A lot of people like to lead with a financial justification for doing decent things, whether it be investing in green energy (“it’s cheaper in the long run”) or not working too much (“I am paid to work for <N> hours per week, not more”).

Please remember we can also do decent things because they are the decent thing to do – regardless of monetary considerations!

One of the biggest problems with Fedi is people treat it like Stack Overflow: they see everything as a problem they can solve; they disagree with people's premises and questions; and they compete with each other for the 'best' advice.

Just walked past two Stockholm taxis, one had a “typical fare” of 357 kr, the other 699 kr. The mind boggles.

This is why nobody trusts taxis off the street here anymore, and why hotels and airports have huge signs warning their customers.

Hopefully Sweden will realise how ludicrous this is (alongside all the other negative consequences of taxi deregulation) and reverse course.

And then (surely as night follows day) Finland will copy Sweden, and our two countries will finally get a decent taxi service back. 🙏

Sellainen maa Suomi on, jossa huoltoasemasta löytyy kalastuslupaautomaatti. 🐟

I’m the parent of a one year old child. I’ve received several invitations to speak at workshops and conferences this year, and not one has been willing or able to accommodate me giving a remote talk.

Did we learn nothing from the pandemic? And if I with all my privilege (and being gallus enough to ask) can’t do it, what hope for precarious, early career, minoritised academics?

@nprofile1q...

#AcademicChatter #HybridWorking #parenting

Happy Trans day of Visibility, everyone. Forty-one minutes to go here in Finland, so I’m just in time.

Many years ago, when I started for the first time at my current workplace, I was deeply uncomfortable expressing my gender openly. Things feel a lot easier these days, and I’m proud to be open and transparent about being enby at work, even if I am still reluctant to “wear that skirt”.

I wish everyone the chance to be seen and accepted and welcomed, and to feel safe, at home, at work and among their friends.

#TDoV #TransDayOfVisiblity

A few random thoughts on (YA) fantasy and English language teaching in Scotland, now I have finished reading all six Earthsea books.

There are two big “you can’t”’s I remember from secondary school.

The first is that I couldn’t get piano lessons unless we had a piano at home (a proper piano, not some keyboard), and I’ll save that rant for another time.

The second is that in S5 (first year of lukio, for Finns following along) I couldn’t do my Higher English Specialist Study on The Lord of the Rings.

The Specialist Study is (was) a 3000 word glorified book review/textual analysis essay on a book the student had chosen themself and studied independently, graded externally (or at least moderated) by the national examinations authority. I was a much less mature reader than my peers, so the teacher-pleasing works like Sunset Song or The Silver Darlings were not something I was going to pick up for myself (not that anyone motivated me to anyway). And I definitely wasn’t mature enough to write about (say) the use of language to convey a sense of feminist melancholy in Sunset Song. But Lord of the Rings was cool, so why not? Because it is a book for children was the (paraphrased) reply.

Instead I read and did something with Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World. And I got a decent grade. In any case I’ve read plenty of classic Scottish works by Neil M Gunn, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Nan Shepherd, Muriel Spark, etc. in the years since. But why is fantasy not a suitable subject for critical enquiry (even if LotR was a bit cliché even in 2001)?

Le Guin’s afterword to the last Earthsea book, The Other Wind, points out that Young Adult is a marketing term, with no particular features except maybe a young protagonist. And that readers of all ages can (within reason) enjoy books from any market segment. What if my teacher had said “why not read the first three Earthsea books and write about gender roles in Earthsea?”. I think we could have both been very happy with the outcome.