Greetings from a lazy writer

Shame on me, what a long break!

The truth is, there hasn’t been much to write about lately. I’ve spent the past months in the lovely quiet idleness of the aging year. These months truly are my favourites, first the barren and grey and yet so stunning autumn, then the first snow and crispy days. The colder the better! I can’t get enough of the brightness and whiteness (as long as it lasts, that is: it should be above zero soon again) and the clear winter nights. So I’ve been absorbing all that divine beauty lately – I have time to because I’ve finished my studies for this year. That includes finishing my master’s thesis which is both good and bad, sweet and bitter: I am glad to get things ready and done but somehow I wished for that work to last forever. I really enjoyed the process and am a bit melancholic about letting it go. Well, what’s done is done.

Apart from studying (I also completed basic-level studies in Latin – half accidentally, I started taking classes for fun and out of pure interest) I’ve read a few interesting books. I finally finished Crime and Punishment. I don’t know what it is, I can’t put my finger on it but for some reason it really felt like hard work to get past some parts. The story was interesting and so were the characters but something about it made me easily distracted and not properly focused. I had the same problem with Anna Karenina a couple of years ago. Then again I absolutely devoured three of Tove Jansson’s novels. I haven’t read much in Swedish but I’d really recommend Tove Jansson to anyone, her books are the perfect place to start. The language is fairly easy yet very rhythmic, witty and figurative. There is something deeply soothing and reassuring about those books. The ones I read were Farlig Midsommar, Pappan och havet and Sent i November, the last one being my all-time favourite.

I always make the same mistake, reading two or even three books at the same time. I’m now reading David Copperfield and then, of course, The Faerie Queene is still there waiting. I’ve had a break with that one but I’m determined to finish it. Slowly but surely, as they say.

P.S. I’m going to spend Christmas in Germany. That should be interesting.

Concerning Winter

On Monday I attended a very fascinating lecture about winter. We had a guest lecturer from Montréal – and he specializes in the images of north, winter and arctic! I had very high expectations and I’m glad to say they were exceeded. I was thrilled about the topic and the new points of view professor Chartier introduced. He discussed winter and nordicity as cultural, social and aesthetic phenomena instead of merely defining them as something climate-related. What struck me the most was the way Chartier talked about winter as something we adapt to, something exceptional, something that disturbs our routines and everyday life – especially since winter and north are often defined by people to whom they seem exotic.

There’s one particular thing about the presentation that keeps bothering me: winter is seen as an inconvenience, something socially and practically troublesome. From my perspective it’s always been the other way around. Summer is the time of year I need to adapt to, winter and autumn feel normal and natural to me. I do like all of our four seasons but the cold ones suit me best. The only inconvenience I see is the excessive effort I must put my poor car through when it’s -25C° and the road both looks and feels like a glacier.

Be it as it may, I’m really enjoying this time of year and looking forward to the long dark of polar night.

P.S. The lecture made me think about Svalbard and the wonderful trip there last year. Man, it was great...

A moment of blossom

It’s been shamefully long – again. Making excuses is never good but I just started a summer job. I also try to write my master’s thesis as much as possible (which isn’t very much right now; I don’t work that many hours a week but there is quite a lot of preparing to do at home before each day). I’m also stuck with Faerie Queene. I’ve only read a bit more than 100 pages and am completely in love with it. Whether I’ll ever finish it or not I know not but it’s a wonderful book, as difficult as it is. The language is lovely and the Spenserian stanza really sinks into your spine after a while. I hope some day I’ll be finished with it – not anytime soon, though.

Those three or four days are here though passing already – those days when apple trees and cherries are in their full blossom. There is no fairer thing in our spring if not the fresh and verdant mornings.

Summer chaos

It’s summer and it’s holiday. I can’t wait for both of them to be over.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing bad about summer (apart from the heat, of course). I love the greenery only just starting to shine; I love the misty mornings, fresh waters and sweet winds. It’s also great that I can spend more time in the countryside. It just seems that summer is about to become a proper chaos. Well, I knew that. I’m very, very pessimistic, and yet the past couple of days exceeded all my expectations. Lovely.

Hopefully I’ll make some progress with my master’s thesis, that’s my one comfort right now. Dear Tolkien, thank you for existing.

Feverish slumber and studying Tolkien

Last week I finished two important things I’ve been working on the whole spring – finished for now, that is, not completely. Now I have a break from them even though there is always some schoolwork to do. One of these projects concerns Tolkien’s legendarium and I couldn’t be more excited about it. Writing has been hard and slow at times but also very rewarding and intriguing. I thought I couldn’t love Tolkien more than I already do but apparently it is possible.

I haven’t really been able to study this week because I’ve got fever and it clouds my minds a little bit – I don’t complain, though, I’ve been having wonderfully bizarre dreams. One night I was trying to memorize the bloodline of the Noldor (half believing they were real), and in another dream I asked my mother to defuse the bomb that was set in our VCR. There’s nothing like feverish slumber. Anyway, shamefully I had to skip a couple of classes because of it and had to think of something to do. I was too tired to read (which is rare) and since I don’t have to write anything big right now after getting those two texts returned I thought I could just relax and watch a film:

‘Hmm, here is my chance to totally forget about the projects and assignments and put them on the side for a while. I’ll do something different for change. Hmm, maybe I’ll watch The Return of the King.’

I’m never quite sure what counts as leisure, what as working time. And I love it the way it is.

Living Outside the Law

I skipped a class yesterday. Yes, it is worth mentioning. I never ever do that unless absolutely  necessary. So this is what crime feels like. I'm  not too fond of it. The guilt is dreadful.
Ok, a little sarcasm above, I admit. But to be honest, I am a little afraid that it'll become a habit. Hopefully not.

Diamonds of frost and sun

–27 in the morning and I couldn’t be happier. I don’t even feel sorry for my feet or fingers. Let it be cold.

Spring term begins on Monday and I’m terrified. Again.

There isn’t much more to say right now; northern weather and panic about studying as always. Clearly I’m such a multidimensional person. In literary studies they talk about flat and round, static and dynamic characters. That classification is also useful when talking about real life people, and I can find my place in microseconds – flat and static, someone whose personality is built on simple stereotypes and who never changes no matter how many years pass by.

Nothing new under the sun. (Sun must be considered figuratively here since it cannot be seen at the moment.)

7.1.2016, 07.30

Perseus; Pleiades star cluster

Orion (constellation + nebula M42); Hyades star cluster

Doomsday on Monday

I'm attending a very interesting class about fantasy and science fiction. Basically it is a good thing: the lectures have been fascinating and thought-provoking. However, on Monday a course mate and I are going to have a presentation which, as usual, makes me panic and nearly lose my mind (ironically, at the moment my biggest concern is that I’m not panicking enough which means everything will go horribly wrong). We’ve been preparing the presentation for weeks already and I don’t know what to do now – everything is ready but I’m sure I’ve forgotten something. Of course I could (and should) practice but that just makes me panic even more.

So, I decided to do something useful instead.

I learned to say Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Almost.

It won’t help me on Monday, though.

Ha! I didn’t panic for nothing! I knew it!

And yet I was kind of hoping for a miracle (the kind of miracle that occurs when everything goes as planned, life is nice and smooth and I don’t constantly find myself messing things up and both causing and experiencing misunderstandings). So, let’s go back to my well-earned, honorable position as both the king and the jester of the mighty and vast realm of chaos, disarray and follies.

(I’d give an explanation for the preceding paragraph if I wasn’t this confused. But it is [mostly] studying-related.)

Anyway, the weekend was nice (for honesty’s sake I probably shouldn’t use the word ‘nice’ since I attended my grandmother’s funeral but that’s not the point here). To be more precise, the night between Saturday and Sunday was nice – or great, in fact. I couldn’t sleep so I went outside (due to the funeral I was on the countryside over the weekend) and enjoyed the magical-looking sky. It was rather cold and the fields were all covered in fog. Earlier I had borrowed an SLR-camera from my uncle and now tried to take pictures of the sky (fair warning: I’m not really a good photographer and I haven’t been using SLRs much before). At least some of the pictures were rather nice.

Such a fair autumn, both days and nights.

Cassiopeia; Andromeda (constellation + galaxy); Pegasus

The Pleiades (a crappy picture but still)

Delphinus

Panic!

Autumn is officially here – and so is the panic. Studying is great, studying is fun and approximately 95 % of the meaningfulness of my life is based on it but it doesn’t mean it´s completely trouble-free. I’m always either thrilled and overly-excited or right about to pack my bags and flee. Quite often I’m both which is rather confusing. At the moment I’m dead sure nothing is going to work this semester and I’ll mess up pretty much everything that possibly can be messed up. Looking forward to that.

Panic.

The word of the week. Or this part of year. Or just my life generally.

Break thy pen, thou fool!

Right.

I took an exam today. Nothing special about that, it just felt strange. Or crap, actually.

I’ve been studying political philosophy this summer, just one course but I didn’t have time to do more since I can study properly only on weekends (otherwise I’m working 8.30–16.30; in Finland we have ridiculously long summer breaks during which I usually work). Today I took the exam and it was horrible, for heaven’s sake! No, wait… I got that reversed, the exam was fine but I was horrible. I sucked and the grade I’ll have will just determine how much. The things I forgot were so obvious, so self-evident. My head is like a sieve, everything I put there goes through. For instance, I forgot to define freedom when writing about Alexis de Tocqueville’s liberalism and theories concerning democracy. Freedom. A word that most likely is in the top three when listing important concepts and ideas the book presents. Summer well spent, I’d say. I hate Fridays right now.

Another thing came to my mind. Being in the classroom felt very odd, the entire campus area did. I haven’t been there during the summer break, perhaps that’s the reason. Be that as it may, I’m scared. I’m actually scared. I love our university but somehow I feel I don’t actually belong there anymore. It’s frightening since school and learning environments in general have always been the only places I feel home at – apart from nature and Scotland of course. I’ve never truly felt deep connection, most of the time I feel sort of disconnected. Studying has always been my anchor and pride, what if I’ll lose it? What if I don’t deserve to study at the university anymore?

Yep. I hate Fridays. Begone, thou foul day!

Reunion

’What on Earth was I thinking? Probably nothing and that’s the problem.’ That’s what I was thinking in September just before my first philosophy class. In fact that thought still crosses my mind every once in a while – not just in those surreal moments when I’m sitting in a classroom staring at a blank piece of paper not being able to organize my thoughts. I fell in love with philosophy in high school and last autumn I finally had the courage to take my first uni courses. I'm glad to say our reunion was more than happy. As bizarre as the lectures can be I still think attending them is one of the best decisions I've ever made (not that there are many).

I don’t quite understand why I’m so drawn to things that, as fascinating as they are, can’t possibly help me to get a job in the future. This far I've had courses in Finnish, literature, phonetics, linguistics, theater and drama studies and now philosophy. Perhaps I’m choosing all these wonderful-and-yet-useless (sorry for the rather harsh choice of words) courses on purpose in order to avoid becoming a decent tax-payer in the future. Perhaps I just love studying so much that it’s all I want to do in my life.

I’m not going to feel bad about adding to my schedule another subject that might prove to be not-so-hot-stuff in the labor market. The course grades in my diploma may be useless but learning itself never is. Learning philosophy is as fun as it is partially because it lacks the pressure that always comes with things that are supposed to be beneficial in some way (meaning I’m taking the courses as optional studies). Learning philosophy once again reminds me that studying is a privilege, not something done of necessity. That’s what university should be all about.

P.S. To be honest I'm not quite sure I'm actually learning philosophy – most likely I'm even more confused than I was before I started. Be that as it may, I'm still enjoying it and I like to think that's the very point.