shows were either English or US.

French for two years, starting with grade 8 when I was 13. It was a voluntary subject I wanted to take, because I've always been interested in mid-European history and particularly in French castles and palaces. German was also a voluntary subject that I wanted to take, but I only had room for two additional voluntary subjects and I also wanted computer science as a voluntary subject. So French it was.

How does your personality affect your language learning?

I was an obedient, if mostly mediocre pupil because I hated school and couldn't easily be motivated to put in effort beyond a certain point. But in certain subjects I was passionate about, I got better than good grades. English was one of them - I was serious about it, did all the homework assigned and even the extra ones that we didn't have to do but could if we wanted to. My first English teacher was very demanding, strict and fair and respected her a lot (she was generally hated because she took no shit from pupils and kept the classroom in order; I respected her for it). When she gave you a good grade, you know you had earned it (and vice versa). She taught me a good grammar base that was easy to build on and extend my vocabulary later on.

I LOVE reading and always have! When elementary school was over, and I started the library school, the biggest, best book store chain in the country had English language Star Trek tie-in novels on its shelves, and I dithered many months about buying one - I wanted to so badly, I wasn't sure my English was good enough. But finally I did buy one novel, and two days later went back for more! Reading novels became the major motivator for me to keep at it, especially after I finished all schooling. One of my favorite things to do was to curl up with a novel in English and a thick Finnish-English-Finnish dictionary, read and look up any English words in the dictionary I didn't know that the meaning of. I'm not at the point that I very rarely have to look up the meaning of a word in dictionary - mostly when it's something sciency, or medical.

Do you prefer learning a language in a class or on your own?

In a class! Over the years I've done a few attempts to better my Swedish and to continue my French lessons, but it's been half-hearted at best.

What are your favourite language learning materials?

Well, in school we had typical 1980s grammar books, and excercise books. My favorite though were the pronunciation and discussion practise lessons my French teacher gave us - she said it was very important to learn to pronounce French properly. I don't remember us having those things a lot in Swedish or English. English pronunciation I think I mostly learned from tv and movies, grammar and spelling in school.

How much time do you spend on language per day?

I read in Finnish and English every day, for hours and hours. I write at least a little in English and Finnish most days, and several days a week, I write a lot in English. Swedish very little, randomly and French not really at all, sadly. I've forgotten 99% of my French, honestly.

What are your short-term and long-term language goals?

I don't have really have language goals. I just want to keep reading and writing English and Finnish fluently.

Oh wait! I lie! I do have a goal - sometimes, often, I forget the Finnish word for a thing, and all I can think of is what it is called in English. I'd like that to happen less! So I guess I need to keep reading Finnish widely going forward!

What is your favourite language?

English just because fanfic in my fandoms, or for my fave characters, doesn't exist in Finnish. And the availability of certain published book genres is much wider in English than Finnish, and yet other book genres practically non-existant in Finnish.

What is the next language you want to learn?

If I could pour French language into my head that be cool! But I don't think I'll actually try to learn it again. German would be nice too!

What advice could you give new language learners?

Submerge yourself in it in whatever format you love! If it's movies, great! If it's reading, great! If it's, writing, discussing... it's all great! Whatever makes you want to spend time on it.

Image from Pixabay. Because I need something bright and cheery for this post.

I'm adopted and the adoption was finalized in May 1975 when I was six months old. So 46+ years ago. The adoption papers my Mom has say that all legal, financial and otherwise connections to my biological parents and family is severed completely and forever and ever.

Only, the law changed on January 1, 1980 and then again in 2012... and now my adoption is considered a "weak" adoption. And it's effective retroactively. Meaning that suddenly some of the profound legal connection is there: I am one of my biological parents' heirs when they die, and I also inherit my biological siblings if they don't have children or a married spouse. Also meaning that if I die before my Mom - it is my biological mother who inherits me, not my Mom, because I don't have children and I'm not married. I do and did inherit my adopted parents, but not equally with their own biological children (my adopted parents only ever had me and no biological children, so that bit is moot I guess... but that nice bit of law is still there for other adopted people and their families).

So in short, my legal status is not what my parents and I have thought it to be for over 47 years.

Adoptions finalized on January 1, 1980 or later are "strong" adoptions: all legal, financial and otherwise connections between an adopted child and the biological parents and family is completely severed: neither can inherit the other automatically as a matter of law (only with a testament). And also the adopted child's rights to inherit the adopted parents and their family were made equal with the adopted parent's own biological children.

We found all this out when one of my biological siblings called me a week ago, to let me know that my biological father had died in April, and that I had shown up as one of my biological father's children in legal documents when they finally got them in July, to their and my biological mother's surprise. And to my and my Mom's shock!

Somehow my Mom and Dad had totally missed this weak vs. strong adoption thing back in 1980, nobody had said anything when my Dad died in 1989, and again we missed all about it again in 2012! My Mom and Dad have always actively followed news, and I have too from 2011 onwards and still we missed it! I do have a vague memory of some news about 10 years ago about changes to the rights of the children to find out their fathers if they were conceived via IVF sperm donation but I don't remember there being mention about changes to adoption laws and retroactively at that. But about a such huge change to the legal status of adoptees??? Nothing. Nada. Silence. I've been googling like crazy this past week and not a single news article about it have come across my way! This is actually such a profound change in a citizen's legal status, that both my Mom and I think families affected should have been informed by a letter. But nothing!

Okay, partly it's our fault for not knowing - although to partly explain it, when the biggest change was made in 1980, my Dad was only 2-3 years away from getting a brain cancer diagnosis and who knows - he may have been feeling some effects already then that made him not quite as a alert and sharp as usual and took both Mom's and his attention and then from 1984 on he was ill and had three brain surgeries in four years. But still.. it wasn't reported in news in any sort of notable way, it looks like. I mean really... how could we know if it hadn't been widely in the news? So I call this all bullshit! I'm so mad! I don't want to inherit some complete unknown, and I don't want my apartment going to some other complete unknown instead of my Mom should I die before her, or my cousins if she's already dead!

I sort of feel like the legal system and the politicians who made these law updates took a huge dump on me and everyone adopted before January 1, 1980 and then pissed on us for good measure.

Luckily there's a simple way to finalize a weak adoption into a strong adoption, so that's what I'm pursuing right now. But it'll take however many months. But once done, if the court approves it, all the legal and otherwise connections are in actuality severed to my biological family and none of them will inherit me or I them (and my Mom and cousins will inherit me) as it should be, and as I've thought it is my whole life.

This all is completely unnecessary, making people's lives unnecessarily hard. I'm lucky in that I've known my whole life that I'm adopted... my Mom and Dad thought best to tell me in an age-appropriate ways right from the start because all our relatives, friends, kids next door, neighbors etc. would know Mom hadn't been pregnant, so the chance of me finding out accidentally or hearing whispers behind my back was great. But I had a class mate in school who found out on her 18th birthday that she was adopted - she felt completely betrayed by her parents, and would have nothing to do with them. Although there were heavy other reasons as well; they were very strict, what I know of them makes me think they wre borderline abusive. But imagine the shock if you had made it to your 47th year, didn't know you were adopted and then suddenly your world turns upside down and inside out when you get a phone call from your biological sister. I'm secure and comfortable in my identity, and even so this profound change in my legal status has thrown me in for a loop emotionally and mentally (I can tell you - my migraine has really been loving the last several days!), not to mention in just practical things... just imagine what it would be like to someone who didn't know!

This has been such a shock that I haven't felt anything about the fact that my biological father has died... I'm not sure if I even should. Some of my biological siblings would like to get to know me, no idea what I think about that either. I've always known the names of my biological parents, and the adopted child is allowed to contact the biological family if so desired, but I never did. I've been content as I've been. Oh, and joy - my Mom has to deal with all this too, not only the emotional but also the legal. The weak adoption affects her too as far as inheritances go. Anyway, I'm pursuing a strong adoption and I'm hopeful that in time things will change back to what we always thought they were and what they should be.

I'm not sure what to do about the inheritance - I'm strongly leaning towards rejecting it/giving it up/whatever the legal term is. I know there are some debts that the heirs have to be careful and do things the right way in order not to become responsible for the debts, but I don't know if there's anything beyond maybe a house or an apartment. And there are at least six heirs, maybe more (turns out I have five biological full or half siblings all in all) so even if there's something, it might not amount to much or anything even if it's enough to cover the debts. And, I'm of the mind that because it was never supposed to be mine, and I don't want it, and I also have zero emotional connection to any property or stuff so I'd only be interested in any money if there's any (does that make me mercenary? I can't help it, my income doesn't cover all my medical expenses) which more than likely is very little at most so.... I can/should decline the inheritance and not risk having to pay inheritance tax or having to pay for anything else either. But a tiny part of me goes, what if he was a millionaire..? There's only like 1% chance (the adoption authorities tried to match the parents on economics and professions and he wasn't in a profession that typically makes a person rich) but you never know! But even if he was - do I have moral right to inherit some of it, considering that wasn't the plan when the adoption was carried out? And what if there's arguments between the other heirs?? I do not want to deal with that, or anything else problematic that might rise from the inheritance itself or just simply from processing the thing.

I hate that none of this won't be over for probably at least the rest of the year - the estate inventory needs to be drawn and signed by the end of the year, but bureaucracy is so backlogged it'll probably take all the time allowed it. I'm also lucky if I get the court's ruling on the strong adoption by the end of the year, for the same reason.

So much to think about, to stress over. I haven't even thought much about some of my biological siblings wanting to get to know me, if that's what they really want and it's not a some kind of ploy about the inheritance, all this weak adoption shit is so stressing! This whole thing is just complete and other bullshit and I hate hate hate that I (and Mom) have to go through it!

In the last year, especially for the last several months, it feels like not a week goes by that I read a childhood/teenage hero of mine has died! Many of them not even that old! Most recently Nichelle Nichols, Olivia Newton-John, David Warner and yesterday I learned that Jussi Hakulinen also has died. He was only 57!

Jussi Hakulinen was one of the most talented and famous Finnish song writers and musicians, and one of the founding members of Yö (Night) which is Finland's 10th best-selling music artist of all time. He wrote and composed Joutsenlaulu (Swansong) which is one of the best loved Finnish songs ever. Joutsenlaulu to me is personally perhaps the quintessential Finnish song and probably my THE favorite Finnish song of all time.

Someone uploaded a video with both the Finnish lyrics as well as English translations of them to Youtube: