Rememberment

A new home computer had arrived on the market, the Commodore 64. Lauri was the first of my buddies to have one and asked me over. We played for hours and it was amazing - instead of ASCII characters we now had beautiful, colorful graphics, not to mention snazzy sounds and music. I was completely hooked. The graphics were so great they could use screenshots as cover art for the actual game box. Soon all of my friends and cousins had a C-64 and whenever I visited them, all I wanted to do is play. But no matter how much I begged my parents to buy one for me, it wasn't going to happen. "We don't have that kind of money" they said. And while I understood when they told me that, it didn't exactly help. I already knew our family was poor; just about all of my stuff was something that had been previously owned by someone else. My bike was old and rusty and too small for me, my skates were too big for my feet, and my skis looked like they had seen at least a couple of wars...

Back in 2023 I was taking a shower when I noticed a small, hard wart on my belly button. I didn't think much of it at first - to concern myself with every little oddity on my ageing body would be inviting madness. It's always fun to try and google them though. As time went on it became more annoying, though. I started to squeeze and pick the damn thing whenever I was sitting in the sauna, which only made it more irritated and rough. I hoped it would eventually just go away on its own, but as weeks passed and the issue remained, I finally went to see a doctor in the hopes of having it removed. The doctor concluded that it was indeed a wart or something, but instead of plucking it out he gave me a prescription for an ointment that set me back 40 euros. I was skeptical, but nevertheless started applying the medicine as instructed, to precisely no effect whatsoever. After some time I called another doctor and asked if this time they could just remove the wart. I also shared my cree...

The year was 2013 when we got a call from school. Our oldest daughter, who was 12 at the time, had fallen during gym class and hurt her knee. The school nurse had examined the injury and concluded that there is indeed a bruise on her knee. The story didn't exactly end there. Time passed, her knee healed somewhat, and then she fell again. This time it was clearly dislocated, which we already suspected had happened earlier too. We started to worry that there might be some damage in her knee ligaments, and that it might get dislocated even more easily in the future as well. She was given crutches and a support bandage. We took her case to the school insurance company, because it seemed clear the two incidents were not separate. To exactly nobody's surprise, that was not at all how the insurance company saw it - according to them, the first time it was just a bruise because that's how the school nurse saw it. Moral of the story? Always take your kids to the doctor if they are i...

Our public healthcare system has been a hot topic for quite some time, and will no doubt continue to be one. While an overall success story in many ways, there are numerous problems. To cover them all would require more time, energy and expertise than I can muster. However, I can write about some things I do know about, and that is what me and my family have experienced ourselves. Even still, there is quite a bit to write about. Each story deserves its own post, so I'm going to do this in three parts. --- It was 2003 and our second child was on the way. The pregnancy was in its early stages, and it was time for the first ultrasound check. The person performing the check was a graduate, but with an experienced nurse as her assistant.  During the ultrasound, they were unable to find the fetus. Their sad conclusion was that it was a case of an anembryonic pregnancy. My wife was given some pills to terminate the pregnancy, we were appointed a private room with a hospital bed, and then ...

I didn't particularly look forward to my third year of school. We had a new teacher which was probably the hardest pill to swallow, as I was very fond of our old one. For some reason it also felt strange to have a man teaching us. A lot of my classmates were now fans of heavy metal music, of which my dad had already warned me. Bands like KISS, Mötley Crüe, W.A.S.P. and Black Sabbath played Satan's music and I didn't hesitate to point this out to my classmates. Somehow this didn't make me any more popular, even though I was just trying to save them from eternal damnation. I told my dad that I was getting bullied for speaking about Jesus. "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" he would then say. But I didn't feel too blessed, instead I often felt like shit. But there were good things too. We started studying English, which I found very cool and useful. We also started writing essays which I enj...