taina

some notebooks II

2026-06-19T22:39:19Z

some of the notebooks i keep (updated):

diary
i keep a diary in A5 notebooks with lined pages. i'm on my twenty-seventh diary right now.

poëziealbum
notebook in which i ask friends to write down a poem (of their own or from another author), like a vriendenboekje. most people share a poem by someone else, but own works are highly appreciated.

private anthology
a notebook into which i copy poems (by other people) that i particularly like.

address book
what the name says.

recipe book
the recipes most worth remembering (or sharing). it already has the requisite dill stains.

poetry notebook
poems that i have written. i have them all in one place a google drive, but it feels good to have them stored in a place that isn't someone else's computer.

bullet journal
i write lists in it that will be relevant for a longer time. some of these i would have previously written in my A4 notebook.

squared notebook, A4
for all kinds of lists (TBRs, to do lists, ingredients, ideas...); doodles and sketches; poem drafts; other random notes. i used to fill up one of these per year, but nowadays i seem to write less in the A4 notebook, plus some of the functions have moved to other notebooks.

squared notebook, A5
i can't fit an A4 in my current backpack, so i have an A5 now for notes i write while on the move.

sticker book
a ringbound book with sticker paper, in which i can store stickers.

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travel diary: Stockholm-Hamburg night train

2026-06-13T21:29:59Z

a genuine diary extract:

A bit after 17:00, we could finally board our night train, SJ EuroNight 345, Stockholm-Berlin. We have berths 75 and 76 in carriage 21. There are crying babies in our carriage. Our first travel companion in our compartment is someone from the UK who's living in Stockholm for work. They're heading to Berlin for an ultimate frisbee tournament. Our second супутник joined us in Norrköping. They turned out to have lived in [Student City] for a while, a few years back.

S— took the top bunks and got ready for bed between 21:00 and 22:00. The final two passengers to our six-berth compartment boarded in Malmö, but I was asleep by then. I would not call this a comfortable way to travel, but I delight in the romance of pretending it's the 19th century.

( Next morning: )

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travel diary: meeting a conscript

2026-06-13T21:08:37Z

a genuine diary extract:

Me lähdettiin kolmeksi mummin luo kahville. Siellä olivat myös M—-eno sekä E—-serkku T—-poikaystävineen. E— on panssariprikaatin tiedustelujoukoissa MTLB-komentajana. Kyselin että ovatko asentaneet panssarivaunuihin drooninhäirintälaitteita.Ollaan kuulemma asennettu kun komentaja on sitä mieltä että on oltava drooninhäirintälaitteet (kuulostaa järkevältä), mutta niitä laitteita ei edes kytketty päälle (mitä hyötyä niistä sitten on...). Se armeijasta.

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travel diary: Tampere

2026-06-13T21:03:28Z

a genuine diary extract:

We happened across vegan restaurant Gopal. It has the usual buffet, but it's not the usual kind of all-you-can-eat: you fill a tray and then weigh it, and pay by weight. It's like €2.55 per 100 g, we got lunch for the both of us for something silly like €18.70. The food was great, and the crowd there was just the kind where we feel at home: queer and alternative. It was warm enough to sit outside.

After a pear ice cream at Tammelantori, it was finally time for the Moomin Museum. It revolved around the books and their illustrations. There were lots of original artworks and sketches [by Jansson], and dioramas constructed by Tuulikki Pietilä. I would have liked to learn a bit more about the, well, everything else: the comics, the merchandise, the impact on Jansson's further life and career, on Pietilä's life and career... But still, it was very much worth seeing. I bought a cheap pocket edition of Muumilaakson marraskuu from the gift shop. It's my favourite of the Moomin books and I'd like to have a copy in my own book collection.

We would've liked to see Pyynikki too, but it was a bit too far away. We just walked to Tammerkoski park and then to a restaurant for dinner. After that we had almost an hour to kull before our train, so we sat in the sun in the park again. S— fell in love with Tampere, she says she could live there.

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travel diary: family history

2026-06-13T20:53:51Z

a genuine diary extract:

Then we walked over to mummi for lunch. She told us more about mom's childhood and her own life. She was one of the few people in her family (after her older sister) to go to high school. They had to go to Oulu for that, which is 70 km away from the P— family farm near U—. She told us about ukki's family too. They are originally from Eastern Karelia, but they weren't war refugees: they moved to Lapland for work in the 1930s. That makes the timeline make sense, because I've heard stories about my grandfather L—'s brother E— befriending German soldiers in Lapland. (Though mummi did also mention there were Karelians who were evacuated during the Winter War, returned home in the välirauha, and then evacuated again during/after the Continuation War.) Mummi has worked in the Jyväskylä University library (she studied library science in Jyväskylä), but she was at the P— public library for most of her career.

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travel diary: Jyväskylä

2026-06-13T20:45:28Z

a genuine diary entry:

We went to Jyväskylä to my aunt K—. We made it to the bus without problems, despite mummi's anxieties. The views from the bus were very nice, and I couldn't decide whether to read, look out the window, or nap. I had time to do all three during the two-hour ride.

We arrived in Jyväskylä at 14:05. We went into the bookshop first to buy some postcards, then we had a cup of tea at Café Miriam's, a nice local café/bakery. Aunt K— met us after her workday, at 15:30 (she works as an English teacher). She gave us a tour of the arts and humanities campus of the University of Jyväskylä, where her and mom studied English together. Siiri the dog came with us, she was very excited to meet us! K— drove us around Jyväskylä for a while and showed us the JYU's sciences campus, mom's old student house, and various neighbourhoods.

K— showed us around in her house, and we had dinner with uncle J—. K— hasn't seen me in 11 years and she's never met S— before, but she trusts us with her entire dog: we were allowed to take Siiri out for a walk unsupervised. Only it started raining and she refused to move.

J— had yoga and K— had zumba class. We went to sauna in the meantime. It felt so good, oh, I've missed it! The view from the kitchen and living room is amazing, you can see —järvi peeking through the forest. There are no landscape pictures on the walls, that would be tasteless in a house with such a view.

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travel diary: Helsinki trams

2026-06-13T20:32:41Z

a genuine extract from my diary:

Kerta-ajo-HSL-liput ovat voimassa puolitoista tuntia. Keksittiin ajaa ratikalla Kauppatorilta [minne saavuttiin lautalla] Aleksanterinkadulle kun kerran pysty. Että ollaan päästy kulkemaan kelta-vihreän helsinkiläisen raitiovaunun kyydissä! Väärään suuntaan kyllä. Takaisin/oikeaan suuntaan ajettiin mainospeitteisellä ratikalla.

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travel diary: Lübeck-Helsinki ferry

2026-06-13T20:26:31Z

a genuine extract from my diary:

At 23:00 exactly, a shuttle took us straight into the ro-ro ferry. I hadn't at any point thought beyond getting on board – usually I just follow my parents. There was a reception desk on deck 7 though, and the cabin number (8039) was printed on the key card. We helped someone who introduced themself as M— – they were afraid to take the lift because they've been trapped in a lift all alone for three hours one time. We took their suitcases with is in the lift while they took the stairs. We left our own suitcases in our cabin and went to find the Late Night Dinner we'd booked. (We thought it'd be tomorrow night, but we're very happy to have it now.) The buffet was tiny, but the food was excellent.

This ferry, the Finnstar, seems smaller than the Stockholm-Helsinki ferries I remember. The car deck seemed small, and as far as I can tell there's just one central stairwell. Come to think of it, there's no promenade.

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vähemmän onnellisia kissaunia

2026-04-25T00:55:40Z

päiväkirjaan kirjattu uni:

Mä näin unta ettö kävelin talon läpi pimeässä, kun näin kissanmuotoisen varjon. Hätkähdin, sillä eihän rakasta Haisulia enää ole, ei se voi olla... Haparoin varjoa, jota epäilin harhaksi, ja löysinkin suureksi hämmästyksekseni oikean kissan. Mutta ei se Haisuli ollutkaan vaan joku muu kissa, harmaa ja raidallinen kyllä mutta sen vatsapuoli oli täysin musta. Iski ikävä rakkaan Haisulin pörröistä ruskeankeltaista mahaa.

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cat café carnage

2025-03-17T23:52:26Z

a genuine diary extract

"Toutefois, la café aux chats est une zone PVP. C'est la melée totale, un corps-à-corps brutal. La clientèle ne connaît aucune décence, ne respecte ni l'intégrité de l'espace personnel, ni les fondements de la vie en société. Les étudiantes se forcent un chemin entre nous pour toucher la chatte sur notre table ; les parenze lâchent leurs morveux sur les chats qui n'ont pas envie de caresses ou même les soulèvent au-dessus de nous pour les faire saluer la chatte ; les passanze dans la rue tapent sur le vitre sous nos yeux... Pour la clientèle du café aux chats, les autres humains ne constituent que des obstacles à vaincre – physiquement s'il le faut."

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alien encounters

2025-02-27T23:37:25Z

a genuine diary extract:

"I tend to think of the cat as basically a small, weird, and very dumb person. But sometimes I remember/realise that it's actually a small* animal that lives in my house, whose motivations are incomprehensible to me, whose thoughts are entirely unknowable and completely different from mine, whose gaze is alien. Not in a scary way, just in a Realisation way.

( * )

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pollution

2024-08-03T13:01:23Z

a genuine diary extract:

“I made a stop at some brambles by the roadside that I’ve been eyeing for a while, and snacked on blackberries. Most of them were out of reach, of course, but the accessible berries were bountiful too. They were the usual (familiar) mix of sour and sweet. There were no nettles growing between the brambles – usually those seem to like forming an unholy mix. (The roadside in question belongs to a busy road in an industry terrain. I’m going to get so much heavy metal poisoning but I’m so full of microplastics already that it probably makes no difference.)”

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rencontres insolites II

2024-07-16T21:38:35Z

a genuine diary extract

“I continue to be enchanted by the idea that a beast lives in my house, and I occasionally encounter it as it wanders about on its own incomprehensible business. And I can pick it up and hug it like a stuffed toy, and the beast tolerates it for a moment, until it expresses its impatience by wiggling a bit.”

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if you die there's no problem

2024-07-04T22:22:39Z

a genuine diary extract

“On peut rater deux des sept cours pratiques ce bloc. Le professeur nous a conseillé de les garder pour le cas où – « If, for example… say… a relative dies. Of course, if you die there’s no problem. »”

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tales from the dismal science

2024-07-04T22:04:09Z

a genuine diary extract

“Overheard out of context between two business economics students: ‘Wait, wait, wait. You went out with a guy from finance?’ Apparently that’s a deep place to sink even for a business student.”

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some notebooks

2024-06-28T13:39:32Z

some of the notebooks i keep:

diary
i keep a diary in A5 notebooks with lined pages. i'm on my twenty-fourth diary right now.

Great Notebook of Lists
A4 notebook with squared paper, like the notebooks i used for mathematics in high school (in fact the first one was a leftover maths notebook). in these i keep all kinds of lists (TBRs, to do lists, ingredients, ideas...); doodles and sketches; poem drafts; other random notes. i fill up roughly one of these per year.

four-year journal
a much thicker A5 notebook with one page for each day of the year. on each page, i write a 3-5 line journal entry for the same date of four consecutive years. i started on 28 May 2021, so i have almost a year left. it was a cheap notebook and is kind of falling apart.

selection of poems
a notebook into which i copy poems (by other people) that i particularly like.

poëziealbum
notebook in which i ask friends to write down a poem (of their own or from another author), like a vriendenboekje.

Board notebook
my notebook from my year as the Treasurer of my literary student association. that means i'm mostly done with it now, but i still refer to it occasionally and recently took some notes for a proposal i'll submit at the next general assembly.

Editor in Chief's notebook
same idea as the above, but for notes regarding the association's magazine of which i'm currently one of the Editors in Chief.

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new year's resolutions for 2024

2023-12-29T22:46:16Z

buy fresh lychees the next time i see them, no matter the price
experiment with poetic forms & conventions
draw & sketch more
express love & affection
lend out more books
unhaul more books
eat lots of cherries

( Read more... )

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"een goede werkgever"

2023-09-29T19:25:10Z

a genuine diary extract

"Ik kreeg van het pensioenfonds een enquête opgestuurd. Op de vraag of een pensoen bieden past bij "een goede werkgever" antwoordde ik "oneens". Ik was heel blij dat ik de vervolgvraag kreeg, waarom ik het daar niet mee eens was. Ik heb toen uitgelegd dat de werkgever verplicht is een pensioen te bieden, waarbij ik artikel 1.2 van de statuten van de Stichting Bedrijfstakpensioenfonds voor het Schoonmaak- en Glazenwassersbedrijf citeerde. Het bieden van een pensioen zegt dus niets over mijn werkgever."

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my kleggich

2023-07-18T20:08:19Z

a genuine diary extract (name edited)

"Sometimes I don't feel like going, and my schedule kind of sucks, but in general I quite like my job. It's so easy to romanticise: Taina, the Master of Arts who can only get a cleaning job in this crumbling society, this decaying world. (Though this first one is problematic – it reproduces the "unskilled labour" construct and the stigma against cleaners.) Taina, the labourer intellectual. And there are more possibilities, more filters to see it through: The autistic person who went though academia but found it not to their taste, finding their place instead in predictable, uncomplicated work with little interpersonal contact, despite others' disapproval. Or maybe, just like Shevek, I'm taking a turn doing kleggich after finishing my education, before moving on to work-play. [...] Who am I? Who will I be? Who will I turn out to have been? Who do I want to be? My options may be limited – unjust world, decaying world – but the perspectives are not."

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i hope it means something

2023-04-16T21:21:29Z

a genuine diary extract

“Dear reader, I hope you get something from my writing. Entertainment, details about my life, a feel for who I am, signs of the times, historical source material, maybe even beauty at times, it doesn’t matter. I’m doing this for you, whether you’re future me or someone else. I hope it means something to you.”

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moving woes 0.5

2023-02-18T20:45:02Z

a genuine diary extract:

"Il m'a proposé quelques meubles, mais j'ai décliné. Les mots me manquent pour exprimer combien j'ai horreur d'avoir encore plus de meubles quand ce sera moi qui déménage."

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scheurlijn

2023-01-18T13:56:57Z

ik ben recent overgestapt op een nieuw merk notitieboeken voor mijn dagboek. het bevalt me over het algemeen heel goed, maar ik kom er net achter dat de laatste 20 bladzijden een scheurlijntje hebben. nu is het ook niet waarschijnlijk dat die bladzijden er zomaar uit gaan vallen, maar durf ik het te riskeren dat er wel een bladzijde uitscheurt? het lijkt me ook psychologisch ongemakkelijk om een maand lang te schrijven langs scheurlijnen en me daar hyperbewust van te zijn...

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restraint

2022-08-05T22:07:28Z

a genuine diary extract:

i had my hands full carrying stuff to the kitchen when i bumped a dirty pan against the door. i heroically managed to restrain myself from licking the stain directly off the door, and i think that’s very metal of me. by far the proudest moment of my week.

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l'obsession des asperges

2022-05-23T13:18:26Z

a genuine diary extract:

Je ne comprends pas la hype des asperges. Ça me semble une obsession bourgeoise d'un légume qui n'a rien d'extraordinaire. Elles sont un produit de luxe parce qu'elles sont chères (est-ce que les asperges sont chères ? vérifier), elles coûtent cher parce que leur culture et récolte sont laborieuses et que la demande est forte, et la demande est créée part leur statut de luxe.

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Eurovision journaling

2022-05-11T17:33:58Z

i went through some old diaries to read seven years of Eurovision thoughts and takes, it was quite fun to see! some of my favourites from like 2015 or 2016 are things that, when i see them now, make me go, why? but there were also a number of songs that i had no memory of, but were very good! one such, actually, is Estonia's entry from 2015, which i rediscovered a while ago from an old "favourite entries" list, and found that it's actually a fantastic song. this is why i love keeping a diary.

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