rakkauden ja epätoivon laulu

Between messy roommates who don't seem to heed messages left on notes for any more than a week (cases in point: turning lights off when leaving the apartment; disposing of garbage promptly; rinsing empty drink cartons; taking out recycling; wiping off stove after cooking; washing and putting away dishes after cooking; proper disposal of sanitary napkins; refilling the stash of toilet rolls under the washroom sink); roommates who decided that our cable Internet subscription was being too flaky or something and so got her own cable Internet subscription, hooking it up to the same jack with a splitter^*; roommates who buy way too many shoes online; roommates who talk late into the night on the phone/Skype but whose calls seem to entail either giggling or cryface whining; and finally the bullsh*t endless apartment inspections (see comments) - one today and one less than a week from today - for which roommates don't seem to care enough to prepare the place for and thus I will be charged money for non-"cleaning" for messes I have absolutely nothing to do with (since I always clean up after myself and haven't been spending too much time here lately anyway); I think I am justified to say, V*TTU TÄTÄ P*SKAA.


When you go out during the day and by the end of it you really, just really don't want to go back to your own bed because of this BS, you know it's time to move on. I can't afford it or I'd move into the House of Crazyfinn, after all, I think I spend more time at CFJ's place than I do at my own right now.

So schoolwork is progressing at a snail's pace, because I need my (desktop) computer for some of it.


Last week I had a sudden urge to learn and record all eight parts for this song that my choir is working on. But lo and behold, eventually my next door roommate came home and decided she needed to study, so she pounded on my wall to make me stop. I mean, really? I get a rare burst of inspiration to do something that will relieve my stress (or at least to distract myself from it) and BAM! SHUT DOWN. Sigh. It's like with Mrs CF and going to the cabin at the lake. FML.

__________
^* Incidentally, neither modem is getting any internet connection at the moment, so I am typing this on my computer via USB tethering to my mobile phone, which happens to have a nice data plan.

[Ever-so-slightly redacted version]
Ooooh, look at the homescreen on my phone. It's so pretty (well yeah, I've spent many long hours over the last week customizing it).



Concert Choir is doing some music in back-country Finnish. Guess who's doing pronunciation coaching. I didn't exactly ask, but I insist (it's okay, my director is accommodating). Hearing my director give a go at some of the lyrics, I had to stifle a bit of a giggle. His [y] sounds to me too cardinal; it might do better pulled back a little towards [ʉ], though I'm sure he's just kinda exaggerating.

There's a lot of female solos in the songs, most notably one singer who gets the last word after everyone else (including the director) has left the stage. Let's just say... that whoever gets that part (pick me! pick me!) will get a lot of attention from me personally. Because there will be native Finnish speakers in the audience (I'm inviting them) and you don't exactly want them walking out of the auditorium laughing at the soloist's unintelligible lyrics.

I would also like to be able to furnish my director with a more literal translation of the lyrics than is printed in the score (as singable text), for printing in the concert programme, ASAP. Interested volunteers may take a look at the link above for the text.


Meanwhile, just about everybody of importance in FinnSoc below a certain age cut-off (this is by coincidence, I swear!) knows kind of about CF Jr and me. The cut-off appears to conveniently exclude his parents.



Anyway, Jari and I got to the FinnSoc AGM last weekend super-early, so I was pounding away on the piano, facing the wall, when I heard a distinctive whining sound from elsewhere in the room. I turned around to confirm that, yep, Mrs CF was in the room. Oh dear. Somehow, Jari got roped into chairing the meeting, and then he and I wound up on the next executive board. Not speaking Finnish apparently isn't a good enough reason to refuse (since technically correspondence has to be in English), so I guess I just have to enforce the use of English. Mrs CF isn't on the board, and neither is CrazyLady, and so aside from CrazyFinn's occasional creepiness, the others on the board are people I seem to get along with (like Tuula and her husband, AwesomeGramps, Jaana, and so forth).

I'm moving up in the "Scandal" world, I guess. Jari, his dad, and I kind of form a radical bloc within the board; we have some ... progressive ideas. This will be interesting. I've never done any of this actually-official (since we're a registered non-profit) executive kind of stuff before. Most university student group roles are just résumé-fillers anyway... I'm also kind of hoping that this might put a bit of pressure on getting people to take me to the cabin in the springtime.



Also: Not really enjoying Phonology. At all. Feels like calculus class: 1. Watch prof do examples on the board. 2. Do homework. 3. You're supposed to develop a 'sense' for phonological patterns with practice and experience. Just like figuring out integrals.



I am hungry. I'm going to eat this pack of Reese's peanut butter cups on my desk. CrazyFinn bait really should be consumed and replaced with fresher packages regularly, anyway. Especially when they're partly melted from being in my "saunariffic" room.

I came back to my apartment yesterday to find that summer has finally 'come', that is, the temperature in my room went above 30℃ for the first time this summer.  Not only that, one of the new roommates had moved in last week to find the plumbing in the bathtub backed up. This means that our shower is currently unusable. Plumbers started working on it today but they didn't finish, and in this kind of heat I think a trip to the swimming pool would be very enjoyable indeed, not least for the use of shower facilities. [Edit: After some holes in walls and more holes in walls and replacing pipes in the room downstairs, things seem operable again though with a hole in the wall. It is now Friday.]

Turns out I didn't lose a friend over Juhannus after all. AwesomeGramps said it was just that his son (Jari) was going through some tough times and needed a little space.

The same day Jari spontaneously started talking to me again, Mrs. Crazyfinn called to say that the reason she didn't want Crazyfinn to drive me to camp along with her was because she worries that I stress her out. (Turns out I wasn't too far from the truth when I joked to CF that about the likeliest way for me and her to get along again would be to have a restraining order keeping us at least ten metres apart.) Well I don't know how it took her two whole months to 'have the voimaa [motivation+opportunity]' to think of how to tell me this, when Jari was able to do pretty much the same thing early on after Juhannus, in a single text message. 

I suspect that it's actually because I'd been nagging CF about mediating the situation (and AwesomeGramps was probably passing on what I was telling him). Regardless, it would have been really nice for her to have talked to me sooner so I wouldn't have had to spend the last two months wondering why she didn't want me at camp and would have looked at the possibility of alternative transportation.

The reason why I don't buy her explanation is because she blames it on her health but she always uses that excuse. I'm not saying that it's not a serious concern, because it is, but that she's overused it to the point that nobody can take it seriously anymore. (And how does she expect to sing with me next to her in the chorus, hmm?) I don't know about you, but it all just seems so childish.


I have a new mobile phone. Sadly, it's not a Nokia. But it runs Android, so I can officially say that I feel kind of Linux'ed out.


I am disappointed to report that my family's disappointment in me is so great that they'd rather pretend that the last two years of my life never happened. ("Don't say the 't' word.") But since it is in failure that one learns the most about themselves, I will have to relate those lessons learnt absent of their context. That troubles me somewhat.


My new roommates are all Asian and are so gentle that I'm letting them use my stuff.


Here's another bit of music from the Trine soundtrack.

I infer from what I have been told by Crazyfinn and AwesomeFinnishGramps that Mrs Crazyfinn is intimidated by me (and I also infer that Leena feels the same way for similar reasons) at camp. It's my temper, I'm sure, which she ignites so often exactly those embers of the frustrations that I have with my mother (please treat me like an adult!), and how Mrs Crazyfinn seems to exude the same constant negativity that my mother does.

But I think it's also my tomboyishness, that I don't prefer to do womanly things like housework and would rather go see what the men are up to. I sit on the men's side of the bench on sauna breaks because I find their conversation more interesting. I don't drink girly drinks like coolers.

I think that it is very possible that transgressing gender expectations in this way feels threatening to someone very socially conservative like Mrs Crazyfinn (she doesn't like contemporary fiction because 'it has too much swearing').

For one thing, I know for sure that Mrs Crazyfinn is scared that I usually (not always) carry a knife at camp. I try to keep it covered by my shirt when my shirt is long enough to do so and I don't make a big deal of showing it off, nor do I take it out unless I'm actually using it to clean my fingernails or carving a stick or picking flowers. (Actually if I'm carving I'll have at least two knives, one for rough work and one for fine detail.)

I'm quite self-conscious about being seen with them.¹ The few minutes I spent actually trying to throw knives at the wood shed I did first thing in the morning before anybody else was awake, and when Markku came by and saw me after he went fishing, I let him have a go at it and then I went to put them away.

Perhaps it's fear that I'll one day explode and people are gonna get hurt. That's understandable. I've only really exploded in front of people twice (both at university) and fortunately I wasn't armed, so only papers were torn and tables slammed upon. Even so, I'm terrified of hurting people physically (it's why I didn't practice sparring drills when I was in martial arts, even though we had padded gloves and stuff). But hey, ever tried just keeping your nose out of my business? It's not like I put my nose into yours. It'll help.


But I really can't dismiss the feeling that my personality has a lot in common with that of Crazyfinn. Stubborn like hell; can talk obsessively about some subjects (him: booze/hunting; me: semantics/culture); collects books; can talk forever about our own photographs; likes language and math puzzles, taking things apart, and fine manual work (him: electronics; me: art). Can get upset over really small things. Doesn't always think before one speaks, and sucks a little at reading social cues. On the flip side: Tries super-hard to be, if one cannot be civilized and nice, at least helpful in some way.

People warned me to be careful around Crazyfinn. Frankly, I don't find him nearly as scary as they've tried to lead me to believe. Oh sure, sometimes I feel a need to tread carefully around him, but he has NOT crossed the line with me and in fact I think he might even be deliberately trying not to.

So if that means that he and I make the same enemies/animosities, then so be it. I don't think he'd mind at all actually having someone like-minded around.

_________
¹ Freaky fact that long-time followers of this LJ may recall -- I used to carry a frickin' arsenal - to class - with me sometimes, back in freshman year. I don't anymore. It's been replaced by the sword-shaped pendant I wear on a necklace. Maybe three people knew about it: me, my then-boyfriend, and, uh, ... dang it, there's got to have been a third person. But I don't remember whom.

Confucius thought that the Good Man should cultivate the "Six Arts". I'm not sure if this fact is explicitly taught to modern Chinese people, but if you really think about it, it seems as though the tradition has been passed down to the modern stereotypical Chinese mother and the kinds of things that they expect their kids to do:

• The Rites: Good character, proper manners, modest dress, respect for elders, stuff like that.
  
• Music: Piano, flute, violin, etc.. Must be classical instrument. Classical music is civilized, you know.
  
• Archery: Any sport that emphasizes dexterity and finesse over strength. Badminton is a good example. Or martial arts. You don't normally find Chinese kids in hockey. That's why.
  
• Charioteering: It's imperative that you get your driving licence as soon as you're able to. If you prefer to think of charioteering as a military skill, play chess.
  
• Calligraphy: YOU BETTER HAVE NEAT HANDWRITING. I think painting/drawing lessons fall under this too, since calligraphy is an art form.
  
• Mathematics: Math tutors, Kumon...this one speaks for itself. Falling under this category is also the emphasis on science-based fields in university.

When Hong Kongers heard that the area around the Fukushima reactors were being evacuated and some people there were being given iodine treatments, they were quick to jump on board the panic game and cleared supermarket shelves of table salt and soy sauce.

Wait, soy sauce?

Not only is the iodine content of table salt fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things, nor that iodine treatment when not necessary is really bad for you, they seemed to miss the point that the iodine in table salt is ADDED in and has nothing to do with its saltiness. OH BUT SALT IS SALTY! SO LET'S HOARD SOY SAUCE.

Hong Kongers LIVE on sensationalism and blowing things way out of proportion. I'm not sure whether there's even a SERIOUS newspaper there (South China Morning Post, maybe?); the major daily papers (and heck, all the media) are really tabloid-y. (FYI: A Hong Kong tabloid mogul started that company in Taiwan that makes all those hilarious news animations.) Imagine a Finland where no one really reads anything but Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti. Or a Canada where everyone just reads the Sun and watches FOX News.

Especially for relatively educated diaspora in Western countries like me, HK can seem like a perpetual facepalm.

... eighteen 9- to 11-year old boys (and also two girls) at science camp this week. Oh joy! They're quite a handful.Actually, one of the boys is 8. We would conveniently ignore this, but it's kind of hard to.

We took the kids on a field trip to the city airport so that they could get rides in little Cessna airplanes. They also got to visit a museum and look at old planes and aviation (mostly Air Force) memorabilia. Me and the other volunteer were partly responsible for walking the kids between the airport and the museum and keeping them together inside...

...which didn't happen too much.

• Holding 20 kiddies in a room with no windows and nothing to do is anarchy. Especially when the room belongs to other people and they're horsing around touching everything that doesn't belong to them. Forbid that and they start throwing paper at each other.
  
• Authority figures lose legitimacy when rules are enacted reactively too often. Children at this age are very concerned about "fairness" and are able to perceive such actions as signals that control over them has been lost. This is a central observation to classroom management.
  
• A small but significant group of the boys are really really into WWII armaments (I guess WWI is a bit too...manual (to some extent) for their tastes). Like, really into, doubtlessly facilitated by all the movies and historically "accurate" video games out there these days. Except that at this age their enthusiasm is not yet moderated by the sobering understanding of the value of human life. This saddens me; I sometimes cannot bear it and must walk away. I have conveniently forgotten whether I had classmates with similar interests when I was that age.
  
• "Can I go say 'you suck' to the picture of Hitler?" "Of course you can."
  
• Once upon a time, children's horseplay might be pushing and shoving and throwing things and sparring with sticks, but now they just pretend to shoot each other and don't learn that conflict inflicts pain. (I preferred to play Knights and Ninjas back then anyway.)
  
• The anarchy was driving us grownups totally up the wall. I snapped at this one boy who was being a smartass and mocking my exhaustion ("Imitating people to make fun of them is extremely disrespectful.")
  
• The blazing sun was exhausting all of us. Even the kids were asking us "when are we going inside?" I had a headache that was kind of going on and off that only really briefly went away if I was eating or drinking something. It got even worse after I went home.
  
• Last night I was so physically tired that my feet and my headache were practically killing me, I managed to wake up at 6AM this morning, dragged my aching legs out of bed to call in sick (even were it not for the pain, I really needed some time for my patience to recover), then tried to sleep through some construction beeping (I'd almost forgotten how annoying it was), got out of bed to make some lunch, ate it, then went back to sleep until 4PM. My head still hurts a bit, not quite as much, but the rest of me felt like it was falling apart. I hate being a girl sometimes (yes, that was a contributing factor to both crankiness and pain).

...in the high (socio-economic) status which you equate with respectability. I'm interested in finding my place in the world.

A consistently present, thoroughly composed, and meticulously groomed upper-class manner and appearance seems... awfully sterile, don't you think? I don't find it the least bit enticing.

I've seen blue and green bins around campus for a while, but let us now consider this fine example of the full line of recycling bins that the university has just installed in the main Education foyer.

(Over the last few days I've spotted custodians all over the building diligently peeling off old stickers from wheelie bins and applying new ones.)



From left to right we have: Waste (black), Glass and Light Metals (yellow), Plastics (brown), Pop Cans and Bottles (green; 'Beverage Containers' as on the sign above it would be more accurate -- they haven't replaced those bins or stickers yet), and Mixed Paper and Cardboard (blue).

Trouble is, I don't think they're labelled very well.

I can understand having the black container off to the side from the recycling containers, but why does the label also have the Recycle symbol on it? That's just confusing. Moreover, all of the distinguishing labelling is in text only, including the lists of appropriate materials above each of the bins (which are taken from the recycling bins link above).

Johanna will have to remind me whether the garbage/compost/recycling disposal bins at Kortepohja student village had visual reminders in the form of an icon next to their labels (because I recall the labels having more than just the words on them but I'm not 100% sure), but given the relative ethnic homogeneity of Finland (compared to Canada), one can reasonably assume that everybody can read the Finnish labels. (All of the international students also get a nice little recycling guide-booklet that details EVERYTHING. I admire the effort! For us summer students, translations of said labels were also found in the residence information package (which is just a few pages long, so there's little reason not to read this, even if you don't read the booklet).)

I don't think we can make an assumption that everyone can read English here. Even if you do for students and staff (we are taught in English, after all), diverse members of the public also make use for the building for special events, including English language learners for classes. Also, the administration is currently under a mandate to try to bring in as much international talent as possible. Can we expect a non-native English speaker to know what a 'tetra pack' or a 'clamshell container' is?

Language argument aside, the reality is that we are glued to images -- we are visually-engaged. A pretty colour will not hold everybody's attention long enough to nor cause them to bother to read a page of text. The bins as they are require you to stop and read. Even though understanding all of the fine print isn't entirely necessary for one to use the bins, the presence of so much text can be daunting and makes the bins kind of scary.

I would recommend adding some informative illustrations or icons to each of the bins and/or the signs above. It doesn't have to be as complete as the posters that the city gives out for their household recycling program, but if we really want as many people as possible to participate in a recycling program on campus, we need to make it accessible to as many people as possible, and using visual language is a good start.



Addendum: Unlike many European societies, the movement toward sorting our garbage is relatively recent, so the habit is not at all yet part of the lifestyle for everybody. Before Calgary got household pickup of recycling last year, the drive-up depots were sorted by different types of materials, so I'm used to sorting stuff. But with household pickup (both here and in Calgary), it doesn't need to be sorted; they do so for you at the sorting plant.

So I wouldn't immediately accuse students of laziness (the rhetoric of laziness attributes a quality to the person instead of addressing other issues that may be responsible), but it's still a lot of bins to sort stuff into if you're not used to having to sort stuff, and the labelling doesn't entice people into learning the habit if they're having trouble or not interested in reading it.

(As expected,) I didn't get anything in the mail today, but I did get my grade for FAILCLASS. So I guess I have to hunker down and write this, no matter how long it takes me :P


Kris was not amused last week. He got a terrible grade on his essay, and because he cited sources for his research, but didn't cite any class readings.  In the wording on the course syllabus, this is only ONE thing -- and not unambiguously stated -- out of ~nine things that the essays are supposed to be graded on. I don't have the marking scheme next to me right now, but the usage of external sources was actually a big part of the grade.

In my experience, whenever an assignment or essay test is to be graded on a rubric with specific criteria, a copy of said rubric has always been distributed to us in advance, so we know from what categories the points are going to come so that we can focus our attention on meeting all of those objectives. We got them even for high school graduation exams (though they were from nice teachers who wanted to better prepare us for the exams). But nope, we were in the dark here.

Kris was prepared to escalate the issue to the higher authorities if necessary, but he talked to the teacher after the exam and she said that if he could revise the essay to include class readings, then she'd reevaluate it. No big deal.

I'm fortunate to not have needed to go through that kind of disappointment and process. In fact, she quite liked my essay (GEE I WONDER WHY... -- IT WAS ON CHINESE PARENTS). But one remark that she gave both my and Kris' essays was that we didn't include something about our own experiences. Now, if it were supposed to be a reflection essay, I can understand. But this is (explicitly on the syllabus, I believe) a research essay, where such reflections are totally inappropriate.

This confuses me.

The day before the exam, I decided to write out definitions of all of the terminology listed on the review sheets. The other stuff on those sheets were questions that were either really-short-answer material or you-can-write-a-book-on-it material, so I didn't really want to look at it just yet. But even the terminologies were sometimes listed multiple times or were relatively self-explanatory, so after doing most of that, I kinda gave up on it. And then I stared at the review sheets for the next eight hours or something. I skimmed the readings that were on the review sheets if I hadn't read them already (I'd pretty much stopped reading after doing my presentation), if not before that. By the time I finished staring, I think I only had time to sleep for a little more than an hour. Staring at the sheets was all I could do, because I was just SO TIRED of it all.

Before the exam, our teacher goes up to the whiteboard and meticulously copies the exam instructions off of a piece of paper: "1. Do not speak during the exam. 2. The unauthorized use of communications, listening, [...] and computational devices are _[sic] prohibited."

Kris wasn't anxious at all. He walked in proclaiming "I feel GREAT!!!" in his usual energetic manner. He had a full nights' sleep and only looked at the stuff in the morning. I was so tired that I left out a syllable on my first attempt to sign my name on the exam booklet.

There were five definition questions, eleven (?) short-answer questions, and a choice between two "essay" questions. More accurately, they were long-answer questions. One of them was a compare/contrast question, and the other asked about what you "took home" about the theme of the course: the "intersection of race, class, and gender in the educational experience" (don't people theorize and write books about that?). I think a lot of people wrote on the second question. They were writing pages upon pages in their booklets, when the whole question was only worth seven points. (To compare, the definitions were one point each and the short answers were between 1 -3 points each.) It was kind of funny that you were asked to use (and label) "concepts" (read: terminologies) from class in the long-answers.

So of course I wrote on the compare/contrast question. But it was a little bit challenging because it asked to compare/contrast between structural functionalist and critical perspectives on one issue and, to be honest, I don't think we really spent any time on functionalist perspectives in class. If it had been present, it would have been in the readings. In class it was always the critical viewpoint -- "how/why is it broken/unfair/discriminatory? How can we bring about EQUALITY/JUSTICE/FREEDOM?" A functionalist view, I think, tries to explain how things are the way they are and why it's working fine that way, so there's a little less to talk about. But certainly there was no shortage of critical perspectives in the readings -- they were chosen for that purpose!

In any case, seeing that I didn't mention AZN PPL at all in my exam, I went ahead and signed my name in Chinese on the front of the booklet next to my English signature. Maybe it got me brownie points, but given how much we harped on in class about how it's unfair/unjust/racist to treat an Aboriginal student in a classroom as though they're an expert on all Aboriginal culture, it seems ironic that I, as the only Asian student in the class, have been treated throughout the course as though I represent the Asian viewpoint. Especially when I try so hard to identify as Finnish, because then there's that pressure on me to "be Chinese" and I'm just really really uncomfortable with bringing up my Chineseness all the time.

And then I picked up my red pen and corrected all of the grammatical/spelling mistakes on the question booklet before tucking the question booklet into my answer booklet and turning in my papers ;-)

Well, at least it's all over now. I'd said at the beginning of term that even if I were to drop the course, I'd keep the textbook because I like sociology. But nope, I sold it (I didn't finish reading the whole thing, either). Good riddance.

Week 12

If I were to write this post in some kind of temporal order, my previous post would cause some disruption.

I've also been somewhat stressed-out and ill all week so I really can't remember any details. Since Thursday night I can't eat anything without getting heartburn or something. Probably some stress-related response. I sure hope it is just that. I spent most of today in bed, and since I don't have any assignments due immediately after the weekend (a rare occurrence, it seems, and a welcome one), I knuckled down and upgraded my computer to Windows 7 earlier this evening. It went pretty smoothly, and I'm just wrapping my head around some of the differences. Consider this my official "first post" from W7.

On Monday I checked out some books from the library for my essay. I didn't really have a clear idea of what I wanted to write about, but I knew it was going to be about Chinese-Canadian students and their parents, so I got a stack of books.

I also pulled out this book just because I could. It kept my interest for a little while. It's an ethnographic study of the social interactions in two each of London and Helsinki middle schools, and though it's researched and written with a feminist agenda, it wasn't heavy-handed like FAILCLASS lessons. Or I may just be predisposed to enjoy reading it because of my interests. Whatever.

Tuesday's class was supposed to be on the relationship (or lack thereof) between one's education and one's work. The class was split to discuss a few items regarding this, but more of the items were really about the relationship between one's gender and one's work, which is - again - something that's discussed in SOC 301 and I really really don't think it's a good use of time to rehash that in this class in a sloppy manner.

I got the grade for my presentation. I think she's just an easy marker. The typed comments didn't really say anything about my actual presentation skills ("well prepared"... the night before?) or the critical content. She was appreciative of my token minority status in her class (not that she used those words or anything), so that the assigned readings about Asian students weren't completely lacking in relevance to everyone else; and also there were a couple of sentences on how she totally had similar experiences of Asian expectations from her parents in China. La la la.

In Thursday's class, just about everybody showed up bleary-eyed from working on their essays. I don't think anyone actually wanted to write it. I finished mine right at midnight, so I was able to get some sleep, though I slept in until 7:35 and had to run to get coffee and get to class (speaking of coffee, if I continue to get coffee each morning I have FAILCLASS and collect stamps on my loyalty card, I'll get a free coffee on the last lecture! why is there an extra day of class this year?). The presenting student, "Joe" (actually Geoff -- ... uh never mind), talked about the part in the textbook about teachers and professionalization (I kind of actually wonder why we take it for granted that teaching deserves to be a profession anyway?). The book uses the word "proletarianization" as a section heading. The class laughs. Geoff laughs. Marxists really don't have anything better to do than to make up words like that. The teacher's discussion questions were still on the job market (for teachers) and gender differences. Seriously. Let's get on with it.

I'm starting to get instructor evaluations in my classes, and David and I are trying to think of what kinds of comments we'll write for this class. We can't totally rip on our teacher; she is putting in effort, and we want to give her credit for that. Maybe she needs to focus the course on a variety of viewpoints, and to think clearly through the objectives for each lesson. And not so much reading.

A little more about my essay: since I didn't actually look through my books until Wednesday afternoon, I felt super-panicked, but at the same time not worrying too much. Strictly speaking, my essay doesn't have a lot of "critical analysis" and is a bit more descriptive, but IMO that's still sociology. Since she'd wanted electronic copies as well as paper copies, I decided to use only physical, paper books as references in my essay. Then emailed the essay too. (Because either we give you paper copies and you'll have to scan them or type out the URLs to check our references; or we send you copies by email and you print them off yourself to write on them. I'm not convinced of why we should give all of that to you on a platter.)



I have to confess that my faith and my pride have been hurt a lot lately... there's this guy who's been coming to Scandie club for the last few weeks and he's just really obnoxious and a real bully. Obnoxious about his Finnish citizenship (I'm choosing my words carefully here) and obnoxiously proud of his delinquent/social parasitic behavior, for a philosophy student. At least other difficult Finnish men I've dealt with have had moral compasses.

But how do we deal with bullies? I wish I could just ignore him but he's in my space, the space that I have normally on Thursdays to visit my friends, and I can't just ignore him if I'm needing to discuss things with my friends that I don't trust with anybody else, least of all someone like him who turns everything I say back against me because he thinks it's funny. To fight back - the other choice? I fear that I may lose my faith completely, fragile enough as it is. Sometimes sitting here I'm just so angry that I almost want to throw all of my Finnish books and papers out.

Auttakaa minua! D: