YEAR END MEME 2011

This image has been stuck in my head since I took it (last day in Japan).

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?

Went to Moscow and Tokyo.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don’t think had any.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Not relatives, but Isshi passed away and I count him as a close one.

5. What countries did you visit?

Russia, Estonia and Japan.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

More money, some thinking from my friends (maybe from me too but…), one thing is a secret or now but that, a new apartment, one more secret.

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Every gig in Finland (Mucc, Girugämesh, D etc.) 

11.3. The Great Tohoku Earthquake & Tsunami

2.7. my sisters’s wedding

6.7. arriving to Japan

15.7. Daisuke Memorial Live at Shinkiba Studio Coast

31.7. Schwarz Stein Revival Live at Takadanobaba AREA

23.8. Dir en grey

22.12. Secret.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Japan. Getting rid of Sanna at last, but I dunno if I should give “the credits” to her for that…..

9. What was your biggest failure?

School. Should have saved some more money as well.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Mental exhaustion.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

The Japan trip, my Hannya-mask and Onni-statue for Miia and Jarno. Microwave oven for parents.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

No ones.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Sanna didn’t come as a surprise to be honest, but Lis is still a complete mystery for me. There was no warning from her and we didn’t deserve that.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Daily stuff like food etc., also Japan as a whole.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Haha, Japan XD Daisukes Memorial Live and SS revival. JaME article about Dir en grey-fans I took part in (here in Finnish)

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

Sousou at Daisukes Memorial. Dir en greys whole DUM SPIRO SPERO album but also Zakuro.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

- happier or sadder? mostly sadder but I have a secret that is making me SO happy!!

- richer or poorer? poorer even though I didn’t have money last year either XD

- thinner or fatter? fuller ;D

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

School, stuff in Japan.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Reminiscence. Give a fuck.

20. How did you spend the holidays?

With family.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?

No.

22. How many one-night stands?

None.

23. What was your favorite TV program?

American Horror Story by far.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

YES.

25. What was the best book you read?

Pedon syleily.

26. What was your favorite film of this year?

Hesher was amazing, also enjoyed Eagle and tons of others!

27. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

Casual Maria  XD (aka Jeans, t-shirts, harempants, cardigans, religious necklaces and white Converses.)

28 Whom did you miss?

My family.

29. Who was the best new person you met?

The guy at Daisukes Memorial!! Also Rintaro was a funny dude.

30. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.

Don’t trust people, but don’t become too cynical.

Marked.

Update.

So, answered all the Diru-questions for JaME and it's only Tuesday!! Go me!
Of course I used them as my todays writing at 750words, take a look at the some of the stats for the writing:

Haha, of course I'm happy writing about something I love and since Diru are my religion (well, kinda :D) the other pie looks nice as well.

It's Independence Day in Finland, Happy 94th Birthday dear Suomi!! I'm going to go bake some cinnamon buns now, so adieu¯!!

End Bullying. Telling My Story.

I saw this video on YouTube by a boy named Jonah. I'm sure some of you have already seen it (it was also posted by Lady Gaga on her Twitter last night so.... ), but I'll just put it up here as well. Watch it for me okay?

It hit home really hard, the boy is just what, 14 years old? He's going to 8th grade so out of all of his 8 years in school he's been bullied for 7, can you imagine that? To be bullied for the whole time you've ever been in real social contact with other people your age.. being fucking scared to goo to school because you know what's it going to be like again that day. I can. I was bullied from the first years of elementary school to maybe... 9th or 10th grade. I don't know if it was because I'm a twin (also my sister got bullied beside me) and people thought we could handle that or something, was it because I've always been kinda chubby, friends with the boys (because the bullying was done by girls, which I guess usually is the case with girls?) or maybe just my personality or something I've never even considered.

I had friends, mostly the boys since one of the popular boys was our parents' friends' kid and lived practically next to us and with him came all the other"cool" boys. My bullies were mostly girls from other classes, the popular, cute and friendly ones... yeah right. There were also a coupe of girls year older than me who I really didn't even know when they started the name-calling and pushing and shoving in the hallways, one girl in my class was a friend of the worst girl, I still don't know if she had anything to do with it or was I just an easy target or something. I was quite a social girl back then though, I knew most of my schoolmates and because me and my sis were the only twins in our school (not really a big school, 3 classes per each grade and 6 grades plus "the special" and "the troubled" kids' classes, so that makes something like... 20? And it was still the time when there actually weren't THAT many students in one class, maybe 20-25 so you can do the math, not that big of a school really) practically everyone knew us as well. I know some of the girls didn't have that good family-conditions but to this day I still don't care... If you have a though time at home still do not see the point of you coming to school and bully kids smaller/weaker/more vulnerable/whatever than you just because you're feeling like shit. It's really not the bullys fault that their parents fight or are divorced or whatever, but I don't get how it evolves to the point of constant bullying of a person you don't even know, to the point that the person doesn't want to go to school anymore, feels like shit all the time, can't trust people to be what they say, belittles themselves all the time or in worst cases wants to kill him or herself.

I don't believe that teachers or parents don't see the bullying going on,especially the teachers. My sister read a Fuck My Life to me recently "Today, our school started an anti-bullying policy, and we watched a video about bullying. After the video, I told a teacher about a bullying case going on that I know about. His response? "Tell someone who cares" as he walked away chuckling. FML" WHAT?!! How can he, as a teacher, be like this? How can he be all serious and nod his head in approvement while talking about the matter, show a video of the subject that touches SO MANY of his students and then say shit like this when actually confronted by a kid who probably had a hell of a time coming up to him and tell him about this? How can people be so hypocrite? In my opinion teachers should be at the forefront of this issue. They are there the whole day and I just can't accept that they wouldn't see the bullying going on. There is always someone there, it's just up to them if they do something about it or not. How hard can it be to contact the bullies' parents and tell them what their precious child is doing to other kids at school? Is it because they're afraid of the parents' reaction? Suck it up. You're supposed to be there for your students, how can you just sit there, drink you coffee and gossip with other teachers when one of the kids left to your responsibility is getting stuck in to a corner and called names, getting their stuff thrown around the schoolyard in the rain, getting their heart stepped on over and over again. How does it feel to you when you read from the next days newspaper that the said kid got home after a hellish day in your care and hung herself to a tree near her home so that her own father could find her hanging in there after hours of frantic searching? Do you still not care?

I had the same friends for the first maybe 8 years of my school life, give or take a few. I was "best friends" with this one girl from the 3rd grade to the 8th or 9th (God, today it seems like such a short time.....) and I really considered her as the best friend in my life. The fact is that she talked shit behind my back almost the whole time, she told our other friends that she thought I was the ugliest and fattest bitch she'd ever met, that I should just become a lesbian with my twinsis (as in together.... yeah, incest much?) and she was sure I wanted to steal her boyfriend at the 7th grade (the fact that we knew the boy before her, introduced them and that I, in all honesty, just really liked him AS A FRIEND, didn't mean a dick to her). As a matter of fact,my first boyfriend was the pretty popular boy I'm still friends with :) I remember it was me and my twinsis' 11th birthday and we has a small party and we were playing spin-the-bottle and I had to answer a question "Who do you like?" and I told them that it was him. (Which was pretty brave from me since he was sitting right across me!) But to my surprise he confessed that actually, he liked me too! So as mature 11 year olds we "started dating" which lasted a w hole two weeks XD Then that BFF of mine asked one day if I still liked him, which I didn't anymore (....;D) so she volunteered to go to his house and break up with him for me and I agreed, so she went to his house and came back like 10 minutes after and told me that the deed was done, AND! That now they were going out. Talk about a backstabbing bitch! Also she would be saying to me that she was sick, we couldn't hang out, but in reality she was with our other friends, they went swimming or to the movies and I was excluded from that.

At 7th grade (at this point I hung out with all the same people than at the previous grades except my BFF who went to another school) this girl I always went to school with just one day didn't show up at the end of the road where we met every morning. I went to school by myself and discovered that the whole group of girls just basically acted like I wasn't there anymore. I,to this day,don't know what happened. It went on for a month maybe and then one day magic happened and they could see and talk to me again! I got bullied verbally a lot during junior high (grades from 7th to 9th in Finland), by the same year-older-girls from my elementary school. Also the girls in my class were now friends with the older girls so it went on all day, everywhere. I didn't eat at the school cafeteria for the whole period, well, maybe two times. I still  hate eating somewhere surrounded by people. This time I practically knew it was because I remained friends with the cool and popular boys,m,a fat ugly girl, got to hang with the lovelies? Of course I understand it was hard for the girls *bitter laugh* The guys most probably never thought me as a girl, I was just one of the guys, which was fine for me. The guys also probably don't know, but without their friendship I most likely wouldn't have gone through all the bullshit I went through with them. So I would like to thank them for being there for me. You don't know what you meant for me.

I never thought about killing myself, I don't know if I was too naïve to really think about it or maybe my case wasn't so bad, maybe the fact that I had friends and my two lovely sisters and my parents there for me, and I don't approve the decision to end it all by dying, I think it's selfish and gives the people who bullied you too much power, but I do see why it seems as the only option to some kids.

Years after I last saw one of my bullies from elementary school I one day got a text message. It was from one of the worst girls back then. She apologized for bullying me... now I'm sure it was good for her, but to me, coming so late, it really meant nothing. I once read that a teacher of a2nd graders gave her class white sheets of printing paper and told them to crumble then as hard as they could. After the whole class had done so, she told them to open up the balls and try to smooth it back to crisp, wrinkless sheets. The kids tried but eventually someone said that it was impossible, that the papers wouldn't be neat and smooth again. Thats when the teacher told them that the papers represented all the kids who got bullied, even though the kids tried their hardest the papers would be forever wrinkled. I thought tat it was a really good way of explaining what bullying does to a person. I just hope there would be more teachers, adults, people, like her instead of the uncaring excuse of a teacher in the FML.

I think that this paper-method, along with the video Jonah made, would be very helpful in explaining the effects of bullying to a lot of children. I just don't know if the adults are ready to do something about "such a trivial matter". Its "only school" it'll "be over in a few years". Right?

It's the little things in life~