The Other World

For some time now I have been considering of getting a driver's license. I have now gone through all the driving schools in my town and reached the depressing conclusion that all driving teachers are men. So I guess I'm not going to get the license after all, since I have no interest in being taught by a man, in a car, in small space, with him invading my personal space and quite possibly touching me to guide me somehow for teaching purposes. I can consult one of the pedagogic course books but I doubt that my entering the car fifteen times in a state of pure hatred boosts my ability/will to learn. So it's highly unlikely I'm not going get the license. Unlike my little brother, I don't have a car nor do I need one, so why pay for skills one piece of plastic proves I have but don't really need?

Why are there no women as driving teachers?

Oh, yes, my eightteen-year-and-two-month-old little brother bought a car. A 2004 Mazda (those are his words, I have no idea what that actually means in practise). He paid for it amount that made me retort him a new greeting: have you lost your fucking mind?! Apparently he has. He now driver a penile extension while having my contempt for such a masculine trait. Seriously, he decorates, wears pink and takes care of his appearance, and yet he plays along the cultural drama and gets a fucking car! But why buy a car that expensive (we're talking about a five-figure number) when he could have found a working car in one tenth of this car's price? I can think only one reason: to raise his status among his peers for having a car of his own instead of driving the parents' car like the others. But, seriously, aikuisten oikeesti... a car? That's just stupid. And environmentally far from responsible. Oh, to hell with it.

Perhaps I should have taken the Finnish translation... the English in this novel is very heavy to read. As the novel to provide counterbalance I'm also reading 'Hard Times' by Charles Dickens at the moment, again. I think I'm getting a better hold of the story this time.

"People like Sheba think they know what it is to be lonely. But of the drip, drip of the long-haul, no-end-in-sight solitude, they know nothing. What it's like to construct an entire weekend around a visit to the launderette. Or to be so chronically untouched that the accidental brush of a bus conductor's hand sends a jolt of longing straight to your groin. Of this, Sheba and her like have no clue."

Barbara Covett in 'Notes on a Scandal'

- - - - -

I attempted to take ten key phrases from the book 'Kiilusilmä feministi' by Kaari Utrio, especially from the feminishm and childhood chapters. Turned out to be relatively difficult so therefore I will just say this to every man and every woman alike:

READ 'KIILUSILMÄ FEMINISTI'! Broaden your understanding of the world and of your status in it.

"Naiset tekevät omaisiaan ja kotiaan hoitaessaan yhteiskunnalle ilmaista työtä, jonka arvo on vuosittain 40% bruttokansantuotteesta. Kaikki maailman kulttuurit joutuvat nojaamaan tähän tosiasiaan: millään yhteiskunnalla ei ole toistaiseksi varaa [saatikka halua, toim. huom.] maksaa tästä työstä."
~ Menneisyys, nainen ja tulevaisuus ~

"En lakkaa ihmettelemästä suomalaisen naisen loputtoman korrektia käytöstä ja kohteliaisuutta. Vääristyneesti hymyillen, kimeästi nauraen hän nyökkäilee, kun hänen ruumiinsa poljetaan lokaan, hänen älyään syljetään, hänen työtään halveksitaan, hänen synnytyksilleen nauretaan. Ei koskaan, ei missään, sotaisinkaan feministi pysty häpäisemään miestä sillä tavalla kuin naista häpäisevät ne sivistyneinä itseään pitävät herrat, jotka huvikseen alentavat äitinsä, vaimonsa ja tyttärensä ihmisarvon suuren yleisön edessä kerätäkseen kiitokseksi muutaman hihityksen."
~ Herrain käytös ~

"Sotavankia ei voi kiduttaa, koska vastapuoli kävisi ikäväksi omille sotavangeilleen. Näin on asiat sovittu. Mutta naisille saa tehdä mitä tahtoo. Niistä ei ole sovittu mitään, ja jos onkin, sitä ei kukaan valvo. -- Kaikki armeijat ovat varkaita ja raiskaajia. -- Sodassa voivat vain miehet voittaa. Naiset ja lapset häviävät aina."
~ Kuolemaakin pahempi kohtalo ~

"Juuri kun aviomiehesi on tappamaisillaan sinut: kun hän on potkinut sinulle keskenmenon, iskenyt silmäsi sokeaksi, repinyt korvasi irti ja hyppinyt päälläsi, raadellut vaatepuulla rintasi ja kuristanut kaulasi siniseksi, iske hänet kuoliaaksi keittiöveitsellä, jos vielä pystyt. Suomessa naisella ei ole oikeutta puolustaa henkeään. Joudut taposta - et kuitenkaan murhasta - vankilaan viideksi vuodeksi."
~ Usko, toivo ja hakkaus ~

And most importantly:

"Onko suomalainen nainen teidän mielestänne ansainnut tällaisen kohtelun? Hän, joka pelasti kotirintaman? Hän, joka painaa kahta työpäivää?"
~ Liputuspäivä ~

I went to the library yesterday to get 'The Gospel According to Jesus Christ' by José Saramago. I accidentally made a turn to the wrong isle and ended up in front of a shelf with one single book in the uppermost right hand corner. Being so alone, it caught my attention and even more so when I recognised the cover and saw the title: 'Poppimysiikkiä Vittulasta'. Exactly; Mikael Niemi's debut novel in meänkieli. At the moment I am still trying to determine whether it is a separate language of a Finnish dialect. I can quite well understand the language (this is the experimentation part) as my own dialect as well is very much based on Swedish as is meänkieli. On the other hand, it did have its own section at the libary amongst English, Persian and French, to name a few, so one would gather it is treated as being a separate language not a dialect. In Sweden, meänkieli is an official minority language alonside Finnish (that is, general Finnish, not one dialect). According to Wikipedia, it is a language of its own. Interesting.

An extract from chapter 6 (or, Kapititteli 6) in which an old and extremely religious matriarch has just died and her will is being sorted out by the relatives:

"Jo samana iltapäiväna alethiin riitelheen perinöistä. Ootethiin että kraviaisaishommat olit ohi ja krannit ja saarnamiehet olit lähtenheet. Sitten panthiin pirtinovet kiini kaikilta asihaan kuulumattomilta. Suvun eri haarat, oksat ja ympatut ytskotit kokkoinuit issoon köökhiin. Tokumentit panthiin pöyäle. Lukuklasit haethiin framile väskyistä ja palanseerathiin hikisillä nokanvarsila. Krakistethiin kurkut selväksi. Kastelthiin huulet kankeila, terävilä kielilä. Ja sitte se pamahti käynthiin.

Tietenkihään ämmi oli kirjottanu testamentin. Se oli kirjotusvihossa ja se oli vallan laaja. Yksityiskohtia oli yksi toisen perästä, sivu ylös ja sivu alas ämmin tärisevällä käsialala. Se ja se saapi sitä ja sitä mutta vain näilä ehoila. Mutta ko ämmi oli valmistellu testamenttiä viimiset viistoista vuotta, ja sitäpaitti ollu kiirilinen, niin muutoksia aivan vilisi, yliviivauksia ja lissäyksiä marginaalissa, irtoplaavi oli kans jossa oli sekaisia merkintöjä. Jokku sukulaiset oli jätetty syrhjään perinöstä useamanki kerran mutta sitte taas otettu takasin periliseksi. Toiset sai periä mutta vissilä määrätyillä ehoila, niinku esimerkiksi että suvun eessä tunnustaa elävän uskonsa, luopua viinapirusta eli pyytää läsnäolevilta plys Jeesukselta Kristukselta antheeksi joitaki tarkoin selostettuja syntiä mitä oli sattunu vuositten varrela. Koko teksti oli toistettu ja allekirjotettu monheen kerthaan, paitti tärkeä irtoplaavi, valitettavasti. Sitäpaitti kaikki oli kirjoitettu meänkielelä."

Mikael Niemi: Poppimysiikkiä Vittulasta (2000).

- - - - -

Below the flag of Meänmaa, or 'Meänmaan flaku'.

First of all, you should all read this novel.

I finished reading the novel, Lionel Shriver's "We Need to Talk about Kevin", a couple of nights ago. For those of you who have not heard of it, it tells the story of Eva, a woman with successful career and a happy marriage. After having a son, Kevin, Eva's life begins to fall apart, ending in a massacre by the fifteen-year-old Kevin. Shriver explores the reason that led to this from the point of view of Eva, in the form of letter addressed to her husband Franklin.

The novel is explicit with the Event instead of trying to hide it. But even though perfectly aware of what will happen I found the novel extremely intriguing and frightening. Nothing, however, prepared me for the ending. That made me physically sick; at three a.m. I sat on my bed and try not to think that might very well happen any day for real. That the answer to the question presented in the backcover -can one be born evil- is 'yes'. The novel quite nicely made my dreams of having a family one day come tumbling down. I'm not angry because of that, though. Although I now have to start from the scratch, the result -my motivations to have a child- will be so much stronger after acknowledging the possibility of this. We'll see if I start building it again. Not at the moment.

But as said, read the novel. I cannot see it wouldn't be worth it. Translations can be found e.g. in Finnish ('Poikani Kevin') and in Swedish ('Vi måste prata om Kevin').

5, 2, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 4, 4, 5, 4, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 4, 4.

I just checked my grades and discovered my very final English grade fo the Bachelor's studies had arrived. In case I haven't yet told you, I have an agreement that one grade within one "unit" (that is, English Basic Studies, or Finnish Advanced Studies, for instance) I allow myself to have one grade that isn't a four or a five (yes, I'm a maniac). This course was the very last so the only thing I really had to get out of it was to pass it, no matter what the grade. Turned out I had a four out of it. Hence, I have a problem: will I save this extra craptacular grade for another unit or not? Hmm...

Life is full of difficult choices. ;) And isn't that a very nice-looking row in the beginning?!

It's been one year since my father's suicide. We don't, however, know for sure that he killed himself on 10th of June since he was found on 11th. The pathologist didn't give any specific date on her autopsy report. In the first obituary the date was 11th. In the second one it was 10th, as it is in his tombstone as well. Two against one, so I guess it's today, then. Funny, though; according to a folktale, statistics say that Monday is the most common day for one to kill themselves. Last year 10th was Sunday, so I wonder who decided that he died on the 11th? Did someone decide?

My father's mother called me a while ago asking me if it was okay with me if she continued to take flowers to my father's grave. I find it ridiculous she even has to ask this; it doesn't matter how much our ideologies contradict but she is still my father's mother just as much as I am his daughter or my mother his wife, we all have equal rights to go to the tomb and take flowers or candles or whatever there. No other -that is, my mother, mainly- has the right to go and tell my grandmother she cannot visit her own son's grave because she and my mother have an argument.

Can't wait for next year when my little brother has his marticulation exams and -hopefully- graduates from high school. Then what? Should we have two separate parties: the other in which my mother would be and the other where my grandparents could be (since they are very likely not going to be in the same house, let alone in the same house with each other). But would that help? My mother, as the mother of the graduated, basically has every right to be with her son throughout the day of his graduation, so in that case holding separate parties won't make any difference. Will my mother even bear to be in the same big gym with my grandmother . Damn it... my grandmother keeps preaching the most stupid religious things to anybody around her but she doesn't have the spine to stand up for herself! .....I guess she practises what she preaches; on an old calender given to my father when he was younger had this on it: "Our greatest work is to learn to carry our cross silently." No wonder my father wasn't too happy to be forced to stay on that farm he grew up in an atmosphere like that. And I am pretty sure he was pressured to stay there, continue his father's and grandfather's work as a farmer. I dont' think he would have wanted to, maybe he wanted to be something else. But he stayed, being the oldest son (I doubt my aunt ever had to think she would be even a plausible option to continue the farm even if she had wanted to, being a woman). My uncle... he lives now in Helsinki with his family but I don't know when he moved there, or was he asked to take over the farm at any point.

The reason I think my grandmother pressured my father to stay is because she did the same thing to us, her grandchildren. She never directly asked me to take over the farm; I guess I have made it perfectlky clear I have no interest none whatsoever to go back (and I am not; not to the village, not to the town, ever). According to my sister she had asked her why she couldn't go there; our grandmother had told her she can very well study at the university (located approximately 120 kilometres from the farm) while living in that house. My little brother just turned eightteen but I'm sure his had his share of her mania due to his being "unspoilt" (as in, not studying anywhere else) and a male. Well, my little brother hasn't been to the house after he tried to kill himself, so I suppose he wasn't too inclined to act out her master plan, either. I wonder if she ever even thought about how this situation feels to us, the people she's trying to force to go back there. Of course she would want me or my sister get married and go back to live there and have children and no life of our own but the life she had. Did she ever think what we went through in that house; she keeps saying she knows what it was like but she doesn't, she wasn't there. She doesn't know how I used to wake up in the middle of the night with my parents shouting at each other. She doesn't know how my father would come into me and my sister's room drunk explaining something around three a.m. when I had a math's exam the following day (I was probably eight years old). She doesn't know how I misdialed the number to call the police on Christmas when my parents were fighting, my father drunk at the other end of the kitchen and my mother at the other end holding a knife. She doesn't know how I stayed silent when the cops came one Christmas time to take my drunken father away for the night and they asked me and my siblings questions if it's often like this. She doesn't know the humiliation when everyone in the village knew what my father was like and some kids thought it worthy of making fun of to me. She doesn't know any of this, so how can she tell us to oblige some thousand years old tradition.

When we were emptying the house for it to be sold, I found a note from my grandmother to my father among the Tieteen Kuvalehti piles I was to "inherit". The note had a newspaper clip about Minnesota treatment (meaning that even though my grandmother never publicly admitted it, she *did* acknowledge her son's alcoholism and that something should be done to it!) and some small book filled with Bible quotations or something of sorts, and on its inner cover there was my grandmother's scribble saying she loved her son. She kept repeating it, "her son". Not once his name, but "son". She kept repeating how important it was for her that "her son" would get better. Nothing about his children or anyone else my father's alcoholism caused misery.

I learned Halliday's systemic-functional grammar theory by heart already when I was ten. No wonder it's so easy for me now at the university.

- - - - -

Reading now:
'We Need to Talk About Kevin'/'Poikani Kevin' by Lionel Shriver. I think I need to find something cheerful to read next. I've dwellt enough on dreradful matters long enough.

Somehow I seem to forget this feeling every single year. And every single summer I end up feeling miserable as my already tarred social life sinks into the dark liquid and I will feel greatful for the woman at Siwa cashier for talking to me some completely useless and unworthy things about the wheather, for instance. Or like today, the woman is also a tutor (not that my craptacular memory for faces helped) and she said she can't ever remember people's names and that she was calling people with wrong names all last night when she and a punch of other tutors were having some kind of a gathering I know not what. Maybe there is a message in my mail but I don't think I want to read it. I'll just stay here, at home, playing with my computer and listening to Combat songs from YouTube.

- - - - -

This mood is perfect to list some noteworthy quotations from 'Letters from the Earth' by Mark Twain that I finished last week.

"Uskonut siihen [että ihminen on Jumalan jaloin luomus] löytämättä koko lajistaan ketään, joka olisi nauranut sille."

"Hän [ihminen] luulee olevansa Luojan lemmikki."

"Hän [ihminen] rukoilee ja luulee Luojan kuuntelevan."

"Hän [ihminen] luulee pääsevänsä taivaaseen -- eikä siinä ole mitään, mille hän tosiaan antaa arvoa."

"Kirkossa kävijöiitä on enemmän kuin niitä, jotka käyvät siellä halukkaasti."

"Kaikki kansat ylenkatsovat toisia kansoja. Kaikki kansat vieroksuvat muita kansoja." [Oma lisäys: Kaikki ihmiset ylenkatsovat kaikkia muita ihmisiä.]

"Siinä on jaloa runoutta, hiukan nokkelia satuja, hiukan veristä historiaa, hiukan hyvää moraalia, runsas aarreaitta rivouksia ja liki tuhat valhetta. Tämä Raamattu rakentuu etupäässä vanhempien raamattujen katkelmista, aikansa eläneiden ja raunioiksi murenneiden."

"Sillä sovinnaistavalla, jolla on säädyllisyyden väärä nimi, ei ole vakiintunutta mittapuuta eikä voikaan olla, koska se on luonnon ja järjen vastainen, siis keinotekoinen ja kenen tahansa päähänpiston, kenen tahansa [oma lisäys: kenen tahansa *miehen*] sairaalloisen oikun varassa."

"Mutta sen sijaan että reilusti ja kunniallisesti jättäisi lain sen henkilön [naisen] laadittavaksi, jolla on ylivoimisesti suurempii etu pelissä, tuo suunnaton sika [mies] laatiikin sen itse, hän, jolla ei ole mitään varteenotettavaa panosta pelissä!"

"Vuorisaarna ja ne Mooseksen neljännen ja viidennen kirjan luvut, joita olen tässä lainannut, pitäisi aina lukea saarnatuolista yhtäaikaa, silloin seurakunta saisi kaikinpuolisen kuvan Taivaallisesta isästämme."

"Tekopyhyys, kateus, häijyys, julmuus, kostonhimo, viettely, raiskaus, ryöstö, huijaus, tuhopoltto, kaksinnaiminen, aviorikos ja köyhien ja avuttomien kaikinpuolinen sorto ja nöyryyttäminen ovat olleet ja ovat vieläkin enemmän tai vähemmän yleisiä maailmassa, niin sivistyneiden kuinn sivistymättömien kansojen keskuudessa."

"Naisen ja miehen tasa-arvoisuutta ei yksikään kansa ole myöntänyt milloinkaan, ei muinoinen eikä nykyinen, ei sivistynyt eikä villi kansa."

"Se näet velvoittaa minut luopumaan siitä Darwinin teoriasta, että ihminen on kehittynyt alemmista eläimistä; minusta näyttää nyt ilmeiseltä, että se olisi kumottava uuden ja todemman teorian hyväksi, joka olisi nimeltään 'Ihmisen taantuminen korkeammista eläimistä'."

"Jaarli hyvikseen tuhoaa sellaista, mitä hän ei voi käyttää, mutta anakonda ei."

"Ihmisen ja korkeampien eläinten välinen ero: hän on ahne ja itara, ne eivät."

"Miehet pitävät haaremia, mutta se tapahtuu raa'an voiman turvin. Heidän etuoikeutensa on säädetty julmilla laeilla, joiden laatimisessa toisella sukupuolella ei ole ollut sananvaltaa."

"Ihminen on 'Naurava eläin'. -- Ei - ihminen on Punastuva eläin. Ja ainoa joka punastuu - tai jolla on siihen tarvetta."

"Kaikista eläimista ihminen on ainoa, joka on julma. Hän on ainoa, joka aiheuttaa toiselle tuskaa saadakseen siitä huvia."

"Korkeammat eläimet käyvät yksilöiden välisiä taisteluja, mutta eivät milloinkaan taistele järjestäytyneinä joukkoina. Ihminen on ainoa eläin, joka harrastaa Sotaa, tuota julmuuksien julmuutta."

"Hän [ihminen] on ainoa eläin, joka rakastaa lähimmäistään niin kuin itseään ja katkaisee hänen kurkkunsa, ellei hänen teologiansa ole kohdallaan."

"Me emme kenties olekaan niin tärkeitä kuin olemme pitkin matkaa otaksuneet."

Being in the same room with Her is one thing.
Being in the same room with Her holding Her hair free is another.
Being in the same room with Her holding Her hair free and me being perfectly aware of the day dreams about Her I had had just an hour before seeing Her is something that is barely tolerable.

"32-vuotias nainen tuomittiin Haaparannassa kuuden vuoden vankeustuomioon raiskauksesta, ryöstöstä sekä vapaudenriistosta.

Nainen ja hänen veljensä tunkeutuivat 60-vuotiaan naisen asuntoon ja ryöstivät naisen uhkaamalla häntä veitsellä sekä potkivat ja löivät naista. Tämän jälkeen he pakottivat naisen suuseksiin molempien kanssa. Raiskauksen jälkeen he pitivät naista vankina asunnossa yön yli.

32-vuotias nainen tuomittiin maksamaan 187 000 kruunua eli noin 20 000 euroa vahingonkorvauksia. Hän on kiistänyt syytteet. Naisen veli on yhä paossa eikä häntä ole tavoitettu."

http://uutiset.msn.hs.fi/ulkomaat/artikkeli/Naiselle%20kuusi%20vuotta%20vankeutta%20raiskauksesta%20Haaparannassa/1135236915928?ref=msn

You know, when I saw the headline I was certain the victim had been a man. I can hardly wait what the sentence will be for the brother. Hmm... imagine if the victim indeed had been a man.