Starting the year 2019, before I forget...

Year 2019 ha started quite actively so I have to make the first blog before I forget everything.

Work

There has been some progress at my workplace. I finally got my staff ID card with my own face. It made me very happy, it is one sign of the fact I’m at least almost officially recognized.

My new card

With my nearest colleagues

My workstation is still in the old place but we are getting ready to move it to totally new campus. The first part of it is already in use and I visited there with colleagues. The architecture seems quite impressive but I don’t like the idea of open offices - even if there are also silent places and separate meeting rooms.

At the new campus

Sports

My sport life has started busy. I have a season ticket for a gym and I’ve visited there about twice in a week. 

There has been enough snow (actually much more than needed...) to ski so I have been skiing almost every weekend.

I also bought figure skates and went skating with them for the first time of my life. Since then I’ve never skated with skates with toe picks and it made my skating a bit clumsy. 

On the ice

Finally a dense cushion of snow stopped me and turned the skate to the toe picks which finally made me fall. My arms and elbows were quite sore and I went to the hospital to check whether there would be any fractures. I was X-rayed and after that I was called to the operation room where the doctor said I have a microrupture in my right radius and it must be plastered. So I got a modern “plaster” made of wood chips and biological membrane. They also said they will contact me after some more doctors have seen my X-ray images.

Not so happy birthday cake

The worst thing was it was my birthday and I had to cancel the meeting with my grandkids. I also had to replan many things that would be inconvenient with my right arm plastered. On the other hand I wondered: I’ve never had fractures but I had an impression that they would hurt – and this one actually didn’t. I even pushed snow with a snow shovel and did many other things I haven’t seen any person with fractures doing.

After this unhappy weekend I got a call from the hospital: My images have relooked and the fracture turned out to be a vein channel and I was invited to take the plaster away. So I still have had no fractures in my life as far as I know.  I had to replan my replans and try to forget which things I wasn’t able to do with the plastered arm.   

Removing the plaster

Wonder healing...?

Politics

My political year has also started with full of activities. The first one was implementation of our new Name law. Before that you had to show some evidence for the officials that you are in the gender reassignment process. Now it is possible to show the need for the change also in other ways. Now it is also possible to have a mixture of male and female names – the combination possibly needed by transvestites, some non-binary and intersex people.

We assumed there would be some troubles in implementation of the name law in registry offices so we made a survey about the experiences. We will send the results to the Ministry of Justice to get the process better.

My friend Tanja wanted to be the first one to use the new legislation. So we went to the registry office early in the morning 2^nd of January – the earliest possible time to do it. She wanted to have Tanja her official name with no male name with it. It took some weeks before she got the first information about her application. She was asked to give some more information about her gender reassignment process – which was totally against the policy of the new law. So we contacted the Ministry of Justice where we got a statement where it was made clear that such requirement should not be used. The result of our action was fast: Tanja got her new name the next day!

At the registry office with Tanja and Tuija

I also made my application for my new name. Or actually it was new only in juridical sense, I just added Anukatariina to my old male name. In my application I told that I live mostly as Anukatariina but I still need my male identity in some special situations. I told my story during the last few years and added lots of pictures as a proof. 

Hey, what am I doing....? 

My situation seems to be more complex, because it has taken some weeks with no decision. On the other hand my friend had made almost identical application in another registry office and her case is already ready – probably as the first male-female name in Finland.

I attended the Educa expo for teachers at the Seta showroom. We had material for the staff working with kids with variety of gender and sexual orientation. We were mostly well received and our material was very popular.

At Educa expo. BTW: As I forgot to name my organization in that place is "Nainen" (Woman) in my card.

  Unfortunately there was some kind of campaign of religious fundamentalist who tried to take space in our showroom. We answered the place is non discrimination area so we dragged them out of the showroom area and their aggressive message can frighten someone. There I had some discussion with some of them outside of the area probably with no harmony as a result.   

The new year means also new plans for political activities. As a chair of Dreamwear Club I attended the summit of the chairs of Seta member organisations.  I also continue in the Seta Trans political group.

A new and interesting opening has been anti hate crime activity. I attended the meeting in the Ministry of Justice about this issue. We were sorry to tell the authorities the reason for very obvious underestimated findings of hate crimes concerning the sexual orientation or gender diversity are result of things as follows:

1.      Victims don’t recognize the crimes as such

2.      The police officers don’t recognize them as such

3.      Victims don’t believe they are taken seriously

4.      In many case the police officers don’t take the crimes seriously

5.      The victims also cannot recognize discrimination and don’t know what to do about it.    

To solve all the problems is a vast task. One little thing to get things better could be a internet site where different situations and ways to get help are described. We also would need kind of “rainbow sensible” police officer. I heard there really is one in Finland (In Sweden there has been Gay Polis for decades...). We planned an option to have a link to this institution to make the victims feel safer when they contact police.

At the Ministry of Justice

 Culture

My cultural life hasn’t been very lively. Once I went to a symphony concert with my friend Harri. Last time we were there together was nine years ago and my feelings were very different: Then I was very nervous and thought a colleague who happened to be there would definitely recognize me and I would be “outed” – well she naturally didn’t recognize me and I lived closeted many years after the incidence. Now there also were a colleague who didn’t notice me – so I naturally went to say her hi!   

At the concert hall

The other night life activity has been a burlesque show. The synopsis of the show pieces is approximately invariant but the innovations how to express it is sometimes with imagination. The best thing in burlesque shows is the feeling of community, the audience is also dressed mostly in pin up style and takes part very actively. This is what I like the most. 

Burlesque audience

The blog may be commented in English

Blogia voi kommentoida myös suomeksi.

Bloggen kan kommenteras även på Svenska.

A short story about the long Christmas 2018

Before Christmas I was quite exhausted after so many activities at work and other places. I even got ill during the last week in spite of my normal biological state. So I worked at home to get the rest duties done - even had a seminar online.

Our children announced no one is around during the Christmas so we decided to choose a sort of do nothing strategy. It included the Christmas time at a Spa in Rakvere, Estonia. There we had almost five days to avoid any obligations: Only breakfasts, dinners and massages and beauty cares were scheduled. Otherwise we concentrated in walking in the town, swimming in different kinds of pools and do some gym - or just relaxing.

After the Christmas Eve dinner

This pool was even too warm

Exercising 

Having a pedicure

The worst thing in the hotel Christmas was you just couldn’t hide from various versions of Christmas carols in uninterrupted chain.  However in the Christmas evening I also played some of my versions, not very easily identified, though...

Improvising The Jazz Sparrow in the Christmas Morning... 

Rakvere is is a town of 15 000 inhabitants situated in the North East part of Estonia. The district is mostly populated by Estonian Russians but Rakvere is mostly Estonian speaking. Actually it is an old Estonian German city Wesenberg, founded in 14^th century. And of, course, there is an old German castle that is blown up by Peter the Great – a very usual story in Estonia. The ground of the area contains oil shale and therefore there are some mines for that smoking stuff.

Rakvere Castle

Some parts of the city have remained the pre war feeling with well off houses along the streets – nowadays only partly renovated. Of course there are the Soviet layer and also the modern layer of buildings.   

At the Trinity Church of Rakvere

After coming home we finally had our own Christmas preparations because our children and grandchildren came for Christmas dinner. When we went shopping to get stuff for it we noticed many Christmas things was quite cheap – we even got some orchids for free!

Making my wafels...

...and different ways to enjoy them

We had two sittings, one for my and the other for my spouse’s offspring. The regime varied a little but in both cases my nettle buckwheat wafers with Smetana and smoked whitefish were included.

Incorruptible opinions on my biscuits

The year changed between the two sittings. I hope the new one will be as happy as the last one was to me - and I hope it for everyone.

My toast to the New Year

The blog may be commented in English

Blogia voi kommentoida myös suomeksi.

Bloggen kan kommenteras även på Svenska.

Before the Christmas 2018, ending the semester

The end of the semester didn’t give anything special change to my life. However it was full of action and in some cases even surprises.

In the beginning of November I attended the Rainbow History Club organized by Seta. There we heard stories of rainbow life and battle for the rights from the sixties. The stories were a huge evidence to prove the importance of the human right work: The situation has become better due to very hard and perseveringly work: First decriminalization, then depathologization and finally legal equality – the latter still being partly incomplete and in many ways also unimplemented in everyday life. 

With a veteran Thea

Talking about the future on the basis of the history

  

This year I was exceptionally deeply involved in TransHelsinki happening in November. The Trans Support Centre hava gradually withdrawn from the organization of the event because of the lack of the staff so someone had to replace it. And this time it seemed it was me – with the help from many other people, of course. But this is typical when things are done with voluntary resources - they just tend to gather for few persons. In a small core team we created planning platforms for the different events, coordinated the overall structure, the Trans Community Seminar and the Candle light event Transgender Day of Remembrance, remembering the trans people murdered this year in the world. The task also involved details like catering, presenter recruitment, seminar room reservation, AV system checks, communication with police and the staff of House of Parliament. My person is not very promoter-like and it took some extra energy to make all this during the spare time. So afterwards I felt a bit tired and decided not to be that much the central person for organizing TransHelsinki next year.

Anyway it seemed the events went well, in spite of some kind of lack of audience. The reason for the latter must be quite late and maybe also inadequate information – things were too late ready to be well informed.

Transgender Day of Remembrance event at the stairs of the House of the Parliament

My personal output was my presentation in the Trans Community Seminar where I considered the reasons for the frustration of lads that are not very happy with the positive development of the LGBTI rights. I concluded that in Finland he is sort of endangered relic but on the other hand he has too much brothers in other countries and we should really be aware of the new and well organized wave containing both populist and fundamentalist religious origins and funds.

My presentation at the seminar

Discussion at the seminar

     

The other major political event was Seta representative assembly at the end of November. This time it was in Tampere. The agenda was “normal”, new chair and some members of the board was elected.

Om my way to Tampere

The Dreamwear Club representatives

It seems recently the chair candidates have been mostly trans people. I wonder whether it may be so because just now the trans issues are even more acute in the agenda than gay and lesbian issues.

The new chair of Seta, Sakris Kupila

The place was far from the city and the organizers have planned that the evening happening would take place in the gay bar in the city. However we old ladies of Dreamwear Club were too tired to go there so we had our own evening meeting with a glass of water – the only thing that was available in the smoke and alcohol free hotel after 6 p.m.!  

A peaceful evening with an almost empty water bowl

This year I had to share my time between DWC Monday coffee evenings and my dance rehearsals. The solution was I made the coffee table ready and left the place when the event officially started. The situation was the same also in the case of the last one which also was our “pikkujoulu”, Little Christmas. Some years ago I used to bake the traditional Christmas pastry at the Seta kitchen. Since they had the office reconstructed they have no oven so I had to do it at home.

Baking for the Pikkujoulu

At work this semester has gone mostly as Anukatariina, the male days have been very rare exceptions. I’ve always liked the interaction with the students the most but it seems it has been even more pleasant part of my work. And the highlight of this was the comment of a student in the middle of the laboratory rehearsals: “We just want to tell you we like you very much as a teacher.” And yes, I like them very much as well.

Giving a pop up lesson about the gender diversity

At the X-ray laboratory rehearsals

I still had some time to do other things than work and activism. I purchased a museum card which allows me to visit a large selection of museums for free. So far I’ve visited the national art museum Ateneum and a brand new gallery, Amos Rex with its light installations. At Ateneum I hadn’t enough time to properly see all the sections I want to see, but now I can go there again anytime it’s suitable for me.   

Amos Rex

Ateneum

The theater activities have been rare. The only one was a musical The Kinky Boots. The performance was excellent but the message of acceptance and non discrimination was distorted by very pejorative joke about being a crossdresser – the crossdressing persons in the musical are drag queens.

The interlude sparkling with my musical friend Harri

One day I walked through a nearby mall when I was asked to turn a lucky dip. It was a campaign of a gym at the mall and I got an invitation to a trying out week at the gym. I chose the week I had some extra free time so I had an opportunity to visit there three times. During my first time I even had a personal trainer who introduced the fitness machines she thought I would need – I’ve never used such devices. So during the last two times I could use them safely on my own. The place was nice and situated perfectly to fit my schedule but the price for my intensity of use was far too high so I decided just to say no for the offer.  But now I have some other ideas to get my body more fit, we will see...

At the gym

This semester my belly dance project had a sad ending: I had purchased a costume for the performance, I’ve trained the choreography pretty well - and the week of the last rehearsals and the performance the belly dance agenda changed to belly problems. The other ladies did it well, but gosh I’d like to be there with them.

Trying on the dress. The dresses in the plastic bags were really used in the performance.

The blog may be commented in English

Blogia voi kommentoida myös suomeksi.

Bloggen kan kommenteras även på Svenska.

The Macedonian moment

The year 2018 has been exceptionally warm and the mid October was still much above the average temperatures.  So when I considered whether to change the winter tires the idea sounded silly in the temperature of plus 17 Celsius. The idea sounded even sillier when the consideration was should I need winter tires as we come back from Thessaloniki where the temperature would be constantly over twenty degrees. I also looked at the long term forecast and noticed the temperature would be over zero in the night we would come back. So I didn’t change the tires.

Biking just before the trip to Thessaloniki

And no, we didn’t drive to Thessaloniki, we flew. The flight was a bit silly, first fly over the destination to Athens and then fly backwards over the Aegean sea. And we had quite a hurry, the check in was almost completed when we landed. However we were guided straight to the gate via extra route – it seems Greeks are masters of handling exception situations.     

Happy to get the connecting flight from Athens

   The first evening at the balcony of the hotel

  Our view to the sea

The hotel has the name The Queen Olga. Olga was a daughter of the Russian emperor Nikolai the First and married the Greek King Giorgios.

Meeting Queen Olga

The hotel is situated about two kilometres from the centre of the city. It is run by a family, my travel bureau (= my spouse) prefers booking this kind of hotels to support the local people. 

     The room service was ok.

Thessaloniki is the second-largest city in Greece, with over 1 million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of Greek Macedonia. It is situated by the Aegean Sea. It is founded  just after Alexander the Great period and have lived Hellenistic , Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and finally the nowadays Greek periods.  The city became a part of Greece as late as 1912 after the war between Turkey and Greece. Then the big amount of population was sort of swapped: The Turks living there for centuries had to go and the Greeks who had lived in Anatolia area moved to town.

  

The town has been damaged quite a lot during the various wars so the whole picture is a mixture of old and new. The essential element is a Byzantine church, smaller and bigger here and there. The archaeological excavations may be seen everywhere, you just cannot build anything there without hitting something from the ancient world. The remains of the old fortress system may be seen in the White Tower by the sea and the bigger ruin area on the top of the hill.

Walking to the city at the seaside

At the White Tower 

The first morning we decided to get the overall of the city. So we walked by the sea to the White Tower and took the Hoponhopoff through the city to the fortress hill. On the hill also the old town is situated but opposite to many other towns it is mostly for living and there is only very few shops and bars. We walked through the ruins and old streets and admired the view to the town and the sea beneath us.

The twigs of the trees swept our heads while travelling in the second store

 

At the wall of the fortress

We took another hoponhopoff to the city to have something to eat. We chose a fish restaurant. In the menu I chose bream fillet. Bream is a very common fish in Finnish lakes and also considerable tasty but very rarely available, mostly because of its bony flesh. This one I was served was even tastier and without a single bone! Later it turned out bream actually meant gilthead which actually is related to perch and not at all any bream. 

With the so-called bream

When we wanted to pay the check the result was an extra dessert. The result of the second request was free collection of  liquers and rakis....

In the evening we were invited to a concert by Iphigeneia. She is a friend of my spouse from their time at the University in German and they haven’t met for over thirty years. So Iphigeneia came to get us to the Concert Hall in her car. When Iphigeneia and my spouse met it was like there wouldn’t have been any gap in their friendship.

The concert repertoire consisted of chamber music of a Russian-German composer Alfred Scnittke. Scnittke uses the musical material very economically and on the other hand he combines the late romantic and modern material opposing each others.

After the concert we were invited to the after party by the pianist of the concert. So we had a nice evening with Greek ladies.

With Iphigeneia...

...and the other ladies

According to the forecast the next day was said to be the warmest during our visit so we chose it for our beach trip. There aren’t any beaches very near Thessaloniki but a bit further in the east there are a lot of beaches available. There are three peninsulas east of the city with lots of sand and sun. The problem was we had to use the bus and the bus station was about ten kilometres away from the city, obviously because of a gigantic Ikea near it. Luckily Iphigeneia drove us there, otherwise we would have to take a bus to Ikea and another to the bus station!

We chose the nearest peninsula. The bus had no hurry in getting there so we had a marvellous opportunity to see Macedonian views. This part of the province had quite small hills covered by olive trees, wineyards and fruit trees of different kinds. The autumn colours in the fruit trees were from yellow to very bright orange. I also spotted some artificially looking hills which I presumed to be ancient tombs.

A view from the bus window

Our destination was a little village Kallithea on the eastern side of the peninsula. The village situates  near the sea lying down under the steep slope. The tourist season was over and there were only few people in the village and on the beach. The wind was calm and the waves very gentle so it was very pleasant just to relax in the sea. After swimming we had a little sunbath. It was pleasant to shut the eyes and hear the sound of diagonally entering waves wandering from the right ear to the left ear.

Souvlaki moment in the village 

In the gentle waves of the Aegean Sea

We, two Russian lads and a Swedish family on the beach

The next day we spent quite a lot of time in the Archaeological Museum. There we saw the basic exhibition and special exhibition about the handicraft from the stone ages to the Byzantine era. The Macedonian district is rich of many kinds of reminiscences of the past. And it turned out I had been right during our bus trip, the artificial looking hills really were tombs.

Masterpieces from the ancient era

In the afternoon we were invited for a dinner to the home of Iphigeneia. She lives with her 90 years old mother in the flat quite near our hotel. Because of Air bnb boom she had lost her cottage in the same peninsula we just visited. And it had just turned out she have to move from the flat they have hired the last 44 years for almost similar plans of the landlord.

The dinner visit was prolonged to the evening, we had so much to talk about. The mother turned out to be a very bright and civilized lady and she told us about the life in Thessaloniki and other parts of Europe where she and her family have lived. She also seemed to like me specially – once she had had two brothers and an old closet full of wonderful old ladies costumes which they all three tried on when they used to played as they were kids.

The last day we still walked in the city to spot some historical places, such as the main cathedral and an ancient forum area. Naturally we also made some shopping, for example I updated my red handbag.

The main Cathedral, not too big though 

The Thessaloniki Forum

At noon we took a taxi to the airport. We took some extra time to be in time and not to hurry in any way. Unfortunately it didn’t help to be in time the whole trip: The connecting flight from Munich to Helsinki was almost two hours late! So when we arrived in Helsinki airport car park it was about 1.30 a.m. And despite the forecast the temperature was below the zero and the car covered with frost. Since we hadn’t winter tires I had to be extra careful in foggy places where there was a danger of black ice on the surface of the road. But as you can see we made it.

After such an experience it wasn’t too hard to entice myself to change the tires.

The blog may be commented in English

Blogia voi kommentoida myös suomeksi.

Bloggen kan kommenteras även på Svenska.