When I was writing my thesis, I was listening to music from The Prodigy. One song particularly stuck to mind, because the song’s name is actually one English version of my civic first name.
And because I was actually already called “Charlie” by many of my friends, I have adopted the spelling with “y” and most of them seem to have accepted it. Among my friends I respond actually faster to this nickname than to my formal name.
What was weird that I could not convince any Americans to call me Charly during my stay in USA. They all insisted on calling me with my civic name, whose pronunciation the of course butchered so I did not recognize the sound as my name at all. Funny that, I do not understand why not a single one of them obliged to go for an English version of the name which I explicitly told them that I respond to.
Anyhow, the nickname Charly stayed with me and I have kept it ever since on and off the internet. How did you get your nicknames, if you do not mind me asking?
Open thread, you can talk whatevers, just don’t be an asshole.
How frustrating people would not call you Charly! Perhaps they thought it was disrespectful somehow?
Our nicknames… do you mean, our user names here? I will take it that is what you mean.
I do wish I were called Kestrel IRL but alas I am not. However, one of my horses is called that! She too has a very long name, just like me, and there was no way to shorten it really, so I just called her Kestrel as her barn name (as opposed to her registered name). I love those birds and there are lots of them in this area, and I love seeing them hovering in the sky, checking for any unauthorized insect activity.
I know this feeling. I will absolutely react to “Giliell”. It’s also inevitable when online gets mixed with offline.
Jazzlet was one of our nicknames for our first dog, formally Elsonway Little Jazz, familiarly Jazz. I use it on line as it is gender free. It does sometimes cause confusion with people who assume it means I’m a jazz music fan, which I’m not particularly.
I didn’t have any nicknames when I was young. Voyager is the name I adopted when I started commenting at Pharyngula. It’s partly because I’ve connected to other parts of the world and I feel like an armchair traveler and partly because Voyager is my favourite Star Trek series. Captain Janeway kicked ass.
I don’t have meatspace nicknames. My nym (the only one I use online) is an random combination of two Finnish words, “snow” + “red”, chosen just for the aesthetics. Lately, when writing work related stuff in English, I might accidentally almost sign it as lumipuna.
My last name is basically a Finnish variant of “Thompson”, and since my first name is one that apparently doesn’t easily stick in people’s heads, people often (some persistently) misremember my first name as a “Thomas” variant.
I don’t have any other offline nicks, but there#s the diminutive (in the proper Russian form) that my grandma used to use and my sister uses when she needs something…
My name isn’t complicated but people take issue with it because it has a couple of unusual letters (but no complicated combinations!). And it gets horribly mispronounced in English, and often goes unrecognized in Latvian (there are more common names that are similar to the point of having one less letter or one different letter, and people don’t seem to have issues with those names). My mum’s name, too, is so.simple. but English-speaking people insist on mangling it. I don’t even want to get into last names, or my middle name. That being said, no one has ever come up with a short-form nickname for me that I actually approve of (the most obvious one gives me the shivers, I hate it so but I couldn’t say why), except for my old ballet class, but it was an actual lengthening of my name -- and a play on Indiana Jones, which is basically why I liked it.
I might respond to rq offline, if anyone ever called me that. It’s weird enough in email correspondence, addressing people by their names, or signing off with my name…
During my life, I have gone by many, many nicknames. The most common is the adult diminutive of my given Germanic name. I have been Billy, Bill, Towhee, Loki, Bilbo, Wild Bill, and Bunny in meatspace. When I first started to comment on blogs, I went by Billy. Then Billy the Atheist (and I had (for a short time) a blog with that name) or (((Billy))) — some claim that I use too many parentheses when I write (go figure). Then a right wing asshat told me that a liberal like me wouldn’t know the military even if it bit me. I pointed out that I am a liberal disabled veteran. And changed my moniker to Billy (A Liberal Disabled Veteran) which became Billy (ALDV). And somewhere along the line, I realized that every single nickname I have ever had, on line or in meatspace, was hung on me by others. So I picked the name of an obscure* Icelandic saint, the patron saint of public lands, as my pseudonym and became Ogvorbis. Which I (fairly recently) shortened to Oggie.
* Þessi íslenski heilagur er svo óskýr að hann reyndist ekki eins og flestir heilögu.
I mostly use the common shortening of my forename, though when I worked I used the full name as I think that in English names ending in ‘y’ or ‘ie’ are mostly diminutives of girl’s names, and that one is a little more likely to be treated as an adult as a woman if you are not using that sort of diminutive. As for my surname, uff … there are a lot of similar names, if I lived in Cornwall people would get it right, and do when I visit, but most people elsewhere in the UK assume it is one of the alternatives, even when I correct them. I have to be careful if someone is taking down my name that they get my forename and my surname spelled correctly, as even when I spell them out slowly people write down what they think it is going to be rather whatI actually say. My midname is easy, but it isn’t often needed.
I find this fascinating, the usernames come alive.
@Charly: I hate it when I mangle names, it makes me feel ashamed. But I try my best to learn or use nicknames, if they are offered. Two of my coworkers (from turkish and iranian families) had seemingly infinite patience with me in that regard and were great teachers.
My username, Avalus, is the name of my first LARP character, a joyful doofus turned mercenary. He was heavily armoured but somhow seldom armed. So instead of mindless whaking*, he prefered to intimidate or talk his way out of the trouble or, if all else failed did a Sir Robin and ran bravely away! Later I appeased my foes by offerings of freshly cooked meals. Fun times were had by being not the bravest and not the brightest, as I could play with and to pretty much everybody.
The character has long gone to a peaceful rest, away from war and adventure, but the name follows me throughout my online life ever since. And I still react to it in meatspace.
* Not being to fond of fighting also had to do with the fact that many people thought, that they had to hit me much harder because of my chainmail armour. They thought I would not feel their blows. Why did I wear it all the time? Sheer bloody-mindedness, I guess!
My screen name came into being because I had forgotten my FTB password and had to come up with something. I had started to swim in the winter and liked it, so it just sprang into my mind. The previous screen nick was nakkustoppeli, which comes from the Finnish translation of Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem, nakkustoppeli being one of the things that started with “N” that were destroyed because of certain events.
I do have some meatspace nick names (mainly based on my last name) my friends from the teenage years and early twenties would use and I used one of them as a IRC nick, but my friends don’t want to use them in front of their kids so they use either my first or my last name. My fellow students use my first name.
I remember (((Billy))).
I was different, then.
Hey everyone, sorry for being somewhat absent lately. I never expected I would have to learn what allergic rhinitis is at this point in life, but alas… I’ll be doing allergy skin tests two weeks from now.
My first given name is simple enough, I have only been given two meatspace nicknames but they are used by a very restricted group of people. My cousin who I think of as the sister I never had gave me a nickname that is a fusion of the common shortened versions of my first and second given names, but she’s the only one who calls me that. A small group of international friends call me ‘Dania’, which is an uncommon shortening of my first name and I adopted that for most online interactions (but not all -- my Flickr handle is my non-shortened first name). It was my username when I started to comment on Pharyngula. I changed to Nightjar somewhere along the way because I wanted to try a screen name that wasn’t obviously gendered and because nightjars are fascinating birds I love to watch and hear at dusk.
My sympathies, Nightjar. Allergic rhinitis sucks. I hope they figure it out with the skin tests.
Thank you, Voyager. I hope they can figure it out too, and most of all I hope my pets (two cats and a cockatiel) have nothing to do with it.
Oh, I should add that even though I haven’t been commenting much I still read every post, and I enjoyed the last snowy Jack’s Walks very much. Snowy landscapes are gorgeous and I mostly have to rely on others’ photos to see them. Your photos are, as always, wonderful.
My nym here was given to me by a friend and former coworker because, as she said at the time, I moved with such purpose I should change my last name from ___ to “mission” so I could be “on a mission” everywhere I go. It stuck, and thus, Onamission. Five is just my favorite number.
Hello everyone. I haven’t been around much. I have photos to submit that have been riding around in my phone for months. I hung a print by Ellsworth Kelly in the bedroom this weekend. And I thought of Caine, of course, as I do whenever art is about. And I wondered if any of her work is out there. For sale, you know? I have so much space at home and in the office. I’d be so honored to display one of her works. Am I the only one who is thinking this stuff?
I’ll try to remember to send the photos of the raptor this weekend.
chigau @12:
Yeah. So was I.
I was angrier, under a lot more stress, depressed, wondering what was wrong with me.
I found out. Oddly, it feels better.
===============
The current estimate for grandparenthood is mid to late June.
Oggie
Ohhh, a sweet summer child!
*looks at birthday of very complicated almost teenager living here*
*falls over laughing*
Just forget what I said, ‘kay?
++++
Well, wasn’t I lucky today?
In the first lesson today I had a parent-teacher talk with the parents of kid X. When I left the staffroom for that talk, I saw the (very complicated) mother of (very complicated) kid Y. I friendlily said hello and she started wagging her finger at me “And if you ever ..” so I told her that I wasn’t talking to her like this, turned around and left her with the headmaster. She yelled that she would report me and all the school to the police.
After my parent teacher talk I found out that the lady and the adult son she’d brought with her physically threatened the headmaster who literally had to run away and that’s a guy who worked in Afghanistan for 4 years, building up schools while being bombed by the Taliban. He had to call the police and both of them are banned from the school premises.
Guess who is actually being reported to the police now.
Man was I lucky.
Yeah, can we just not…? :D I have one summer child and one quasi-summer child (end of May qualifies as just-about summer), and neither one of them is particularly sweet. Well, the one is, but he also carries the devil on both shoulders. Actually, I could probably say the same about the other one, too.
Giliell glad you avoided that, poor kid Y though, it’s not going to help them at all.
Oggie, I think knowing is always better than not knowing
I’m not only a summer (August) but a Sunday child. No I am not ‘bonny and blythe and good and gay’. Just typing that makes me growl. I was not any easy teen either.
I am a summer (August) child too. I was not sweet, but I was sick alot. But today my mother thinks I am the most perfectest son she could wish for. Mothers are strange that way, you can’t go by what a mom says.
Today, on top of returning home after eleven hours of work I found out that we are without heating and without running water. I planned to renovate the central heating from may, but it got delayed and delayed and delayed and delayed untill they finally got to it this week. They finished today, after three days. But due to the year-long drought, there was not enough water in the well to re-fill the heating system. So still no central heating, and I cannot take a shower either.
Today was not a good day.
Well, one of the kids can actually be described as “sweet”. She was born 9 days shy of Halloween…
Charly, that sucks. I hope ot can be fixed quickly.
It seems the day I was born, 44 years ago, was thanksgiving in the U.S.*. Can I be described as thankful?
Charly @ 22
Ouch, that’s bad luck in spades. Are you going to have to have a new well drilled?
Charly I hope you have alternative heating.
And yeah, you really can’t trust all mother’s opinions, far too close (sorry mothers!). I was a much longed for, but unexpected -- mum was in her early forties and assumed she was going into menopause … SURPRISE! -- daughter after four boys in the immediate family, three male cousins and no girls on my father’s side for three generations. Both my parent’s opinions of me were … coloured by that status.
We are having a pudding tonight, usually we don’t bother, but autumn makes me think of puddings, so rice pudding it is.
Hi everyone. Thanks for your good wishes today. Jack is home with 18 stitches and a fair amount of oozing. The dressing keeps slipping down to his toes and it’s in a hard spot to keep covered, but at least Jack isn’t fussing with it. The good news is that they were able to remove the whole lump. We won’t have the biopsy report for about 2 weeks, but the vet said it looked like an ordinary lipoma. I asked the Dr. to take a few photos during surgery (nurses are weird that way) and she’ll be sending them to me tomorrow. Don’t worry, I won’t share
Charly,
Drought has such far reaching effects. I hope you can find a solution.
Jazzlet,
Rice pudding is my favourite. :D
Nightjar,
Soap bubbles are such an easy thing to make, but I’ve never been able to create a good photo. Thanks for the link.
Ice Swimmer,
You should be thankful that you’re not living in the U.S.
Oggie,
Knowing is better. It’s hard to deal with uncertainty.
Giliell,
I had no idea teaching could be so dangerous. Some of your stories curl my hair.
The well filled up again overnight, it seems it was just too much to try and fill the system from it in one go -- after all it is nearly one and a half cubic meters of water. Until last week I had prepared two cubic meters of rain water for this, but I had to let it go because it started to freeze and it could tear up the reservoir. All those little delays piled up until the work was done exactly in a situation I did not want it to be done.
@Giliell, I hope you get good resolution to your problem with murderous mom. If a parent has a legitimate grievance that they think a police should take care of, they should let police to take care of it. Going to the school and threaten violence does no good to their credibility.
Giliell
Stay safe!! It sounds like your profession is more dangerous than policing.
Charly
I’m glad to hear things are mostly sorted -- I hope the little delays are conquered one by one and you get your heating and your hot shower!
Ice Swimmer
I don’t know about thankful, but you can certainly have a happy birthday from me! And I am thankful to know you through your photos and comments here at Affinity. So there’s that. Hope you had just the kind of birthday celebration you wanted! ♥
voyager
A smooth recovery and lots of scritches for Jack, and hot relaxing drinks for you! I’m glad everything went well, and I’m looking forward to more of Jack’s walk, as soon as he’s up to it.
Good for Jack.
Yay for Jack
+++
Today I stayed at home with #1 because this morning she presented with a mysterious rash. Now, she’s fully vaccinated, but there’s a few things that have no vaccines yet, so I took her to the doc, because I’m not allowed to enter school should she have some contagious disease either.
And as a topper yesterday a colleague had told me she’s pregnant. You can imagine my worst fears.
Thankfully it appears to be an overreaction of the immune system after a light cold and with anti-allergic medicine she almost looks normal again.
+++
rq
It’s a long standing joke that teachers don’t actually get paid for teaching but for pain and suffering…
Two thumbs up for Jack! Great news.
Sympathies, Charly. A similar thing just happened to my mother -- she went to visit my brother and while she was gone the furnace quit. She got back to a very cold house but luckily the next day someone was able to fix it for her.
And I agree, Giliell’s stories are enough to make the hair on the back of your head raise up. Talk about not believing what mothers say about their children!!
I am attempting to develop a new product line for my jewelry. It’s amazing how much has to go into this… I have been doing my current line for about 15 years, this new line will use different materials and requires a different form of display etc. And the whole time you’re doing it, you keep thinking, no one is going to buy this, I’m wasting what little time and money I’ve got… But what else can you do except move forward? Even though it’s a risk? Well it will be at least a year from now before I’ll know if people will like the new stuff enough to vote with their dollars on it. Best to be patient about these things.
Thank you, rq and voyager. I’m quite thankful not to live in America.
Giliell, stay safe! I only read the threatening mom and adult son thing today.
kestrel @ 32
I think there are risks both ways. Doing or not doing. But you’re the one who knows best.
FWIW. My username is an Aussie nickname for Steven plus an initial although it took me quite a while to settle on it at first after experimenting and trying out quite a few different ones when I was first on the net and getting to understand how it worked -- by among other things making quite a few mistakes.
***
Some good news here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-30/proud-boys-founder-gavin-mcinnes-denied-visa-to-australia/10573134
At least for those of us in Oz -- even our deplorable reich wing govt realising Gavin McInnes is a nazi scumbag who shouldn’t be allowed in.
Plus a massive rally with some very clever signs and great people :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-30/australian-students-climate-change-protest-scott-morrison/10571168
My fave sign there being that “I’ve seen smarter cabinets at Ikea” one and overall bringing hope that the future is hopefully going to be in much better hands.
On that Global Overheating issue, one of the most powerful visual depictions of what’s happening and the difference humans have already made has been updated for this year here :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZzEUJ86PCg
and is well worth watching I reckon.
PS. Best wishes for Jack here too. Beautiful dog and hoping he makes a full recovery. Please give him a gentle pat from me.
StevoR,
Thanks for the good wishes and the good links. Jack’s doing better today. We found a wrapping solution thanks to kestrel and in a day or two we can just put a T-shirt on him.
I wanted to be on my ways already, but we got freezing rain all day yesterday and allnight afterwards. It should thaw in an hour or so according to forecast but it is a bugger.
Have a good weekend everyone.
I spoke French for the first time in years today! I got lost in Brussels and a very nice young man helped me out a lot -- we started off in English, but I found myself explaining the details to him in French and things just kind of went from there. There’s a large gap in my vocabulary, which, oddly enough, didn’t make me feel awkward at all because I was too thrilled to discover that I still know French!
How is Jack doing? Any updates?
My face is in a terrible state. Yesterday we went to the place we used to go mushroom hunting since I was a kid. Our favourite spot was, as I feared, totally destroyed by last year’s forest fires. So we drove a bit south until we found a place that didn’t burn and went into the forest. We found a few mushrooms. But. The mosquitoes. Oh my god, so many mosquitoes. There was no way to keep them from biting and I think at some point I just gave up, considered the situation a blood donation to the local ecosystem and felt grateful I don’t live in a country where I have to worry about mosquito-borne diseases*. Now it itches. A lot.
*Yet. They will come. Climate change will bring them here eventually.
Nightjar? DEET.
Nightjar,
That’s terrible. I hate mosquitos. I hope you found some good mushrooms to make the trip worthwhile. Oh, and hopefully a few photos too.
Raucous Indignation,
It’s good to see you around the place again. You’ve been missed.
Jack is doing great. His incision is clean and dry and seems to be healing well. He isn’t even fussing with it. He’s such a good boy.
Jazzlet,
That sounds like a great idea. Trains are so much fun to ride. Trips must be well priced if the locals are using the service. Do you get discounted rides from your brother? Part of the trouble down east is that the tracks have become unsafe and nobody wants to spend the money necessary for repairs.
Ouch, nightjar, that’s bad. I remember one time when we wanted to stay for a few days at a campsite where the midges were so bad we just couldn’t. My stubborn dad wanted to stay and not have this nice place ruined by a few midges but then “thankfully” he reacted the worst of us to the bites. We took down the tent with silk scarves wrapped around our faces.
+++
Oh gods, today one of our students was almost run down by a car. I was waiting with my car at the traffic light where the kid wanted to cross the street and then a car sped up from behind, drove past me on the lane for the opposite direction, over the red traffic light and missed the kid by a few hands. Idiot never slowed down or anything. I could read the number plate and will file a police report over the next days.
Giliell
What a pratt, I hope he gets a suitably deterring fine He really ought to have his license taken away. And comforting hugs/hot chocolate/whatever helps for you as even witnessing something like that gets the adrenaline raging round the system. I hope the student wasn’t too upset.
Voyager
Glad to hear Jack’s doing well.
The railway line is no where near we live and I think I’d pay full price anyway, they need every penny for improvements and maintenace. The Swanage Railway have actually reinstated the connection to the national network, which is a real pain because there are a whole load of different standards they then have to meet, but they really believe that having public transport options is important. On Biggest Bro’s 25th wedding anniversary they hired a train for the whole day to just go up and down the Swanage Railway bit, with food and real ale on board, you could get off at a station to say, go round Corfe Castle, then get back on the train again next time it was passing. It was a lovely relaxed way of having relatives and friends get together with out any of the possible flare ups happening because it was so easy to avoid people.
Raucous Indignation
Good point. I don’t plan to go back to that place without some kind of protection, at least while I remember. My guess is that with such a long extension of burned forest that is still basically sterile the mosquitoes have concentrated themselves in the few green areas that remained. There used to be mosquitoes, but not that many.
Voyager
I did get a few photos. Not as many as I wanted, and some were blurred because standing still was… difficult. I won’t be able to go through them until next weekend, and I have a few older ones I’d like to share too… but early December is always a complicated month. Yay for clean and dry incision. :)
Giliell
That sounds scary, I’ve had something similar happen to me not that long ago. Since then if I see cars coming I always wait for all lanes to be blocked by stopped cars before crossing. Kids shouldn’t have to go through that experience at all, I’m glad you were able to read the number plate and I hope there will be consequences.
early December is […] a […] month
Hah. I did not mean to imply December is multiple months, though sometimes it feels that way…
Hi, here, not feeling talky. I’m worried about a lot of things, don’t want to dump them on you folks. Tomorrow I get a root canal, wish me luck.
Anne,
I hope the root canal goes smoothly and you are given soe proper pain relif for when the novacaine wears off.
I’ve bee struggling too, I was actually ill for most of last week and am finding it hard to get much done. Still my SiL is coming round tomorrow and that’s always fun.
Anne,
I hope you are ok after your root canal.
Thorn is doing gentle, littlewhines and looking thin, to remind me that it is tea time. She sucks in her cheeks and looks so mournful, it is clear that she is near to death. Unfortunately for her this just makes me laugh. Cruel human.
Anne, the best possible recovery from the root canal!
I was in an Xmas party of the student club I’m mostly involved in. There was xmas food, glögi*, sauna and Santa came and gave a present to people had brought a present. Each of us got to sit on his knee, even the professor who was there (he had been an active member as a student and is a honorary member now).
__
* = Glögi is a hot drink that can be mulled wine (possibly with added hard liquor) or a mixture of red fruit juices spiced with cinnamon, ginger and clove and fortified with vodka/viina or Jaloviina**. We had the latter type.
** = Cognac cut with vodka.
Sorry to vent (feel free to skip over this if you want and can) and hope this does some good but ..
*
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Today “our” Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison ensured the continual imprisonment & torture of refugee children, already grievously hurt and suffering, who did nothing wrong & pose no threat.
“Our” (retch) PM said he’d do that, he pulled out all the stops as he said he would to guarantee that torture of refugee children happened :
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/whatever-it-takes-scott-morrison-vows-to-avoid-losing-historic-parliamentary-vote-20181206-p50kjk.html
and he was responsible for their barbaric, cruel mistreatment which he could have prevented long ago had he wished to. Scott Morrison proclaims himself a good Christian*, wishes to paint himself in the (very) fake persona of a just a daggy average “dad” type figure. The reeking hypocrisy of it is gob-smacking albeit typical of his “conservative” type.
Truth is, he is as bad as Dutton :
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/why-unpopular-and-unknown-peter-dutton-is-on-the-verge-of-becoming-pm-20180821-p4zyr0.html
Truly heartless, truly evil and doing all this for short term political gain and hoping to retain personal power, comfort and wealth disgracing our country’s reputation and ruining thousands of real human lives in the process causing incalculable pain and suffering to those with the least power over and least responsibility for their plight and situation. Not merely kicking someone who is down but torturing them, driving them mad and murdering them.
Its almost a sidenote here that Morrison, a fully owned Trumpian puppet of the Coal lobby and Murdoch empire, is also delaying necessary action that would help if not save our world at least give us more of a chance of keeping its remains liveable longer and with more hope for more survivors and better lives.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-06/federal-politics-live-blog-december-6/10590382?section=politics&fbclid=IwAR2F_RUzqNXLbZFit3SOCB9Q7ClIP3t1HOSmaZSKGiE9s1bJdY9ycl65V6M
I am fucking crying now.
* See & hear :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KoqacuqBi0
Oh & :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXkNDhhkiNE
For Dutton.
Whilst on the Tom Ballard binge :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFfl03tCISE&t=74s
Tragicomedy. Truth. Dammit.
Today is an anniversary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_Polytechnique_massacre
Root canal Part the First went as well as could be expected. Turned out the problem was with the next tooth over. Which is harder to reach. They offered to do the crown too, but I chickened out. So that’s tomorrow, and there’s still the cracked one to deal with later.
I’m enjoying having the house to myself this morning -- Paul’s gone to a movie, Kitty’s at school and Shadow’s asleep in Kitty’s bed. Poor Kitty, it’s pouring and her sneakers aren’t waterproof. She pleaded for a ride home, which I’ll do if Paul isn’t back yet.
I finished Paul’s Christmas present, which is a notebook made from a Little Golden Book. It’s on my Dreamwidth blog if anyone wants to see it.
There’s jasmine tea, if anyone would like a cup.
Anne,
Thanks for the tea. I’m glad to hear that things went well with the root canal and here’s hoping the crown goes well too. I love the notebook for Paul. It’s charming and such a good idea.
Chigau,
Thank you. It’s important that we don’t let the world forget this tragedy, now more than ever it seems.
Ice Swimmer,
I’m glad you had a good time at your student club’s party. I hope you asked Santa for a good present. I’m curious about the sauna. That’s something that you wouldn’t find at any student club or office party here because of the alcohol and scanty clothing. There would be too much risk for bad behavior. Was this a mixed gender event? Is this common in Finland?
Jazzlet,
Jack could suck his cheeks in and he would still look well fed!
voyager @ 54
It was a mixed gender event, just. There were 20-30 men and one woman. She didn’t come to the sauna*. Sauna in student parties is extremely common. Most of the places the student union rents for events like these have a sauna. There can be separate sauna time just for women, but not always and in the hot room, people are customarily naked, regardless of the sauna being mixed gender or not. Towels are worn outside the sauna, shower and dressing room area.
If there is a hot tub, it is customary to use a towel while approaching it and take the towel off just before entering.
I’m watching DVDs of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_(TV_series)
It’s 40 years old but I’m still laughing.
Saunas at parties are common here, too, though with slightly less nakedness. Gender mixing for sure, though -- unless it’s a very close group of friends, most people will wear bathing suits in and around the sauna. It’s considered very impolite to be in the sauna naked without the express permission of others attending -- alternatively, if you want to go in naked, you find a group of like-minded individuals and ‘schedule’ some time (i.e. warn others there will be nakedness and don’t take all night). And it is especially bad form to be naked in any room outside of the actual steam room, like near the food tables and such.
It was a strange thing to get used to, but I rather like it -- even with the alcohol, most people have a good grasp of sauna etiquette and it’s definitely an opt-in option dependent on individual feelings of comfort.
(If I was the lone woman at an event with 20-30 men, I probably wouldn’t go to the sauna, either, but I would go if it was a 20-30 person group but more evenly mixed.)
So this is apparently a thing? I’m not exactly sure at which level of Wrong I would begin, but… well.
Also: ārkārtas is such a wonderful little word, unless applied to elections.
I think mixed-gender nudity wouldn’t happen in company team-building events or anything else related with work. In private settings, genders go usually separately or with swimsuits unless the people are very close or it is explicitly said that it’s mixed-gender, swimsuit optional. In student events, the nakedness and going mixed-gender to sauna is assumed to be the way unless otherwise specified, but you can wear a swimsuit if you want to (this applies especially to foreigners). And yes, people wear at least a towel when they go and get beer or some potato chips.
I think the etiquette is not to ogle and not to touch inappropriately or do any sexual things in sauna. If the sauna is very crowded and small, sides of people may touch.
Fascinating -- an obscure, censored feminist novel that may have inspired both ‘1984’ & ‘Brave New World’ :
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/dec/10/what-not-lost-feminist-novel-that-anticipated-brave-new-world-finally-finds-its-time?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR1n3A_HV0LjwSQJL58X0wAaRrBYBrO1837LYTsJYZ_WrhhMu1CfT_TSgXc
Anyone else heard of or read it?
YES!!! :-D
Breaking (?!) news :
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/thefreethinker/2018/12/prominent-vatican-official-cardinal-pell-is-found-guilty-of-sex-abuse/?utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR0W2vcwrYzSmKiIVaxrmZDNYx5GHoofQ4Wg7iZHA6BQ1fiAnoq_Pi1dGQk
here that seems, oddly, not to be making immediate headlines in Oz despite being reported onpatheos blogs. If true I cannot believe it will be secret for long. If they are trying to suppress this fact in this day and age they are even more lacking in thought and understanding of reality than I already thought they were.
This calls for a celebration and a song :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtHOmforqxk
Then a sentencing. A tough and well deserved sentencing for a man who has wrecked enormous harm to real ppls lives -- & counselled Australia’s former PM tpo acts of typically evil scumbaggery :
https://www.google.com/search?q=Pell+and+Abbott&oq=Pell+and+Abbott&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l4.8879j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Well, in Germany sauna is almost always mixed gender and naked. The spa we occasionally visit has one “bathing suit” sauna downstairs and several naked ones upstairs, though one is women only.
At the local swimming pool the sauna and steam bath are mixed gender and naked, there sis a ladies day and a gents day.
To add to the above, the nakedness in these places just is. I personally find it very refreshing that there are very different bodies, fat, thin, male, female, with scars and wrinkles and everything that are just allowed to be.
When I coordinated a youth project in Cuba, one of our pleasures was to go bathing naked at night. Problems only arose when there were guys who thought that nakedness was an invitation.
@StevoR, #62: OK wow, I did not think we would see this day arrive. That is great news indeed -- now if we could just topple that pedophilic pile of crap that would be even better, but baby steps!! I’m just so heartbroken when I hear of all that the victims have suffered, I know this does not take away their suffering but it’s about time the rest of society agreed that these are crimes and they need to be addressed as such. Here is hoping that it does bring at least some comfort to some to know he’s facing consequences for his actions.
re: Cardinal Pell
Good.
This should be bigger news.
Re Cardinal Pell
Good. Very good and about bloody time.
On Thursday, exams 3 and 4 of the 6 will be done, after that, one on Friday and one on Monday. Of the two I’ve done, I’m not sure did they go well or not, I’ll see when I see the grades.
After that, the semester is pretty much over. I’m going to design a power supply and do summer job applications, but those things will be on a loose schedule.
I took too many courses, but considering that, it’s been fulfilling and interesting.
@ 66 chigau (違う) & 67. Jazzlet :
Its huge news indeed but Aussies are being -kinda -- notallowed to see it becauseof a ridiculuouys and broken old legal system that seems to be being gamed by thePell team :
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-top-cardinals-sex-abuse-conviction-is-huge-news-in-australia-but-the-media-cant-report-it-there/2018/12/12/49c0eb68-fe27-11e8-83c0-b06139e540e5_story.html?fbclid=IwAR0vc3bwpkFkU_C4aDFfMyrKPkU6Zzs7Lt41L7mAXTv9bP7HDx-bLxyn0uw&utm_term=.27234de3d3f0
&
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/why-the-media-is-unable-to-report-on-a-case-that-has-generated-huge-interest-online-20181212-p50lta.html?fbclid=IwAR09RM5nvnCZyQl_v_IqrqiBIjZ1Tb9Y8MMBQBuDSyqldrhnzvDUwJqq6uc
&
https://truecrimenewsweekly.com/going-to-hell-found-guilty-of-hideous-crimes-this-week-but-media-banned-from-revealing-truth-about-high-profile-australian-criminal-with-mass-following/?fbclid=IwAR3W_fdeWRKRPh9olNK3uxu4auoFIHMiZaQwLc_E6DO-I_PIjN-AAdPTJqE
I think the tactic here is to try and manipulate people’s natural understandable human emotions to try and create a mistrial and I find that utterly disgusting as well as the continued awkward pseudo-secrecy for something that has been secret far too long already.
From that ‘The Washington Post’ by Margaret Sullivan, December 12 at 4:41 PM :
***
I gather a lot of the victims here are elderly now and likely in poor health -- physically and mentally -- if nothing else due to the stress. The perpetrator too who I will not name is an old and has previously argued himself to a be a physically sick man. I wonder if they are playing for time and hoping (?) he’ll conveniently die before justice is served?
Justice delayed and denied too long and hurting the victims ever more in the process. I think the Voldemort team tactic here is utterly heartless and evil. I hope it backfires completely and destroys them after this is over and they are seen as what they are for using it.
If “Voldemort” as i’m calling Pell here wasn’t utterly evil, lacking in all humanity and care for his victims he’d plead guilty as he should have at the start.
Australians (mostly?) know its Pell -- its on all the overseas news but not the Aussie ones so the whole suppression thing is just a farce. We’re just not allowed to legally discuss it except of all we all are anyhow. I think they’re also trying to minimise publicity. I don’t think that’ll work and hope it really backfires on them.
Suppression has created more secrets and secrecy but now these secrets are open, known if unmentionable.
The world knows, we know, the world can talk about it, we can’t.
But we do *know* and, one day, hopefully soon, after more developments and hopefully some much needed legal reforms everyone will be able to talk freely and condemn the particular piece of shit in question in the detail and with the openly stated knowledge that will go down in history to utterly condemn him and all those people and things associated with him.
PS. Oh and first sentence was “Its huge news indeed but Aussies are being -- kinda — not allowed to see it because of a ridiculous and broken old legal system that seems to be being gamed by the Pell team. Sorry fro my shithouse typing.
CONTENT WARNING : For Pell story, sexual abuse, emotional and pyschological abuse, Pell and Catholics..
Hope your exams are going well, Ice Swimmer!
***
The lab’s radio is officially stuck and refuses to be tuned into any station except for one. It’s one that only plays so-called “old” music, from the 70s/80s/90s/early 00s, but has a fondness for Christmas songs that is getting on my nerves. I’m thinking it wouldn’t be bad if it were to “accidentally” fall into the water bath below it. It wouldn’t make much of a difference if the number of stations it is able to tune into went from 1 to 0, would it…
@Ice Swimmer, fingers crossed for all your exams. Let us know how well things went.
@Nightjar, one of the advantages of being the head honcho in a lab is that I can be a despot and tell my colleague to turn the radio off when it starts to get on my nerves. Which is about five seconds after I enter the lab. I was being lenient this last week because there was not much work to do anyways, but when there is work to be done and I need to concentrate on it, a radio is a no-no.
For me it is difficult enough to have to talk and write the whole day in two different (and both foreign) languages even without some random music distracting me and derailing my thoughts in the background.
I do occasionaly listen to audiobooks or music in my workshop, but only when doing tasks that are not difficult and do not require much concentration. And there I have of course full power to on-off the music as I wish/need.
Music in communal spaces is one of those things that in my opinion actually does violate the principle of “your liberty ends where mine starts” because people who do not like the music are forced to either listen to it against their will or to take active actions to avoid it that are never fully guaranteed to work and migh impede them in other ways.
Nightjar & Charly
Thank you. 5 of the 6 are done. It’s been mixed, but I don’t think I have failed any of them. A few, I’ve felt, went fine, but I don’t trust my gut feeling. When the grades come, I will know. It’s possible that I’ll redo two of the exams later (even if I may not have failed them, but if the grade is just bad), because the courses are important and there are a few things I want to learn properly, but haven’t had the time for.
But now I’ll go to bed and pay back my sleep debt.
Charly
I agree with that. Actually I do have a little more control over the radio now than a few months ago when I didn’t want to get into conflict with a colleague who claimed silence would drive her crazy and insisted on a particularly annoying radio station. I put up with it because I knew she was overworking and the music helped her, but the situation forced me to wear headphones in the lab sometimes which isn’t ideal. Now she is at home writing her thesis, and no one else complains when I say “sorry, I need to turn the radio off for a bit”. Although it can’t stay turned off for a long time, because apparently silence bothers a lot of people.
***
Ice Swimmer
My gut feeling regarding exams was always very bad. Have I ever told the story of the Metabolism exam I thought I had failed but in reality was my best grade ever (20/20)? I also had a few “went fine -> bad grade” exams, but that was by far the most memorable and the one that convinced me to never ever share my gut feelings again, because it was really embarrassing.
Anyway, good luck and good sleep!
At our lab, silence is only an issue when there is not much work to do. Climatic chambers are pretty loud, and many other devices make noises too.
I am very sensitive to background noise, so much so that multiple times I have noticed a looming defect in a machine or test setup before it became a disaster.
How do you not know whether you failed an exam or not? That seems unusual, at least if they were oral exams. For written exams it took of course always a few days for them to be evaluated, but after oral exams we learned how we fared straightaway.
Charly @ 75
We only have written exams, apart from language courses, which I haven’t taken. Some foreign fellow students did have an oral Finnish for Foreigners exam yesterday.
Ice Swimmer
I hope the exams have gone and go well, however you feel about them.
It is a truly miserable day here, cold, veering between rain and heavy rain, and windy, plus at 4pm it is almost dark. I shall be very glad to get to the slstice and the turn of the days.
Airports are a weird timeloop limbo. My original flight got delayed enough to miss my first connection, so I now have a completely different route that leaves later, but I reach my ultimate endpoint almost 2 hrs earlier. Maybe this is the start of a weird sci-fi adventure, in which case I’m glad I packed 2 pairs clean socks in my hand luggage. But no towel…
Ice swimmer
I hope your exams went well.
rq
Reality is always so disappointing. I recently stood at a red traffic light when a huge crow landed on top of it and started to potently call out, but no quest materialised.
I sort of gave up after that time a black cat fell out of the ceiling at work, but I like to hope for… I was going to say ‘the best’ and suddeny remembered how these adventures usually go. I’ll stick to the reality of two layovers for one European destination.
Actually, if I was superstitious, I’d refuse to get on the plane, because in addition to the original delay, there was considerable difficulty getting me an alternate route, and I dropped my necklace in the toilet. I did have a nice conversation with the skin cream vendor while having my right hand moisturized with expensive cream, but he didn’t reveal his secret royal identity in hiding, nor his true employer from the future, nor any signs of alien blood. Just a nice man from Budapest.
rq
I hope the rest of your trip doesn’t follow the same pattern!
I am feeling like rather a coward. I have avoided the news as much as possible this week as I just can’t bear to hear more about the mess May and the rest are getting us all into. I really really don’t want us to leave the EU and I suppose I’m putting my head in the sand about it all.
Ha! I am about to leave the EU! Temporarily, of course. (Next layover in Zagreb, in Vienna now, and I finally understood the issue -- but I will explain in an actual post.)
For what it’s worth, Jazzlet, earlier this week I took great pleasure in reading up on the Circus Fiasco known as Brexit… but I also don’t want you to leave. I want the UK politicians to come around, lose all their face in some sudden, heretofore unheard-of Brexit-cancelling trick, and have all of you live in friendship with the rest of us. And we can cry bitter tears in all our beers together about how stupid political leaders can be. Plus, from a job point of view, there’s a lot of opportunity in maintaining a close co-operative relationship with the UK with as few official barriers as possible.
I’ve friends living in Germany who are applying to become German citizens as they want to be able to stay there. They say that the relevant office has been swamped with applications from British people in the same position and I imagine the same must be true of other countries. It’s all just so stupid. You listen to what Brexiters like Johnson and Rees-Mogg say and it’s clear that they have no idea of the fantastical nature of what they are proposing. There is so little connection to reality, but even after they have been told repeatedly by the rest of the EU that they can’t have everything they want, they still seem to think that somehow it will all come out like they said it would. They don’t care about the consequences for Northern Ireland which could be a return to sectarian violence … damn, I’m going to go and read something light and fluffy.
Jazzlet @ 77, Giliell @ 79
I hope they will go well, too. The last one is on Monday, in the afternoon. After that, in the evening, I’m planning to go to hear/see a Master’s Recital (of a clarinetist graduating from Sibelius Acedemy) and enjoy someone else’s big “exam” in Musiikkitalo (Helsinki Music Centre).
Ice Swimmer
Good luck then!
I always envy your access to high quality music.
Jazzlet
Yep, applications for German citizenship have grown exponentially (as well as for Irish). Recently our headteacher needed to ask if there were any colleagues who only have British citizenship, because if they don’t have another EU citizenship they’ll lose tenure. The ministry of Education is working on a solution.
Ice Swimmer
I hope the last exam went well, and you can enjoy some of that fantastic music without the cloud of study looming over your shoulder!
We’ll see how the exam went, at least I answered all questions.
It was an interesting concert. All modern or contemporary music, by Giacinto Scelsi, Chinary Ung (from Cambodia), Béla Bartók and Isang Yun (from Korea). Contrasts for clarinet, violin and piano by Bartók and Quintett no. 2 by Yun were the more easily approachable works, while Oracle for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion and voice by Ung was to my ears strange and fascinating.
The situation in the video:
The guy photographing is a member of group of hunters (the normal way to hunt moose here) and the dog they had (probably a barking moosehound) chased the moose to the lake ice, which broke under the weight of the moose, resulting in both the dog and the moose falling into the water. The called the fire brigade to get the animals from the lake and the firemen came and broke the ice so that the moose could get on shore. The owner of the dog was able to get the dog out of the water and they went home.
The moose, against the assumptions of the men followed the firemen and their work closely and, as it can be seen in the video, climbed out of the hole in the ice once it was in shallow enough water.
At 0:45 the photographer says basically (in a broad Eastern Finnish dialect): “Get out of its way, it’s able to climb up now!”. At 1:00 one of the firemen says “Out of the way, out of the way, out of the way!”. At 1:10 a fireman says to the moose “Don’t go back!” and the photographer says “Go to the forest, go to the forest, up there, up there!” (Again very much in dialect.). The last lines are: “Great work! Thank you all!”
My guess is that they didn’t want to shoot the moose in the water because a) Getting the body out of the water would have been difficult and dangerous as the ice was treacherous, b) lake water might spoil the meat and c) you can only hunt animals on a property that is yours or on which you have acquired permission for hunting. The lake is most probably common area jointly owned by landowners around it, not private property.
Oh, and here’s the video and the article.
I like that slap that one guy nearly got. Moose sure are funny-looking and seem clumsy, but I would not get in the way of those hooves! I hope the hunters called it a day and came back some other time…
So, stumbled over this earlier. Turns out Santorum is actually a communist :
https://www.thedailybeast.com/rick-santorums-italian-family-speaks-out?fbclid=IwAR3jmrwhecD8lju-tzKswvr-puK_Nkf1p2n6x2HgQSX4-OS8b8-qrVh7J40
Well, Maria Santorum anyhow. Plus Michela Santorum. Yeah, we cannot hold them responsible for their US relative and almiost makes me regret what that stinky name’s come to mean
I have no luck with my camera these last few weeks. Almost no birds show up. And when they do, instead of the birdsI get beautiful detailed pictures of twigs. Instead of moody light, I get grainy mess. Etc ad nauseam. Almost hunderd shots over the last month, not a single one that I would like to share.
I bought a wake-up light in the hope that it helps me in the long run. Being woken up by light seems to work, I feel less useless and good-for-nothing than I usualy do at this time of year, but that might just be placebo. I still feel like shit.
I cannot even meaningfully work at my workshop, apart from not having the energy, for two hours of work I have to heat it up for half a day and I burn wood rather faster than I like to, being environmentaly conscious. March cannot come too fast.
I hope the wake-up light goes on helping Charly. Would it be worth getting or making a daylight box for where you are spending your free time?
I’m apparently a little anaemic -- my GP ordered bloods last week -- and low in folate. Nothing too bad, and it’s problably down to the osmotic stool softener I have to take because of being on opiods to control my pain, because as well as keeping water in the stool it can keep nutrients there too. Uff. More bloods at the beginning of January to see if it’s a one off or a real problem. I do get frustrated with the whole ‘because I take one drug there is a side effect, so I have to take something else, which causes another side effect, so I have to take something else‘ thing.
I got the results of the last exam (we’ll see if the results for the first exam will come last), it’s a pass (1), but just so, but the homework points should get my grade to 2 (which is not very good, but at least it isn’t 1 or 0), I’ll see if I’ll retry the exam later.
To relax, I went to a new public sauna (opened in November) on Tuesday. It was a nice place, a combination of a bar/restaurant and a public sauna. The sauna was comfortable and well-designed, the owner, who also owns another public sauna clearly knows how a sauna should be designed. I was only in the men’s side (there are separate dressing rooms, washing facilities and hot rooms for two sexes), so I can’t say how the women’s side is apart from reading that it’s one fifth smaller (50 vs 40 lockers, because there tends to be more male customers).
The heat was soft and gentle, not too dry or too wet, but the kiuas (stove) is big and could give a lot of heat , which is nice. The kiuas is of the type that’s heated before the sauna opens, with wood pellets, and the energy stored in the stones gives out the heat and the top of the kiuas is fairly low, so the heat is fairly uniform, head to toe in the raised area, where the benches are. Going barefoot and wearing a towel in the restaurant area is allowed. Water is free and one can order beer, wine, liquor, soft drinks and food.
I liked the experience, but one could feel that the place is new and the culture and the atmosphere of the place haven’t really formed yet and the staff was unfamiliar to me (new people for a new sauna). It’s interesting to see how the culture evolves there.
On Wednesday I went to the sauna I usually go to and enjoyed to hot sauna and the cold sea. The sea has already frozen once this week around the sauna and there was a hole in the ice, but the ice broke into ice floats, so the sea is open again, and the water is about 0 °C.
What is the blank post between Wednesday Wings and Winter Drama?
@chigau, my guess is that voyager forgot to write the title for the post befor hitting “publish”.
Ice Swimmer
Pass is pass and now you can relax.
+++
Went to my big check up yesterday and the ultrasound of all my internal organs looked good. If I hadn’t had an appointment anyway I’d still have dragged my ass there because I still got a cold. Though apparently finally there seems to be a much needed shift away from antibiotics. I got something to let me sleep at night and told to rest and use stuff that alleviated the symptoms.
Giliell @ 98
That’s one good way of looking things, thanks.
Also good that your internal organs look good and that you don’t have to get antibiotics any more. May the symptoms be gone!
__
The sea water was -2 °C today and there was a procession of floating ice moving at the shoreline. If there will be a calm moment (it’s windy, so the water is moving and not freezing), the sea will freeze rather quickly near the shores.
Oh fun.
My employer fucked up my paycheck. First of all, I get paid one month backwards, meaning that at the end of December I get the money I actually made in November. Now, in November I had to take one day of unpaid leave to look after #1. I get 70% of that missed salary from my health insurance. But for some reason, the ministry thought that I had stayed home for the whole of November and put me down for a negative paycheck because reasons.
Surprisingly enough I still managed to reach somebody by phone on a Friday afternoon and the guy is going to set things right after the holidays.
I mean, we’re a double income household, we won’t starve, but holy fuck.
@Giliell, that is peculiar, I do not get how you could have negative paycheck? I mean, how can it get bellow 0?
Charly
Neither do I, but what do I know. I guess it has something to do with insurance payments that have to be made anyway. Oh, and having to pay back 1/12th of the annual bonus.
As long as they fix it I don’t really care.
I once had negatives on my paycheck because the accountant who was supposed to log my extra hours as overtime did so for my regular hours, as well, so they had to take half of that amount away. It was weird…
Anyway, hope things get sorted!
Giliell that’s rough, hope the guy does sort it out.
Hello all, and happy holidays.
I slipped and broke my right arm on Dec 7. Typing is still difficult but getting back to normal. I’ll be offline for the next few days.
Giliell @ 100
I’ve had negative numbers when dealing with the welfare systems here (they went away when I asked for a correction), but never negative pay from a job (picking strawberries a long time ago did produce less money than my food costs would have been, but I didn’t eat at the farm or pay for my food.) I sure hope they get the things right this time.
lumipuna @ 105
Happier holidays!
Ouch, I’ve fallen twice between 7th and now without getting more than road rash. Get well soon, having to deal with a broken arm sucks. My experience with a broken arm was that suspenders and boots with zippers made the life easier.
lumipuna
Ouch, I hope the broken arm isn’t hurting and that it heals well, have a good holiday (almost said ‘have a good break’ …).
Rain, dreary rain.
lumipuna
Ouch
I hope it heals quickly and well.
Jazzlet
Yep, same here.
lumipuna
I hope you heal well and quickly.
@lumipuna
Ouch. That sounds painful. Take care and fingers crossed for full recovery.
______________
Here it is drary rain too. I do not mind that too much, although I would prefer frost and snow at this time of year. But I take rain if nothing else is on offer, after the extremely dry summer the earth is parched and a few weeks of slow rain are welcome.
I would love one day of semi-decent weather thoug, because I wish to go for a walk in the forest. I did not have a decent walk for an awfully long time.
I hate you, varicella. I really, really hate you.
Also rapid healing, lumipuna. Hope your holidays are still happy and enjoyable!
rq @ 111
May the virus fuck off and die! Fuck chickenpox! Fuck shingles!
rq
Fuck off indeed Varicella. We don’t vaccinate children agaisnst chiken pox in the UK which I think is crazy. It’s not a pleasant disease, then there is the risk of shingles later and we have no good treatment for shingles, so why on earth don’t we vaccinate? I know the reason (cost/percieved benefit) but it’s just wrong, you can’t measure the pain shingles can cause.
It isn’t raining here, there was even some sun earlier!!! The little local shopping centre where I buy veg from the nice green grocers was crazy busy, as was the Co-op, you’d think these shops were closing for at least a week, not just a couple of days.
I hope everyone is having a quiet and enjoyable evening, however you choose to spend it!
Yeah, varicella can fuck right off. Youngest came down with symptoms this morning (well, he probably had them last night already, but because it could have been an insect bite, I didn’t notice… Funny thing, though, he’s been vaccinated -- Eldest was, too, when he got them years ago. So I think my kids are just especially receptive to the virus. On the plus side, he should get off comparatively easy (so far, so good -- no fever, feeling good, good appetite, no side effects, etc.), but it does put a hold on travelling out country to see the extended family (some very small unvaccinated children and a pregnant person…). The rest of the day and evening were good, though. Husband got me a t-shirt that says “I grew up with magical unicorns”. Best present ever.
Merry Happy to Everyone.
I hope you are all having the best possible holidays.
Argh, I’m sorry to hear, rq.
I never got chicken pox as a kid, back when the treatment was “let your kid play with the sick cousin/friend so they’re done with it”. Years later, when I was already an adult, my cousin came to visit over Christmas (600km distance). When they got home again they discovered that one of the kids had chicken pox and I came down with it some time later, just in time for my 21st birthday.
+++
I hope you all have the best holidays possible under the various conditions.
Everyone who is sick and/or hurting, feel better soon. The Elder Daughter had an attack of shingles earlier this year -- it’s apparently not uncommon among overstressed academics (she had chicken pox in preschool, before there was a vaccine).
The saga of my root canal continues -- Friday I went in for the permanent crown, and it didn’t fit. Someone at the lab decided to adjust the mold, and messed the whole thing up. So we had to start all over with a new impression, and they stuck the temporary back on. Apparently not very well, because Saturday night it popped off. Of course the office was closed Monday. They’ll call me back tomorrow to see when they can fit me in.
We’ll be driving up to my mum’s later this morning with a carload of food and presents. Hopefully this will be one of her more awake days.
Lumapuna,
Sorry about the arm. It must be difficult to do just about everything. I hope it heals swiftly.
*****
Giliell,
Good luck getting your pay check sorted. It could have been disastrous if you were a family with only a one person income.
*****
rq,
I hope your son gets through this outbreak well. I’ve had shingles since late September that wax and wane, but won’t go away. So, yeah, Fuck Shingles. Sideways.
*****
Anne,
I hope you had a lovely day with your mom and I hope they get that tooth sorted out tomorrow.
lumipuna, sorry to hear about your arm, hope you are recovering well!
***
I hope you all had the best possible holiday. I’m somewhat glad this one is over, I can never seem to be able to muster any kind of happiness during the 24th and 25th of December. The rest of the holiday season is fine, from the Solstice to the Three Kings’ Day, but these two days I would gladly skip. Not everyone has happy childhood memories of Christmas’ Eve/Day. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but some people expect everyone to be happy on this date and that’s why I don’t like it.
Anyway, it’s over, and today is a lovely sunny day. I’m at work, but it’s a quiet day. The weather is lovely and is predicted to stay sunny and warm during the weekend and New Year’s Eve/Day, and I like that holiday best anyway so it’s all good. :)
Thanks for the well wishes. My arm needed surgery for proper readjustment, which was thankfully available and affordable in this time and place. Now it’s healing promisingly.
@lumipuna, ouch for the surgery, but I am glad it seems to heal well. Lets hope it stays on that promising course. Unfortunately, you will probably be able to predict rapid weather changes for the rest of your life nevertheless.
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On Friday 28. December I am going to probably disappear until at least January 2. I am going on a yearly new-year celebrations and get-together with my friends from university and I do not know how good the internet will be at the hotel where I will reside. I might be able to comment, but not post.
I’m watching Rocky Horror.
Don’t Dream It, Be It
Have fun, Charly!
lumipuna
While once broken bones tend to be sensitive, as Charly says, it also gets better with time.
Should have watched that one instead of “Magical Creatures and Where to find them”.
Spoilers ahead.
Kids got the movie for Christmas, and since we like watching movies together, we watched that one last night.
The Harry Potter universe was many times poorly thought out, but the transplantation across the pond and into the 1920s really brought this out tenfold, because the people who made it did not realise that.
There is some short and weak social commentary on Segregation: the wizarding community of the USA is forbidden to have any kind of relationship with muggles. First of all, it’s absolutely not clear who the victim of that policy is and secondly, the representative of that system is the president, played by a black woman…
Then, one of the magical creatures is a Thunderbird. I mean, Rowling always just took what she could get, but the creature isn’t even named as one (you really need to have some education here to realise its supposed to be one) and of course it is completely disconnected from its indigenous roots.
Next, the transplantation of the wizard world into the USA, complete with the demographics. Where do the black wizards come from? Where they brought over as slaves by muggles? That makes no sense. Were they enslaved by white wizards? That makes no sense with respect to the positions in the 1920s. One of the protagonists is called Goldstein. How did wizards with Jewish origin live and why did they become part of the Diaspora?
It’s dark, without the endearing and redeeming qualities of the Harry Potter books and movies. No humour, even the supposedly humorous situations (a dude accidentally spilling pheromones on himself and being chased by a gigantic magical rhino) feel threatening. The little one left half way through.
And last but not least a poorly thought out story line. Really, Grindelwald can become a senior member of the Ministry of Magic without anybody noticing, but the boy who got kicked out of school can reveal his true identity with a simple spell? Also, the “good people” aren’t good at all. The Ministry kills a poor abused child “for the greater good” and then the heroine is totally happy that she is allowed back into their ranks. Makes you wonder if she’s still working for the present day ICE. None of Hermione’s moral integrity when she told a corrupt ministry to go fuck themselves.
To cut a long story short, save yourself the time.
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