The psychologist called this evening. I think the whole conversation can be reduced into a simple table with my essential remarks.
Linguistic part: 3/5
Logical part: 3/5
Reading comprehension: 3.5/5
Teachers' review: 11/15
The psychologist's review: 9/50
The last one... I mean, really! Okay, so I did expect to score higher in the first three (I am, after all, a university student and I do those things every bloody week!; however, this may be pride in the negative sense of the word) but the last one was really a clear under-achievement.
The reviews... how can they be so different: I'm among the best in the other, and yet among the worst in the other. I would have expected the score to be reverse, actually. Heh... maybe I give a different impression if I don't talk to people directly =). But I guess it's more important what the teachers said, since they're the one to grin and bear me in their classroom for the next four years.
As for the psychologist's opinion... she said she hoped for more motivation from me, and that she wasn't sure if having routines and taking orders from others would be fulfilling enough for me. Furthermore, she questioned my ability to separate my emotional self from that of others (that may actually have a seed of truth in it; but now I know to consciously acknowledge its presence and hopefully do something about it if necessary).
In general, she thought of me as a "contemplating philosopher" (I'm really very proud of this one!) who seems to be prone to get sidetracked, which in turn displays intelligence and ability to have profound conversations. She even pointed out that these two combined would give me a good foundation if I decide to specialise in psychiatry (I thought of it as one possible option when she asked me about my specialisation plans).
But according to her, I have no considerable personality disorders or anything of sorts that would make me unfit for a nurse (this includes the Rorschach ink plot test). She did, however, think that my family background may take larger part in my life than is recommended. I doubt that: I merely answered honestly to her questions about my family. Ah, well, too bad, I'm still going to study there.
But in short, I'm not a half-blood psychopath after all (damn! and I was *so* looking forward to that!) but a to-be-nurse.
It's my father's birthday. It would be his 49th birthday, to be precise. I didn't realise it until a couple of hours ago, and after that realisation my room felt far too small to be in so I ended up back in my safe haven by the sea, thinking about my father while listening to 'Caleb'.
It was some time during junior high, I think, when things got so bad I made a conscious decision to ignore to great extent. I wouldn't speak to him unless I was first spoken to by him (which didn't happen that often), I would treat him as if he wasn't even there, and I stopped greeting him on holidays and such, including his birthday. The latter I kept: I suppose it turned into a habit. Now it seems that it was merely a way to avoid acknowledging any emotional connection I might have with him; at least I could control that, since I couldn't do anything about our blood ties.
I've noticed I think of my father more now than I did when he was alive. Maybe it's easier now that he's not physically hovering in the background, always looming there as a possible threat. Tonight I was trying to come up with even a slightly positive memory of him. I didn't.
Even the negative memories have begun to fade. I am no longer clinging to the anger his alcoholism caused but instead I try to learn something of it, to discover what positive results it may have yielded. I haven't reached the end of my path yet but I', getting there. I hope that one day I will be able to forgive him for all the things he did, for all the things he took away from me, my childhood, my trust, my ability to experience any other feelings but hatred for so long…
Maybe some day.
- - -
The Meme of the Day:
Join the Litter Movement, better known as "Poimi roska päivässä -liike". Just one piece of garbage and the surroundings not only look nicer but the environment also become safer to humans, animals as well as our beloved bikes.
First, let it be stated that I am a mockery of a social human being. Hence a Saturday night is merely one night among others. This is why I have spent the past hour trying to sum up my Bachelor's Degree studies together. I have completed all the courses, and yet it appears that I am lacking one study point in my major's basic studies, but instead have two extra study points in my major's intermediate studies. Alas, these two are separated in the Bachelor Diploma, which is why I cannot be lacking anything anywhere. The two extras cause even further problems. Sure, it's nice to have two extra points for the same work as everyone else; unfortunately, the other of those two is in completely wrong place! It has been added to a course which, combined with its twin course, make up seven points which *should* be max. six points the purpose of which is to replace some other courses.
A similar case is in my minor's basic studies: I have two extra credits, resulting in my having twenty-seven points where I *should* have twenty-five.
All this is due to the so-called academic development. You may have heard of this degree renovation/"tutkintouudistus" thing. Practically it means as follows:
1) What used to be one degree has noe become two separate degrees, Bachelor and Master they're called. Unfortunately one doesn't get a job with a mere Bachelor's (at least in Finland) so it's pretty much useless; in other words it's bureaucratic bullshit which looks good on paper and pays some poor bastard's paycheque.
2) All of the courses have been through great changes. Most have had their name changed, for instance, "18th and 19th century British Prose" has become "Classics of English Literature 2". Many courses have also been blened in each other: many a student have been using the essential Finnish vocabulary when realising they've got credit for the other but not the other (note that these courses are always compulsory!).
3) Technically, this falls under the previous category, but the rant turned out to be so long it deserves its own number. Not only have the names and contents of the courses changed but also the entire credit system has been changed. What used to be a study *week* is now a study *point*. Now, I started in the university during the time they still used the old system; however, it was more beneficial for me to jump to the new system (as me and every single other old student was encouraged to do). It was supposed to be part of the deal that they change all of the credit acquired according to the old system to fit the needs of the new one. But as it so happens, it doesn't do that. Whoever is responsible for changing the credits hasn't been earning their paycheque, since they haven't summed up the credit to check that it really does meet the requirements. But no, it would be far too difficult to take the calculator, open the study guide and see that the two figures match.
4) They've been in such a hurry to jump from the old system to the new one that even the study councellors and the rest of the bureaucrat personel don't themselves know all that needs to be known. The whole mayhem can be described with this metaphor: a child sticks his wet finger in a plug to see what happens. For example, the course "Information Retrieval and Information Literacy 1" is a compulsory course for everyone, but it's also a whole new course. This course used to be part of the B.A. Thesis (which I passed according to the new system). So, I have all the knowledge provided in the previous course as I agreed with all the study councellors. That one bloody study point the course is worth should "appear" in my credits "some time", according to the councellors. Too bad none of them was capable of giving me even a guesstimated time when it will "appear" there. This is why, of the compulsory language/communication/methodology studies, I am lacking one more study point of the total twenty (the rest nineteen I have already passed and been credited).
Nice isn't it. I doubt they can actually go changing the already given credits. "Let's take this one from the intermediate studies and put it to the basic studies, now you have the right number on the basics. But then there's that one extra in the intermediate still... well, let's put it to the selective studies catefory, okay? Now you have less courses to pass in that category. Oh, right, the two extras on the minor... well, let's just put them to the selective studies category, too."
- - -
"Intelligence, it seems, is what makes one possible to survive without education. Education, in turn, seems to be what makes one possible to survive without using their intelligence."
A.E. Wiggam
And to continue with the Adams quotes... "Sorry for the inconvenience" (God's final message to His creation).
"Don't feel you need to take any notice of me, please."
-Marvin in 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-
Wit, starring Emma Thompson. A successful university professor gets diagnosed with cancer, which eventually kills her.
What would I do if I were diagnosed with cancer? It doens't really matter whether it would be treatable or not, or whether my chances of survival were high or low. What would my reactions be like?
In a smaller scale, I think I would just calmly acknowledge the situation: "So, this was it. Full stop." In a larger scale, I would gather all the money I could in a short notice; then I would go and say goodbye to Wanderer, the only friend I've ever had; then I would send my note book to Her (I'm sure She would find that one particular text interesting); then I would travel to wherever Sonata Arctica were playing at that time, go to that concert and maybe even speak with Tony. Finally, I would kill myself.
The balance between my will to live and my will to die is fragile, delicate, so easily shaken off. Why bother going through the treatment? I have nothing, no-one, to live for. In spite of the duration of my life, this world won't be any better place for me having been in it. So why bother?
This whole week from ten a.m. to two p.m. I have been keeping my phone right next to me. The psychologist from the Polytechnic entrance exam was supposed to call me and give me a detailed analysis (read: tell me what she thinks is wrong with me mentally) of all those personality tests and interviews I sat through that Monday. Well, she never called me, so now I need to leave her another phone call request. I will not leave her alone until she replies something, as she is about to discover. If she doesn't have time during the twenty hours I give during one week, she could at least tell me so. Then I could go to work as early as possible and do hours in, instead of staring at the phone hoping this will be the day she calls me.
Anyway, she had an opportunity to tell me why she thinks I wouldn't make a "wonderful" nurse. Yesterday, however, was the last day for me to deliver the paper of accepting or refusing the offered studying place; I decided to take the place and therefore her possible psychopath sentence will merely be a curiosity about me.
- - -
The Meme of the Day: http://www.nightwish.com/fi/files/audio. It's only 2 more days until the new Nightwish album, 'Dark Passion Play', so take a look at the samples of three of the new songs: 'Amaranth' (will also come out as the second single), 'Master Passion Greed' and '7 Days to the Wolves' (this is the one I'm especially looking forward to, it sounds very epic). Here's the whole track list:
1. The Poet And The Pendulum
2. Bye Bye Beautiful
3. Amaranth
4. Cadence Of Her Last Breath
5. Master Passion Greed
6. Eva
7. Sahara
8. Whoever Brings The Night
9. For The Heart I Once Had
10. The Islander
11. Last Of The Wilds
12. 7 Days To The Wolves
13. Meadows Of Heaven
The Poe reference in 'The Poet and the Pendulum' is veeeeery nice (to the unenlightened, 'The Pit and the Pendulum' is a short story by Allan Edgar Poe who, by the way, looks disturbingly much like my father). Anyway, we are yet to discover how much of the story is present in the song. 'Bye Bye Beautiful', I believe, is a song about the Turunen turmoil. And it's always a good sign if there's a word unfamiliar to me in the song titles alone: according to Cambridge dictionary, 'cadence' means "a set of chords (= different notes played together) at the end of a piece of music".
I am, yet again, playing with the idea of leaving. I love this town, but as long as I love Her more my life has no future in here. So I have to go away. Once I have the nursing degree I could go abroad and work there; they have better payment anyway.
"Have you ever been hurt?
Have you ever been abandoned?
Have you ever been truly scared?
Have you ever felt you don't belong here?
Have you ever felt you don't have a home?
Have you ever felt you don't have a chance?
From the moment of birth we are already dying.
Death is the only true salvation.
Through death man is reborn,
like a butterfly is born out of a caterpillar.
And after that, man is finally free."
- - -
Photography by Seán Duggan - "The Book of Secrets".
Despair. That's the word to summarise the phone call I received from my grandmother today. I answered the phone despite my awareness of the strife between her and my mother, and that doing so she might assume that I'm on her side which I am not. They're two adults acting so childish! "Mum, she hit me!" "Yeah, but she hit me first!" They figure it out themselves once they decide to act like adults again, until then I'm an objective outsider talking to both or neither of them.
Anyway, after the usual weather discussion, usual "everything's fine" work update and her whining, she did what I think she could give a rest already. I mentioned I have nine days' actual summer holiday in August. She assumed that I would actually want to spend the first summer holiday I've had for the past three years by going there, back to the town in which I had to go to school (read: go through the hell on earth), in which my father killed himself, of which I have very little good memories. How can she think I would want to exchange my own very much *happy* life here, at my home, to that? So, I told her that I am very certainly not going anywhere now that I finally have a summer holiday, that I wish to use those days to do my own things, live my life. And what does she do? "Sulla on poikaystävä!" accompanied by more than thrilled voice.
She justifies this by stating that I'm in the age when "poijat ja flikat alakaa kattella toisiansa sillä lailla". The only reason I didn't correct that I'm in the age when I look at other women "in that way" is that she hasn't been, I hear, too stable emotionally since my father died. I'm sure, being a fundamentalist Christian, she wouldn't take my sexual orientation that well anyway, let alone now in the midst of this emotional turmoil.
What do you think, should I try carrying out a human version of Pavlov's dog experiments, and close the phone every time she brings up this subject? Maybe in time she would leave it altogether knowing that I'll close the phone without a single word if she does start again about my personal life.
- - -
The Meme of the Day: Einstein's Riddle
Albert Einstein said that this riddle, which he wrote during the nineteenth century, could not be solved by 98 percent of the world’s population. Let’s see if you’re one of the remaining patient and logical two percent. I was… after two hours.
1. In a street there are five houses, painted five different colours.
2. In each house lives a person of different nationality
3. These five homeowners each drink a different kind of beverage, smoke different brand of cigar and keep a different pet.
THE QUESTION: WHO OWNS THE FISH?
Clues are as follows:
1. The Brit lives in a red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The Green house is next to, and on the left of the white house.
5. The owner of the Green house drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
7. The owner of the Yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The man living in the centre house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
12. The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbour who drinks water.
I'm happy. More than happy, actually. Rowling managed to make me cry twice. Only one book has ever made me squeeze a tear, nothing even remotely compared to my sobbing reactions to this. There was a point when I thought the story got a bit scattered but I'm glad to annonce I was completely wrong, and I was merely jumping into conclusions. 'The Deathly Hallows' may be the best of the seven Potters, at least in my opinion.
Rowling's writing is as spellbounding as ever, and the tiny puns (one continuous one will cause Kapari a little trouble, I assume) and other humorous bits remain as hilarious as in the other novels. But the true magic in this particular part, of all of the seven, is that everyone reveals their true colour: mean characters attain more profound traits, glorious characters get fallible traits, all of these making them more human than before. And for the record, I was right about Snape, although I could never even dream of having something, something concrete, in common with him.
I can't wait for the translation to come out. I'll be (again) lining up in front of Suomalainen in the morning, getting resentful glances from all the kids dressed up in Gryffindor colours due to my green-and-silver scarf and the snake ring, both indicating belonging to Slytherin of which I am proud of, especially now!
I think it'll be the third chapter of 'The Deathly Hallows' I'll translate in Finnish and give to my little brother as a Christmas gift (I did this same thing with 'The Half-Blood Prince). I'm sure he appreciates it much more than something bought from a store. The third chapter I chose due to it's contents. Those of you who know what it contains and know about the graduation day events are probably capable of making out the connection and my intentions.
At eight a.m. tomorrow morning I will be queueing up to get my copy of the final Potter book. I can't wait! Rowling said she would kill some of the main characters; the one whose eventual destiny I'm interested in is our (un-?)beloved (ex-?)professor Severus Snape. He either gets to clear his reputation or gets killed in the final battle between Harry and Voldemort while protecting Harry. That's my guess. Now I need to spend that thirteen hours before I get to queue (yeeha...). Too bad it's summer, I would have wanted to wear my Slytherin scarf (I knitted it myself, fact forbid!). Well, I guess I'll have to settle with my silver snake ring, then. That won't stir up as many emotions amongst the red-and-yellow dressed enthusiasts but I can't exactly wear a woolen cloth around my neck in about twenty degree sunshine in the middle of July without attracting much more attention than I'm comfortable with.
Anyway, tomorrow (or the day after), when I have managed to emerge from the Potter world to the reality (or something closely resembling one at least) I'll probably want to express my initial thoughts of the last book here so in case you're not planning to read the book in anywhere near future... well, ye be warned.
- - -
Here's a lot of Potter (did you really expect anything else?) stuff I found while trying to spend that thirteen hours away.
Okay, now we know the main character resemblance. How about the minor characters (http://atypically.net/hp/lesser.shtml)? – The centaur Firenze; " You're so different from most humans that you're an entirely different species. Still, your beliefs are unusual even for beings of your sort - although concerned with the future and the stars, you're willing to defy standard practices for the common good."
I did it. As the (almost qualified) nurse suggested I went to a doctor and got the terrifying gynaecological examination. It turned out I wasn't worried for nothing last night, but it isn't anything so serious that couldn't be cured by simply taking a medicine for a week.
But more importantly; the doctor was a very nice young woman, who kept talking to me all the time, asking if everything's okay, if something hurts, and explaining what she's going to do. Now, to torture the cliché (points to those who recognise the movie), I'm all smiles. And when I was leaving she asked if it was as bad as I had thought. No, not even near. Okay, I am perfectly aware that my future gynaecological examination experiences may not be as relieving but at least I know it can be tolerable, like now. Thank you, Doctor L, you saved my day (and pretty much rest of the following month, too)!
Now that I go see the actual gynaecologist in August I won't be so nervous to get to the bottom of my irregular periods. I think I should do this more often; an ex tempore thing so that I didn't have time to dwell upon it and get it all out of proportion.
"It's just another day
the shame is gone.
Hard to believe
that I've let it go."
'Swamped' by Lacuna Coil
- - -
I once put a list of the all-time-best-movies that I had seen. Well, listening to X3M pays back; it appears that Internet Movie Database has not only listed the movies voted by the users as the best, but they also have a similar list of the hundred worst films, listed here (http://www.imdb.com/chart/bottom) as the "Bottom 100" as listed today. Again, the asterisk marks that I have seen the movie in question. For the sake or reve… ahem, *clarity*, only the forst fifty listed here.
1. Surf School (2006)
2. The Tony Blair Witch Project (2000)
3. Dünyayi kurtaran adam'in oglu (2006)
4. Crossover (2006)
5. Anne B. Real (2003)
6. The Hillz (2004)
7. From Justin to Kelly (2003)
8. SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004)
9. Keloglan kara prens'e karsi (2006)
10. Going Overboard (1989)
11. Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)
12. Bottoms Up (2006)
13. Car 54, Where Are You? (1994)
14. Santa with Muscles (1996)
15. Snowboard Academy (1996)
16. Chairman of the Board (1998)
17. Pledge This! (2006)
18. Love in Paris (1997)
*19. House of the Dead (2003)
20. Glitter (2001)
21. Troll 2 (1990)
22. Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain (1998)
23. Cool as Ice (1991)
24. Ghosts Can't Do It (1990)
25. Delta Farce (2007)
26. Son of the Mask (2005)
27. In the Mix (2005)
28. Leonard Part 6 (1987)
29. Simon Sez (1999)
30. Creepshow III (2006)
31. Yûgiô: Gekijô-ban (2004)
32. Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (1996)
33. Phat Girlz (2006)
34. Baby Geniuses (1999)
35. Kazaam (1996)
36. Alone in the Dark (2005)
37. You Got Served (2004)
*38. Ed (1996)
39. Are We Done Yet? (2007)
40. Angels' Brigade (1979)
41. Galaxina (1980)
42. The Smokers (2000)
43. In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007)
44. The Honeymooners (2005)
45. It's Pat (1994)
46. Dis - en historie om kjærlighet (1995)
47. American Soldiers (2005)
48. Gigli (2003)
49. The Bat People (1974)
50. Epic Movie (2007)
Note 'Hercules in New York' in the 74th place; this was Guvernator's very first film. I heard an excerpt taken from it yesterday and I couldn't help noticing (whether or not it was intentional, that I don't know) that Schwarzenegger's pronunciation was terrible. You know, if you've had the dubious pleasure to see the film yourself.
