Home. Silence. Alone.
My five days with my 2-year-old cousin are over. They drove me home and stayed at my place for an hour. About thirty minutes later I already missed my cousin; she's just so frank and energetic.
For the past five days I've put her to sleep at least once a day; I'm going to miss that. Lying on her parents' bed, reading two or three books to her while she drinks milk, ask her to point out squirrels or swans or toads or ask her to name things... and then stop reading, pretend to sleep (though once or twice I atually did fall asleep) and wait until she's let go of the bottle to know she's asleep, and go get a book to read while sitting next to her. Plus, it's so funny that she keeps touching her bear's nose even in her sleep (she's been interested in the nose since for ages: either she runs her fingers on the nose or she bites the nose as she preferred a few months ago).
Or to play with her. Read books to her (she knows right away if I skip a part or two... :D, had to get her a new book she wouldn't know by heart yet), put together towers of building blocks and have her knock them down, watch Pikku Kakkonen or Kaapo with her ("On nelivuotias, oppimaan innokas, sai nimen kauneimman, Kaapo..."), play with playdoh with her (some of my creations below) or paint with water colours. Much fun! Didn't get to make sand cakes with her, though, that's a bit sad. It would've been fun.
Hmmm... it was so nice to have her here for a while. She right away noticed my three softies: my bunny which I did not want to separate with EVER when I was a kid (and sometimes it's comforting to have the one thing to always stay with me nearby if things are getting comepletely fucked up); a Pippi Longstockings (my cousin's namesake, actually); and a penguin which she named "Pinku" after the, I think, French penguin animation Pingu. She kept asking to see a 3D Earth puzzle but we adults were sure she'd break it right away. After she's left I haven't been able to regret that. So she would have broken it, so what? It's a puzzle; it's supposed to be put together! It would have been worth it to see her delight in seeing penguins in Antarctica, kanguroos in Australia, moose in Scandinavia... Next time I'll get her here she gets to break it if that is to happen. Stupid of me to be so adult with the last moments with her.
Top 3 of Best moments with my cousin:
#1: Putting clothes her clothes, she stood there when I closed her shoes and she suddenly hugged me. After that I lifted her from the table to help her back down and instead she hugged me again and rested her head on my shoulder. That was so cute!
#2: My other cousin was on a visit at the same time. While he and his friend were playfighting in the living room, very loudly, my cousin climbed on my lap. She stared at me for a second and then said: "Splenetic is nice". Awww!
#3: Every morning she climbed in my bed to wake me up, after repeating the familiar "approach the door, hold the hand near the door handle, say 'ei uskalla' and back away", and then repeat for several times). It's nice to wake up to her smile and the weirdest ideas she gets, like suddenly saying something completely odd that has nothing to do with the present situation.
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Had a small get-away during the five days. I borrowed my mother's bike and made a trip to the library. I said I was only going to the library but I knew perfectly well where I was going to spend most of the hour. I went to the florist's and got a few roses. I rode to a cemetary to visit my father's grave. It's two years since his death in two or three days. It's stil 11th of June to me, though. I don't know why I didn't even mention this to anyone; it's not like I don't have a right to go there. I guess I just wanted to go there alone because everytime I've been there since the funeral there's always been someone else with me, my siblings, my mother, my aunt, someone. This time I just wanted to go there on my own, without having to feel an unsaid demand to explain myself to anyone.
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My aunt's always hanging at Facebook. I've stayed away from the place apart from once looking at it more closely: last autumn during tutoring they started a specific group for us tutors and asked all of us to join if only possible, but there was something with the Agreement of Use I didn't like at all. Anyway, I only know about it as much as I've read about it. One of the most known aspects of Facebook must be the infamous "Autetaan somaliystävämme takaisin kotiin" group which has been in the news quite much lately. I discovered that my aunt who isn't very enthusiastic to join groups, has chosen to choose that group to be one of the very few she has joined. Can't really define what to say about this. One can't exactly say that her justifications are logical. Parts of the group's description are, however, too ambiguous. "Ryhmälllä ei liene alkujaan ole ollut tarkoitus toivottaa Suomesta 'hittoon', tänne integroituneita, kotiutuneita ja kansalaisuuden saaneita, jotka haluavat jäädä Suomeen." (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=67185345791) "Liene" being the operative phrase. Either it's general idea is or is not to do so but only the founders and the majority of the group can answer that. "Liene" helps no-one except those who wish to appease their inner consciousness. In addition, the group's spokesperson probably would like to reconsider using a clear ideological e-mail address. He might as well have his address in a form of pentti.perussuomalainen@suomen.sisu.fi. The introduction does have one good point, though: by being labelled as a racist immediately if you criticise immigration, immigrants or some specific group (native or non-native alike, but to get a racist label the object must be non-native) does show that there's something wrong with the society if one cannot objectively say something negative of a minority without being labelled by something that the environment views unwanted. The whole point is that one should be able to criticise anything as long as one is able to justify things logically and explain things in a long way if necessary. A good grammar is a huge plus. Pat Condell has had his share on this one for criticising Islam. This can be seen in Finland, too, when the Mohammad cartoon episode took place. Or, to quote a Muslim fundies demonstrating in Britain: "Freedom go to hell".
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Positive news: I have an approximate topic for my thesis! I had an epiphany during my visit at my cousin's. I'll love it! Can't wait to narrow the topic down a bit and get doing the actual research and reading more specific texts on the subject than the "general about translation" texts. Fucking fantastic!!!
