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A gloomy and irritated "hello"

Well, I'm almost finished with my undergraduate degree! Exciting stuff. Next year I'll be back again for Honours, but for the next few months I'm free! (From university, that is - not anything else)

Last time, I wrote about my camera needing to be repaired. It's now just been posted back to me, and is waiting for me when I get home today, so that's wonderful. In the meantime, I've been taking photos on my 110 camera, which I've yet to receive the prints of. I'm a little nervous about how they're going to turn out... especially because I don't have a flash attachment for it.

Some unfortunate news is that I'm currently waiting for a doctor's appointment regarding the development of what seems to be cubital tunnel syndrome, wherein the ulnar nerve is inflamed or irritated somehow. It's mostly been annoying rather than painful, but because I'm aware of my elbows at all times, it is kind of exhausting. Hopefully the doctor can recommend some anti-inflammatories and good braces for sleeping in, because I really don't want to shell out for a physiotherapist.

MUSICAL MOMENT

I've cancelled my Spotify subscription! For ethical reasons, but also it was super expensive. I've moved to Deezer, which seems better ethically, and more anti-AI which is nice.

I also finally printed on a CD and burned a mixtape to it! It works well, although my printer does seem to be eating a lot of ink. I need to find a place where I can get cheap Canon ink.

Last digest I talked about going to a Sabaton concert. I was right to be apprehensive. The music was great, but the vibes of the crowd were bad.

In terms of music, I've been listening to a lot of dungeon synth. So much so that I published a little zine about it on Gumroad! It's free, especially because it's mostly recommendations.

FILM & TELEVISION

My partner and I have been watching a lot of horror movies, and in particular working through my Letterboxd list of 100 horror movies for 100 years (1920-2020). This has been a lot of fun, but I think we're going to have trouble finding some of the more obscure movies, specifically pre-Code international films and more modern independent productions.

I also have successfully sparked a rewatch of the Castlevania show, because I'm really on a vampire kick at the moment. I even started watching Vampire Knight, the 2008 anime, which is of course terrible, but strangely compelling.

We've been barrelling through Leverage and are nearly finished. I watched the Depeche Mode: M documentary at the cinema with my boyfriend, which wasn't as good as I'd hoped, but definitely still worth watching. And we recently all watched John Smith's 1987 short film The Black Tower on YouTube, which I keep thinking about. Definitely a good way to spend 20 minutes.

Shamelessly plugging my own Letterboxd.

LITERATURE CORNER

I'm currently trying to read Wuthering Heights, mostly out of spite after watching the trailer for Emerald Fennell's next trainwreck, which I've decided doesn't look gothic enough in the slightest. It is hard going though, especially with all the racism (and yes, I'm concerned about how that's going to be approached in the film).

Before I started struggling through 19th-century literature again like an idiot, I did read Chandler's The Lady in the Lake (1943), which was much more war-haunted than the previous book I read by him (The Big Sleep, 1939). Then I reread JD's Master of Reality, which I can sense becoming a regular ritual... it just keeps geting better and more interesting the more I read it. I also read Mike Ashley's edited collection of pulp writing by women, Weird Sisters, which collects the writing of a bunch of ladies who published in magazines like Weird Tales in (mostly) the 1930s. Great stuff, although a little hit-or-miss in the way most collections of short stories are.

Finally, I also recently read a manga adaptation of three Lovecraft stories, which was interesting but not particularly notable. I do kind of feel like rereading the original version of 'The Nameless City', which is oddly one of my favourites of his work.

You can follow me on StoryGraph here, by the way!

Hmmm... what else? Despite my weird elbow situation, I've been playing Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance on my Gameboy Advance, which has actually been really awesome now that I'm using a game guide and don't run into locked doors every five minutes.

On Halloween, we went to the cinema to watch - of course - Halloween (1978), which was better than I remembered. This Friday I'm going to the Japanese film festival for a double feature, so that should be a lot of fun.

I've also been trying to think of more ways to "goth up" my home decor, in more authentic and DIY ways than just buying bat-shaped lamps on the internet. I recently got a bunch of old lace doilies from Etsy, and I'm going to dye those black and use them for shelf decorations... hopefully that will spruce things up a little. Or, spruce them down?

That's all for today I think. Not as many pictures as usual, please forgive me! If I can just hold on a little longer, soon I'll have time to take more photos and play more games and RELAX! Just have to finish writing about films about religion and how they create 'breathing room'... don't ask.