Identity crisis of a former literature student

Warning: This is going to be more of a personal post.

I graduated last June (I'm a Master of Arts, baby!) and have been super lucky to find a job matching  my education, at least for the end of the year.

This whole thing is rather odd because for the past six years, a big and important part of my identity has been 'a literature student' and now I no longer am a literature student. I still read a lot of literature and scientific research on literature but I no longer live in the city of my former University and no longer participate to any courses.

Me on a very physical wooden elephant, symbolically looking to the future.

In a way I am excited and happy of my new life and all the things that have filled it but in a way I really miss the academic life. The courses and the intense discussions among staff and students, the sensation when I understood something vital or groundbreaking, the butterflies in the stomach when I handed in my Thesis. But I also miss the small and often quite physical things, like the stairs at the University's Main Library. The smell in the corridors of our Department. The voice of my French teacher.

I guess writing this is a sort of a rite of moving on.

Goth Gardener recently wrote a post about how she is going back to graduate school in order to get another degree. When I read it my heart filled with excitement for my friend but also with longing for the academic atmosphere. Goth Gardener's description of the campus area is great, by the way! My University was not that goth-y or romantic. Goth Gardener's post made me think, how much I really miss being a student. I pondered about it and came to the conclusion that I do not yearn to be a student again but I yearn to learn new things and to have intellectual discussions about literature. I'm pretty confident those things can be arranged even in my current life situation.

Me and my Uni friends in a mirror hall.

Even though student life is now part of the past, the friends from those times will stay. Just last weekend me and some of my closest friends from the Uni went to the amusement park Linnanmäki (name means roughly 'a hill with a castle on top of it'). No-one knows where all of us end up in the future but it does feel like we shall remain good friends for the rest of our lives.

Creepy Reads Review: Textual demons and unnatural grotesqueness

Hello there!

I was not suppose to go a whole month without writing anything but unfortunately for the last month I've been extremely busy with my studies. So, I decided to feature two books I've been reading lately, that are related to my Master's Thesis. It's not as if I have any other life these days.

The other one of the books is the doctoral thesis of Ilkka Mäyrä named Demonic texts and textual demons: the demonic tradition, the self, and popular fiction (1999), and the other one is a collection of scientific papers, The grotesque and the unnatural (2011), edited by Markku Salmela and Jarkko Toikkanen.

As I've mentioned before, I am writing my thesis about grotesque in 21st century, in a French collection of short stories. In my thesis I construct a theory about what grotesque is nowadays and apply my hypothesis on the mentioned collection of short stories. Demonic texts and textual demons and The grotesque and the unnatural have been useful building blocks for me while I've pondered about the essence of contemporary grotesque.

The contributors of the collection of papers are researchers of literature and cultural studies who all find grotesque intriguing. Many of them emphasize how the way something is narrated or viewed creates the grotesque effect. This means that a human presence and participation is vital for something to be grotesque.

The papers of The grotesque and the unnatural are not purely about theory but instead many of them combine theories with analyses on novels or other products of culture and civilization. For instance, Mathilde Régent, who studied at Université Paris Diderot, contributed a paper about the grotesque in French medical discourse in the 16th century.

I of course have read this collection from the viewpoint of my own thesis but I believe for others too this could be an interesting read.

Ilkka Mäyrä's doctoral thesis is about demons in Western culture. It can be read online here, if my short introduction of it gets you interested.

In his thesis Mäyrä investigates what different roles demons have had and what things we consider demonic. He constructs theories and then applies them in case studies: among them The Exorcist and Ira Levin's novel Rosemary's baby. Mäyrä's work is both informative and entertaining. His writing flows easily and you do not have to be a literature student to understand it.

A great portion of Mäyrä's thesis is about how demonic features are linked to the self. He points out how in Ancient Greece people would explain the odd behavior of a human with daemons possessing him/her, and how in Freud's psychoanalysis the id (the unconscious part of the individual) has many demonic qualities. Needless to say that the way Mäyrä contemplates on the whole relation between "demon" and "human" has an essential role in my own thesis.

I can sincerely recommend both these books. I hope you too found this post of mine entertaining / interesting! :)

Short announcement: This spring will be very busy for me, I plan to finish my master's thesis in the beginning of May, so I shall be writing it 24/7 for the next two months. I do try to update my blog and read other people's blogs but I am not going to take any stress about it. Have a lovely March, and thank you for reading!

Moving to a new home on hiatus, I am off to Dublin!

Last week I moved to Tampere, to finish my Master's Thesis and graduate by next summer. Unfortunately I have no nice photos of this new home of mine, because I spent there merely 48 hours before I had to leave to another city for another person's housewarming party and now I am off to Dublin.

Yep, that escalated quickly.

I suddenly had a great opportunity to go on a mini vacation to the capital of Ireland, and who could say no to that? It doesn't even cause any inconveniences because none of my courses at the university start before 8th of September.

Dublin is filled with things a literature student is dying to see. It is, after all, the UNESCO city of literature. Oh, all those bookshops! The vacation is the length of a weekend, so I can not possibly see and experience all the things I would like to. There will be some drastic decisions to make in only two days.

"Dublin Castle entrance 2" by Wknight94 - Oma teos. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Among other things, I doubt I have time to visit this beautiful Dublin Castle. I would love to go to a couple of goth clothes selling shops but I am not really sure what to buy from there. I have been in jobs and situations where the dress code has prevented most of goth elements from outfits and I feel like my style and wardrobe are an odd mix & match with not many things matching. Also, many of my favorite clothes have become so worn that they are no longer feeling nice. Many of my skirts are from 2006, so they are nearly a decade old!

Mary Bart from Mourning Glory Designs made a post about clearing one's wardrobe and I really should do that too. I also should take the next step lead by Mary and make a list of the essentials I have worn and what I actually would like to wear.

Here is a tiny peek of my new apartment, or the view from it and some moving boxes. I shall post about my new home in Tampere later when I have actually made it decent-looking. Now I'll just say that it is a subleased apartment and it is situated on the main street of the city, really close to the railway station, the university, and the bus station.  I am a sucker for theme parties so I am already pondering, what would my housewarming party's theme be. Any suggestions, my friends? :D

100th post: DIY ideas for a werewolf party

This is my 100th post and I am quite excited about it! Though I am more excited about that I have such nice people reading my posts and commenting them. ^___^

"Down the corridor, werewolves!"

This post is not only about being the hundredth post, I am going to give some "DIY" tips for a party themed as "Lycanthropy" or "Werewolves". Last week I had my birthday party with that theme for my university student friends. Because I temporarily live 200 kilometers away from those friends, I could not have the party in my home but luckily a friend let me have the party at her place.

Since I had to travel to my university city in the morning, collect the key to the apartment from the friend (she was at work till 18 o'clock), buy the ingredients for food and punch and then go to the apartment and work in a strange kitchen, I would not want to do anything too difficult that might flop, nor could I spend hours and hours to make really nice and theme related snacks, so here is what I made fast and easy:

Fingers
A classic Halloween snack is fitting for hungry werewolves, don't you think? I obeyed this recipe. Though, I did not obey it while actually making the fingers and accidentally I cooked for too long at least half the sausages and they just looked like they exploded. I still managed to make a decent amount of fingers and people thought they were funny yet yucky.

Moon cookies
Now, they are just plain oat biscuits bought from the store, and I think they are mimicking full moon rather poorly. If I have a party with this theme again, I shall make better moon biscuits.

Blood red punch
I decided to make a variation of a recipe for instant sangria. This meant vodka, red wine, coca-cola, and sprite. I can't tell the exact amounts I used because I just added them until it tasted and looked good. I think I added about 3/5 of wine, then 1/5 of each lemonade and then a splash of vodka. I had asked my friend to make some ice hearts for the punch with my heart shaped mold, since certainly werewolves like some human hearts! Unfortunately the weren't that visible in dark fluid but that's not such a big deal.

Chips and gore dip
Also known as boring and plain chips and salsa dip. :D

A hungry werewolf gnawing a finger

Then we are off to the more or less DIY ideas. I do realize some of these are not really DIY crafty stuff but they are ideas others can be inspired by, so what the heck!

"Looking for lycanthropes? One floor up!"

If I could have had the opportunity to drag a couple of video projectors to the place, I would have used them as lighting; I would have put old black and white Wolf Man movies on loop, muted, and projected on walls. Alas, I had no video projectors so the movies were on television as the playlist was playing as a weird soundtrack both to the party and to the movies.

Guiding notes are handy, especially if all guests have not been in the place party is held and the place is situated in a block of flats or some other maze.

It is preferable, that the notes are according to the theme of the party, so I had a couple of notes in the outdoors of the building. There were two doors, one on floor zero and the other on floor one, so the picture above was on the other door and the picture you can see in the beginning of this post was on the other door. They stated to the guests, which way to go.

This photo on the left of a note is from the door of my friend's apartment, because not all guests knew this was not actually my apartment and therefore my name would not be on the door. I thought this would make things less confusing. Do click photos for larger view, the one on the left is a quote from the old The Wolf Man movie. I have also smeared some fake blood on the note to give a little color. I got to admit, I like the stuff! I've had that particular bottle of fake blood for four years now and half of the content is still there! It is also easy to wash off skin and clothes.

Dressing according to the theme was encouraged among the guests and I am happy to say many were inspired. We had awesome werewolves, a moonbeam and even Sam and Dean Winchester of Supernatural, though luckily they had their day off.

Do you guys watch Supernatural?

Moonbeam and Wolf

Here is the moonbeam, with her slightly green moon. There is also a little werewolf, excited of the friend from the skies. These awesome two ladies with two other equally awesome ladies, who just are not in the picture, had given me as a present a bottle of red wine with a picture of a sheep on the label and a pack of bacon, because a wolf needs her vitamins!

The tails

For my own outfit, I had bought a fur collar made of two tails from an internet auction. I separated the tails and used one myself. I wondered for a while, if I should make ears out of old leather mittens, but decided they would probably not match with my tail.

I was slightly amused that in the advertise of the fur collar it stated that the product is "probably genuine mink". Really? With that long hair? Had this person ever seen a mink or a coat made of them? It doesn't take long to google "mink"... Well, it doesn't really matter, because I found it and thought it would fit my party theme. It was also lucky that the seller did not want ridiculous amounts of money of this "mink" fur.

I realized it would be awkward, if I would put wolf make-up on my hands and then fuss with the foods. My costume was not that special, I did not manage to make a good wolf make-up to my, so I just made my self look creepy. :D You can see it in the end of this post. I had the old skull of a brown hare stitched to a flower as a hair piece.


To entertain my guests, I held a quiz concerning werewolves. A couple of questions were for example "from what year is the first The Wolf Man movie?" and "In what werewolf movies did Bela Lugosi have a role?" I asked people to round up teams of three or four people, because there would be prizes.

The winning team got black candles and little jars filled with all the ingredients one needs to turn oneself into a wolf! Wolf's blood and magical herbs, that is. Or, at least something that will look cool around their neck, even if they do not start to sprout fur and fangs.

I bought some twine and the little plastic bottles from a local arts & crafts store Sinelli, unfortunately they did not have miniature jars of glass with real cork but these did just fine.

I then filled two with fake blood from a costume shop and then put some glue on the neck of the bottle before putting the cork on, to make sure the little bottles are well closed. It would be awkward, if a bottle started to ooze on an innocent guest and a winner of the quiz, even though that fake blood fades away pretty well from the clothes in the washing machine.

Then I gathered some natural elements (also known as twigs, blueberry shrubs and lichen) from the woods nearby, dried them and filled the other two bottles. I also put in some black pepper.

Final photos are of my outfit, I am oddly twisted so that my tail is seen and there is a good reason why I look a bit distressed; there is a close relative hanging on the wall!

That's about it! Those were my DIY ideas for partying like a werewolf. I had a really lovely birthday party, my friends were awesome and considerate, participating into the theme and giving me amazing and funny birthday gifts.

Thanks for reading and my next post is going to be about a short story by Ray Bradbury!

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!

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!

Freezing jewelery: Lapponia Jewelery from Finland

Today I am not going to introduce to you anything goth, or at least the necklace I am showing you is not goth straight away. Still, I think it is beautiful and I believe it fits my style. The necklace is made by Lapponia Jewelry, which is a Finnish brad that makes all kinds of jewelry but they are usually modern and represent cool, almost chilly design. The designers seek inspiration from Finnish nature, mythology and many other things too.

The specific necklace which hits my aesthetic spot is Winter Pearl by Mari Isopahkala, who made Winter Pearl as a guest designer for Lapponia, after winning the title Young Designer of the Year 2013.

I got this necklace as a graduation present from my parents when I became Bachelor of Arts last summer. I love this necklace, how it looks like ice pearls, but also like some chemical formula.

Samhain: a Party and a trip to the Graveyard

This is going to be rather a different post compared to the ones I usually make. I am going to tell about my ways of celebrating Samhain this year.

Yesterday (31st of October) I spent in solitude with a really important person in my life. We did things we enjoy and things that strengthen confidence between us and talked about some very personal stuff. This lovely evening was like rays of sun, shining into a dark room and all because somebody had the courage to peek between the curtains.

Today (1st of November) I am going to a theater with this friend of mine to see The Addams Family Musical. I really hope it is going to be indeed funny and not too farce-like. The beginning situation is that Wednesday has fallen in love with a normal male person and this creates a lot of drama, since especially Morticia thinks that is a bad thing. Or at least that is what the summary says at the theater's home page. Unfortunately the page is in Finnish only, so I am not linking it. But the play is an adaptation of the Broadway show. Apparently it is 'an original story' (of Charles Addams, I suppose) but as far as I am concerned, that sentence on the web page could also mean that it is an original story meaning that it (acceptance and kids growing up) is something everybody has to ponder in their life and has been for many centuries now.

Samhain: the door to the world of Dead is open!

I must say I am a tiny bit skeptical of this plot, because I have always seen Addams Family as a tolerant and open family, who (especially in the old TV-series) try not to judge anyone and most of all Morticia is the one trying to be the mediator. But we'll see how the play turns out!

2nd of November there is a goth club in my hometown, celebrating Samhain. I am attending it, but before that I have the most coolest lecture ever. Yes, I have a lecture on Saturday, All Hollows' Eve on a local Cemetery at 7 p.m.! I t is a part of a course in Literature Studies called The Traditions of Macabre and our university teacher is going to hold one of the lessons at a grave yard. After the lecture I am off to home, quickly change to party outfit and head to the goth club. I think it would be not that respectful for those other people, who might be at the cemetery, greeting their dear departed, if I was in a latex dress or something. Also, there is going to be really cold, so i would catch a cold if I'd wander around in a mini skirt!

Happy Halloween and Mysterious Samhain!

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!

Being open-minded leads to cool purchases.

Today is hopefully my first lesson of the year. I am planning to start to study French, but I was not lucky enough to fit into the group. Unfortunately I do not know what is my position in the queue to the course. Well, it is to be found out in the next hour. I hope somebody will cancel and I get to learn a new language.

I have also one other thing on my mind. I wanted to show my new school bag, which I bought in Warsaw. My hunch says it is for about 10-year-old boys, but I like it. My mini laptop fits in it perfectly!
What can one learn from this? At least to be open-minded about shopping in different sections and not to stare the label of the product.

As I mentioned, I bought a wig to use, since I have dreamed of a black/blue hair but can not keep it up by dyeing. So this is today's style.