CorpGoth Status Report: My commute

First I was not going to participate, because I did not remember to take photos on my route and I only go to the university once a week nowadays. This also is my 99th post and I had already scheduled one and made preparations for my 100th post but now I'll just reschedule the 99th to be 101st!

To the actual report: As I explained, I only go to the university once a week and not even every week, because I am doing my master's thesis. So I live 200 kilometers away due to several reasons and that means once a week I travel two hours in the morning by train and two hours back in the evening or the next morning. My seminar meetings are usually on Thursdays and on Thursdays there are often some student parties. :3 So, I'll stay over at friend's and we go to the party together.

This travelling for two hours is actually really great, because while sitting in a train I get done enormous amounts of reading of theory books. Depending of the day, how much I make notes and how interesting the writing is, I read 50-100 pages on one trip. Two hours in the morning is my "high-performance time" which is the time I am most active, I think better and get things done.

You can probably guess my subject from the photos. My thesis is going to be about grotesque and I am really excited about it!

When I sit and read, I rarely look out of the window. One day I finished my book early and spent the last hour listening music and looking at the view. I was slightly disturbed by the fact that I did not recognize most areas the train went by. Don't know if it is a good thing or not.

Thanks for reading my rather small report of the local commute and do click the Status Report Icon to go and read other participants' posts too!

Mid-Month Status Report: Suits you (Sir)!

The Mid-Month Status Report is here again! Trystan from This is CorpGoth has asked us to show our more official suit jackets. Unfortunately I have not used a suit jacket in ages, partly because the one I am going to show you no longer fits that well and I have not found a jacket that would fit. I would love a suit jacket I could use closed, which is not the case with the one I am showing.

These pictures was taken 2010 by my friend, when we had a little photo shoot. As you can see, that jacket is one of those one can not wear closed, unless one is several inches smaller from chest and waist than what I am in that picture. 

Still it was a nice suit jacket I found from a flea market. It seems to me, that all my favorite clothes are from flea markets, so I guess I should stop even to go to clothing stores.

Now, thanks to this Status Report I really need a new suit jacket! My style has evolved into more casual lately and I would love to wear more office-like clothes.

Thanks for reading and do check other participants too! Just click the Mid-Month Status Report logo in the beginning!

CorpGoth's Mid-Month Status Report: Work space

It is the middle of the month so Trystan From This Is CorpGoth has asked people to show how they goth up their work place, cubicle or other. Unfortunately my 'work place' is in my home because I am studying and you can't really go and decorate a computer in the university's computer class or anything. So I do not have that need to decorate and make myself and my personality visible at some other place like in the office. My personal stuff is all around me every second. :)

This framed postcard used to be at the work table, now it's next to bed.

I still wanted to participate with my status report. My work area is actually not that goth-y because I am terribly untidy when I am studying and there is no room. Everywhere lay books and old coffee cups and since I do not have an area to put my make up stuff, they are also crowding on the table! Still here is a small sneak a peek of the gothier things.

Above you can see my old jewelery box and on top of that is the old march hare whose skull I cleaned a year and a bit ago.

Le Fanu's famous horror stories. I have not yet started to read them but I am planning to start them today. Underneath are some dictionaries and other stuff.

Here you can see how after the 'work area' there is just bunch of stuff. The Asian ladies are my small travel make up bag I got from my mother. Behind them peeks a coffee cup from the morning.

Thanks for reading and do check Trystan's and other participants' posts too!

CorpGoth's Mid-Month Status Report: March forward!

It is once again time of CorpGoth's Mid-Month Status Report! This time the task is to show our work shoes, meaning the ones we use everyday due to the realities of walking long distances or dress code or other reasons. You can find other participants from here, go check their shoes too!

I live in a cold and bleak city, where is snow and hale and slush snow, and they can change from one to the other within a week. For the last six months I've been walking to the university or to the shops and other places, because it was just two kilometers from my old flat. This means that I walked from 4 to 8 kilometers daily, so the shoes had to be comfortable.

One can clearly see, that those shoes are used and the surface is slightly damaged. They have served me well, but I hope I find better ones before winter comes back and buries me into her cold whiteness again.

Now that I live 400 meters away from the university, I shall be able to use more high heals. Also, the spring is coming, so soon I do not need to worry about snow and icy roads anymore. These boots are lovely, but there is one slight problem. I found them at a flea market and they are one size too big for me. Therefore my ankles start to hurt, if I walk with them too long. I shall try to figure some way to make them more my size, so that I can wear them as "work shoes". I wonder if somewhere they sell some sort of ankle support thingies I could wear inside the shoe.

CorpGoth's Mid-Month Status Report: Love What You Do

Lovely Trystan in her blog This Is CorpGoth has given us an opportunity to tell about our career, school or other vocation. More precisely, what we love about what we do. Here is Trystan and other participants, go and check what they love about their careers!

I study Finnish literature at a university and I love it. Basically this means that I study theories and methods of literature studies in general, like in comparative literature, but I am to focus on developing my expertise on history of Finnish literature and the institutions that have an effect on it (like changes in the field of publishing, stipends for writers and so on).

I love reading fiction, I love studying those theories and especially I love how literature studies have changed the way I see the world. It is like I have these gogglers and I can see how our culture is full of conventional features that are actually from fictional literature.

And besides, in our examinations part of the books are fiction. For example I have read 12 children's and youths' books including Harry Potter and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the questions were like "tell us about the horror elements in Wonderland" and I got study-points for it. How cool is that!

At the moment I am doing my bachelor's thesis about a Finnish novel from the view-point of menippean satire and rhetorical devices. I could go on and on about it, but I must restrain myself. I just post a pic where are some of the theory books I am probably going to use.

In general, I strongly encourage people to read more fiction, it is fun and makes you see the world from a new angle, trust me!