Fall 2018 Semester Started

After enjoying an exceptionally long and hot summer it was quite nice to start a new semester. One thing that made it exceptionally pleasant was that I even waited for seeing my colleagues after the wonderful spring semester with them. Actually we has a ”soft start” which included some drama pedagogic drills visiting the cottage of one of them and celebrating retirement of another.

Doing drama drill, photo by Matti Harju

BTW, I'm performing a lad but it doesn't seem to look very convincing...

At the cottage

Meeting in Helsinki City

Farewells to a just retired colleague

My work also includes something else as well. However, I had done some preliminary work in Summer and on the other hand I did so much in Spring so I have had rather light start. The students I have met are all familiar with me and so far I had to warn them only once that next time the lecturer would a dull male person...

The hot and dry summer had some consequences in my harvesting policy. The apple yield was enormous and good quality and we also had an opportunity to have them as much we wanted – which mean some 30 litres for juice and sauce. On the other hand the chokeberry harvest was a bit more than a litre instead of the normal over ten litres. I also skipped blueberry picking because of the dry forest and bought them for freezing.     

                                 Red and sweet apples from the garden of my sister-in-law


To me the most important harvest is naturally mushrooms. After the super dry summer the news started to spread that there would be a tremendous boletus edulis autumn so my spouse chased me to pick some for sauce. The result of the first trip was three Amanita virosas, the most poisonous mushrooms here – which I didn’t take.

Maybe I should not pick these...

The tragedy behind the poor situation is the fact that the rain that started after the dry season almost totally skipped our region. So I have found only few Boletus edulis so far and also very little other mushrooms we use to eat.

Even the ditches were totally dry till this week

                                        Some other boletus species found yet

The dance lessons continue with our leader Mikaela who started with us last spring. The choreography is in Egyptian rural style with walking sticks (No, we don’t just lean on them...!!) . So far it doesn’t seem too difficult but requires much home work for me, who have started my dance activities in the age of 56.

                                                     Photo by Luhtavilla

I’ve also been rather active in politics. I’ve done preparative work for a proper application note for the Name Law which comes into effect next year. The law text is very poorly written and without additive instructions the officials can do wrong and discriminative decisions concerning the name changes on the basis of gender identity.

The second preparatory thing is TransHelsinki week in November, especially the Transgender Day of Remembrance TDOR 20^th of November.

I also have been interviewed because of my successful coming out on the labor Exchange net site. I also told about the good practices how to manage the situation concerning the gender diversity at work places. The result is here.

Demonstrating at the Narinkkatori Helsinki

It seems the development of the trans peoples’ rights is not so smooth and easy going as one should except. Suddenly the Finnish trans investigation units announced that they stop the hormonal and surgical treatment to non binary people because, as they claim, there is not enough evidence for the positive effects... and yet the soon coming international classification ICD 11 will unite the categories binary and non binary gender incongruence!! Of course there was a demonstration against such and I’ve never heard so loud non binary shouts before.

The fifth activity has been very intense debating on different social media sites where the conservative Christians have tried to neglect the right to be him- or herself or whatever-self on the basis of one’s gender identity. In Finland the Helsinki Pride success has waked anxiety among these people and the anger and fear is very tangible. I have tried to solve the problem partly by writing up the basics every citizen should know about the issue and not worry too much about confusing the eternal balance of sexes. My blog about this issue is here. And yes, I know, the task is enormous....

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