"Ehkä riivaajia ei ollut. Oli vain ihmisiä, jotka menivät helposti rikki. -- Ihmisiä, jotka loivat kuvitelmia, kun maailma uhkasi murskata."
Religion fucks people's minds up so badly!
'Itsevalaisevat' has got to be the creepiest novel I've read since Lionel Shriver. Actually, this is more disturbing than that. Just finished reading it; got it on Monday afternoon and started reading it at seven p.m. Now I'll be surfing online, playing Minesweep, listening to Judas Priest and drinking a lot of caffeine because I am not going to sleep after this, my subconscious is fucked up enough as it is. I may be taking a small excursion to the place this takes place, just to see if it's there.
It has been a very informative and educative week for me, and it will continue next week. I just finished reading Katja Boxberg and Taneli Heikka's pamphlet 'Lumedemokratia' and the main thing I can say is that I learned more from them in one week than I learned during the twelve years in elementary school and upper secondary school. Apparently Finlandisierung was (and continues to be) the driving ideology through which history is perceived and taught. I strongly suggest you read the book, and perhaps get to know other books by Barrikadi. That and Terra Cognita are beginning to earn the title of the most worthy publishing house I know (okay, let them share the first place as they serve a different purpose and do a good job in gaining their own ends).
'Lumedemokratia', people. It's not perfect but it's important. Remember that title when you go to the library next time.
Six feet under is the best series ever! I loved it the first time it run but now, watching the re-run I see bits and pieces here and there that remind me of my family. Father dies and through difficulties all remaining members of the family find some way to .. well, I wouldn't say 'grow' in my family's case but you probably get the idea.
My mother. It's all so weird, her having a boyfriend and having her act like a teenage girl, like her children were her conservative parents =). It seems she's beginning to enjoy her life. To meet her friends, have hobbies, meet new people, doing things she hasn't done, if not ever, then at least not in a long time. She seems happy. Her parents apparently think she's moving on too fast but... so what? If that makes her happy, then so fucking what? She spent twenty years of her life in a marriage with a escalating abusive drunk of a husband, she kept the household and her husband's firm going on, so I think she fucking well deserves to do whatever makes her happy now! The stroke, the name calling by my grandmother... and she enjoys her life. Good for her.
And my little brother? You should see the difference between his rooms, what he had three years ago and what he has now. And the difference in his behaviour, and dressing, and... everything! Okay, so I don't approve of the minibar in his room (19 as he may be) but it seems he's happy, too. His come a long way from the kid who woke up in the middle of the night when his drunken father "walked" into his room with our shouting mother behind him and fell half on my brother's bed, half on the bedside table breaking the lamp, making my brother push him off his bed to the floor. And me watching the scene from the doorway (my sister was somewhere else, I think).
My little sister... I don't know if Father's death had such a clear impact on her as it did on Mother and my brother. I mean, she moved to another town to study in a university at the same time. This really shows exactly how close we are. I don't really know, we've never talked about that. Outwardly she seems to be doing as fine as ever. I guess she never really was as miserable as the rest of us, or at least she never showed it through her appearance. I guess she's fine, too. Perhaps even better.
The world-famous British physicist Stephen Hawking has been hospitalised. As Myers put it, it is "a serious business for a 67 year old man with ALS". But then again, when he was first diagnosed with the illness, he was given two years to live. This was over forty years ago in 1962, so one might say he's a tough cookie. Read 'A Short History of Time' when you have time (because time you're going to need if your school physics and chemistry classes were a long time ago); he writes well and starts from the basics so no worries on that department. You might learn that the assumption of nature being more fantastic when you don't know about it is actually bullocks: it's much more fantastic when you *do* know these things!
(via Pharyngula)
I heard Billie Holiday's version of 'Gloomy Sunday' for the first time less than twenty hours ago. On my way home earlier this evening I was humming the song, gazed at the setting sun and the sky and it felt as if I had known of the song for years and years. It was a nice feeling. That is one of the songs -and singers- I want to be played at my funeral.
Discovered Judas Priest. Interesting coincidence that I should get my hands on 'British Steel' exactly 29 years after its publication.
-----
Today I also got a rejection from one place I applied for the summer. I get rejected from places the contract of which should continue during the fall since I'm not sure I'll be here next fall. So... What could I do next summer besides reading Joyce's 'Ulysseus'? Any ideas?
-----
Got back home yesterday after spending six days at my cousin's (you know, the nearly two-year-old one). Got sick right away. As for my cousin... she talks. A lot. All the time. I tried to teach her to greet me in Klingon ('NuqNeH!) and partly succeeded; I'm not sure she understood it's a greeting but she did almost get the pronunciation right, it's the final /x/ (as the ch in 'Loch Ness) that sucks. But then again, it's not a phoneme in Finnish so it's understandable she doesn't know how to pronounce it. And anyway, I know what she means when she says /nukne/. =)
As a linguist I find her speech fascinating. One of the most notable features of her speech is the strong dialect: 'pukoo' (= '[hän] pukee'), 'pemottaa', 'maitua' (= 'maitoa'), 'lujet' (= 'luet') and 'tyhymä'. Her mother keeps saying how the kid looks exactly like her father; I consoled her saying that the kid has one feature that is clearly from her: she talks so damn much.
My arrival was apparently an expected event. Last time she went crazy with joy when she saw me; her parents decided to get a video camera in case she does the same. Yup: she walked up to me with a solemn expression, I said hello and asked if she remembered me, and the next thing I know she's running between me and the living room with a smile on her face screaming. A bit alarming, to be honest, but nice. Good to know someone misses me. She had just learnt the purpose of hugging and she did that a lot. She has also been in the habit of reading whatever she got her hands on: a magazine, one of her own books, a dictionary... she would sit down with it, babble something with her finger following the text and looking at me as if to say 'don't you understand what I'm saying, stupid' =). Nope, I didn't but that's okay. In the evening she would sit on my lap (with a more or less strong stench from her dipers sometimes) and we would read some of her books together. It's funny; I'd point at the pictures asking what it was and she would use the same words that were in the story in the next page. I guess she needs new books.
In short: I had a nice time when she wasn't screaming her lungs out due to her toothache (apparently getting back teeth hurts a great deal more than her visible tiny front teeth). I also learnt a few wisdoms:
'Siellä on täällä.'
'Mitä sössötät.'
'Kärpässieni on mylkyllinen, ei saa koskia, son tyhymää.'
I've been browsing through tattoo sites all night. My current to-be-gotten-ASAP tattoo count has increased (but not necessarily in the order presented beneath).
1) the triangle frame tattoo
2) the historical "religion should stay clear from science" quote tattoo
3) start the Strong Women Portray Gallery
4) the blood type tattoo
5) the Slytherin tattoo
6) a qvark tattoo or a DNA tattoo
I currently have only one but once I figure out the couple problems (well, not really problems, confirmations really) I'll be on my way to the local tattoo place. However, I've heard of some nasty criticism on the tattooist who made my first tattoo so I have to look into that one, too. I might also see if the one tattoo place that vanished a couple of years ago is still around in some mysterious place.
And if anyone has suggestions for the graduation tattoo on linguistics, I'll be happy to hear them (disclaimer: I hereby reserve the right to alter the original idea to fit my tastes better). The babel fish was nice but I'm having trouble making it a compact design.
Why do schools divide pupils to different subjects according to their sex? The Ministry of Education curriculum says both girls and boys should gain certain knowledge on both subjects but do they? I certainly didn't: 8 months doing textiles, one month (if lucky, otherwise two to three weeks) in technical. Furthermore, there is clear discrimination as the curriculum goes on saying schools can (but note, it means "are not obliged") to offer pupils the possibility to specialise on either one of them depending on their interest. In my opinion, it is also noteworthy that anyone can go to a general store and get a pair of weaving stiches and some thread and look up the multitudious sites online teaching weaving from the basics. Technical craftwork, on the other hand, requires a specific space, tools and material in order to be worked on (hands up, how many has a lathe or a milling machine at home?). This possibility is denied from most girls unless they choose to go to the given branch on a vocational school in which they of course are worse off than their male counterparts as they were never given any specific teaching on the matter.
The conclusion: elementary school discriminates on people due to their gender.
