By spiffikins at https://spiffikins.dreamwidth.org/1251745.html … Hah! Seriously late this time, here’s June questions!
1. When Was the Last Time You Did Something That Scared or Challenged You?
In April and May (the AKSE course I wrote about earlier).
2. Do You Ever Talk About Issues of Race and Class With Your Friends?
In general terms, usually in relation to how we are voting in elections, or some breaking news or some ongoing noisy online hatred and racist vomit by Perussuomalaiset.
3. Is College Overrated?
In theory, no. More knowledge is always a good thing.
But Finland has gone too far in requiring that everyone has some university diploma or many years of theory learning even when people are training to work in jobs that need other skills and training such as cleaning or plumbing or whatever where practical training is very important. Every job seems to require years of schooling now, leaving people who aren’t literary minded without a place in the job world. While at the same time amount of general education about various societal things people have seems to have lessened – I often find myself wondering “aren’t they teaching this in school anymore??” when listening to people talk about political and societal things.
4. Do You Set Rules for Yourself About How You Use Your Time?
I try to, but I’m not very good at following them.
5. Can You Be Good Without God?
I think the more pertinent question is – if you can’t be good without outside fictional pressure, are you actually good?
6. How Are You and Your Parents Alike and Different?
We’re alike in our political views and we like to spend our time much the same ways. But I’m more cynical because of unemployment/temp jobs, poverty and then also chronic illness I’ve been living with my almost entire adult life.
7. What Did You Once Hate but Now Like?
Blue cheese!
8. If You Were a Super Rich Philanthropist, What Causes Would You Support?
The foundations that work to advocate for the unemployed, Migraine Disease foundation and Crohn’s Disease foundation. Those three are a given. But also probably others as well if money is not an issue for me.
9. At What Age Should Children Be Allowed to Go Places Without Adult Supervision? What Age Were You When You Were Going Places By Yourself?
It depends on the child’s maturity and when they themselves feel ready to try it out. I can’t remember exactly, but I know my Mom only walked me to school the first two days of first class (so I woul’ve been 6 then). Then I wanted to go alone. That’s normal here. 6 year olds travel by bus to school and hobbies and to friends and that’s normal.
Oh, and it also depends on where the family lives – we lived in a city, with walkways, traffic lights and zebra crossings everywhere and it was never far to anywhere by walking or biking so it was safe. But people who live “in the country” often have none of those things, and even biking might mean travel time of 30 minutes or an hour on heavy traffic, high speeds roads so then of course it isn’t necessarily safe for young children to go places alone. So it really depends a lot on the kid in question and the situation!
10. Does Your Life Leave You Enough Time to Relax?
Technically, yes, I have all the time I could ask for. Whether I have the means (money) and if I’m pain-free or in low enough pain to truly relax is an entirely another matter on the other hand…
11. Did You Take a Gap Year After High School?
Yes, but it was unplanned for. And not after high school:
I quit high school after 3 months because I hated it because it was exactly like grade school and I couldn’t bear the thought of 3 more years of that and then another 3-6 years of university. So I quit after 3 months and registered as a job seeker in the unemployment office. Then I applied for vocational school a few months later, but until that started, I was on a break for about 8 months. So not a full year. And I didn’t get to just lazy about. My Dad had just died about 1,5 years earlier, and Mom was working full time, so during the week I did all the grocery shopping and always had dinner started by the time she got home around 4.30pm. I’d always baked a lot but now even more than I usually did, a lot more bread rolls. I didn’t mind any of that at all – I actually liked it all and I thought it was fair because I was the one without obligations during the days and had nothing but free time. I still had time to see my friends as much as I wanted. I’d have participated in all of the domestic stuff anyway had I been in school, just less than I did now because I’d have had home work if I were in school. Later I realized that that 8 months taught me a lot about meal planning, food prepping and cooking things that everything would be ready to eat at the same time, planning of grocery lists etc. So it wasn’t a huge change when I moved to live on my own; I already knew how to do basic things like cook or clean or washing clothes better than I otherwise probably would have.
12. Do You Need to De-Clutter Your Life?
Not really, not anymore. I could put some things faster back in their place, but nothing is seriously cluttered now like it used to be when I was in my 20s. Everything going digital has helped a lot – used to be I had a lot of papers I couldn’t throw out until X number of years had passed, and only a limited space to store them in that were already full so I’d just stack them on whatever surface. Lack of storage space was a big problem. Curse of a small apartment. But then everything went digital over the years and that’s helped enormously.
13. Would You Rather Work From Home or in an Office?
Ideally, from an office, I think, as long as I live in a small apartment. I don’t like the idea that my small home, with no office, would also be my working space. I don’t have enough space to allocate any of it to my employer’s usage. And doing so, would blur the lines between work and free time for me, I think. I’d feel I’m at work at least a little all of the time. But if I had a separate office room, I think I’d like to work from home, although I might be one of those people who are more productive when they go in the office.
On the other hand, if I ever get well enough to work anymore, working from home might be the most doable thing – I’m in so much pain and exhausted everyday that working from home might be the best/only way to return to workforce in longer term capacity, whether that’s part time or full time.
But this is a moot point as long as I’m unable for the foreseeable future.
14. Do You Have a Dream Car?
Nope. Car’s a purely a device to deliver me from place A to place B. I like Toyotas – they feel like they fit me better, like they’re more designed for shortish people than other brands I’ve driven. So were I ever to buy or rent a car, it would very likely be a Toyota.
15. What’s the Story Behind Your Name?
No story behind. It’s just a name my parents liked.
16. What’s the Best Party You’ve Ever Been To?
None. I’m not a party person, I don’t like any of them and avoid them like the plague. The ones I have enjoyed the best have had too few people present to call it a party.
17. What Are Your Favorite Board Games?
I don’t like any games so no favorite.
18. Are You an Introvert or an Extrovert?
I’m somewhere in the middle, quite leaning towards introversion.
19. Where Do You Want to Travel?
Nowhere really, seriously speaking. But before getting chronically ill, I wanted to see the pyramids and the Grand Canyon. But now with my chronic illnesses, the thought of travel is just stress-inducing and also a little bit fear-inducing. And my financial situation doesn’t allow travel anyway.
20. What Are You Looking Forward to This Summer?
Ice cream, strawberries, new potatoes. But the most amount – for summer to be over because of the garish sun and heat.
21. What’s Your Favorite Summer Food?
Strawberries. New potatoes.
22. Did You Ever Have a Summer Job?
Yes, several times. During and after graduating library school, I temped a lot during summers.
23. What Are the Best Souvenirs You’ve Ever Collected While Traveling?
When we visited Stonehenge, I bought this little Stonehenge sculpture from the gift shop there. I still have it. This is from the first trip to London.
I’m also really fond of the silver leather/faux leather bookmark I bought from the London aquarium which features a dolphin carved on the leather. This is from the second trip to London.
24. What Are Your Favorite Names?
I don’t really have favorite names. Like had I ever had or wanted children, I don’t have a clue what I would have named them. I like some names though, but I woudn’t call them favorites. Evangeline is one.
25. Do People Complain Too Much?
Currently I’d say nope. Because the monster far right goverment isn’t hearing us, we need to complain more and louder.
26. What Were Your Favorite Childhood Shows and Characters?
Star Trek (TOS and TNG), Miami Vice, Knight Rider, V, V: The Final Battle, Hollywood Beat, Spenser for Hire, Hight Mountain Rangers, Dempsey & Makepeace, Crossbow/William Tell, Maelstrom, The Far Pavilions, The Jewel in the Crown, Thornbirds, a lot of tv mini series based on books by Judith Krantz and other writers. I LOVED a lot of tv miniseries taking place during WWII such as The Winds of War, War And Remembrance and many others.
Spock. Christine Chapel. Hawk. Sonny Crockett. Castillo. Ham Tyler. Diana. Horst. Remick.
27. What Role Does Stress Play in Your Life?
Financial stress is on all the time. Medical stress is on basically all the time too, but sometimes just barely there and sometimes very much front and center depending on how my chronic illnesses are going.
28. What Are Your Favorite Junk Foods?
I don’t really go for traditional junk food such as hamburgers or whatever. I really like things like Karelian pies or pasties with rice & boiled egg filling; I don’t personally count them as junk food but I think they are categorized as such by nutritional professionals.
EDIT: I googled it and google show pics of also things like donuts, potato chips, candy, soda etc. I’ve always thought of junk food as hot foods! And not sweet things. So if that’s right – I LOVE a lot of junk foods! Not donuts, but lots of other sweet bakes, potato chips (not as much as I used to), chocolate, candy, ice cream, sodas etc.
29. Do You Have Childhood Memories of Being Read Aloud To?
Oh boy do I! Mom and Dad read aloud to me a lot, and I remember begging them to read to me even more. One of the evening routines when I was a kid and before I could read myself, was that either Mom or Dad read to me when I was already in bed – a bedtime story although what I remember are of them reading chapters of novels like Enid Blyton’s The Five or Carolyn Keene’s Nancy Drew and not bed time stories that were finished in one sitting. Them not having time (or the will, honestly, because I would’ve happily be read to for hours and hours at a time! LOL) to read to as much as I would have preferred was how they motivated me to work on learning to read because then I could read more myself and at my own space! End result was I learned to read faster than most other kids on my class because I was so motivated to learn.
30. Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been, a Picky Eater?
Yes, I have and Yes, I still am. But I’m not nearly as bad now as I used to be.