My Transylvanian fate

I am the kind of person who makes plans. I really mean it. 

I write a list with all I need before packing for a trip, I decide what to wear one week before a dinner out, and if I have to host people I choose the menu as well as the sheets for the guest room with time enough (and what I call time enough is considered insane by many others, I can tell you).

Obviously future is a source of concern to me. 

Double concern when speaking about career and professional choices.

I am sure some of you already know about my plans of moving to the UK in order to improve our occupation standards (The Gentle One is also very focused on his walk of life), and that was supposed to happen at some point between this autumn and next winter-tide.

I said was supposed because something else took place.

♥ The Gentle One is fond of taking unadvised pictures.

At mid-February The Gentle One and I decided to take precautions (you never know about life, do you?) and apply for several international programs. My choice was obviously Great Britain and a modest post as Spanish teaching assistant. Meanwhile, my fiancé applied for a vacancy as Spanish language and literature lecturer. His initial idea was asking for a slot at some British university, but (oh, alas!) there was not such an option this year. So we moved to the next reasonable choice: the European continent.

Because well, we were not expecting a real chance of moving to another country apart from England, and the whole thing sounded funny and misterious to us. Were we totally senseless by playing that way with fate?

YOU BET!

As the little unwise people we are, we totally forgot about the grants-thing and continued with our working daily routine for a while. And then, during May, I was told I wasn´t given the teaching assistant job in the UK. No need to say how disappointed I was.

But those bad feelings finally vanished and once more we forgot about all the international issue once again (yes, I told you we can be fool children sometimes), until June.

One fine morning I was still lying in bed when The Gentle One bounced into the room like a flood and simply said: 'Darling, I just received an email from the Foreign Office and I think we are moving to Bucharest'. At this point you might know me well enough to predict my reaction. Exactly. 

I totally freaked out. Like a LOT. 

 I was puzzled and couldn´t figure out how that had happened, after all, we were just playing with possibilities. And playing does not kill anyone, huh?

Sunglasses : Primark  / Jumper Skirt: Gift from my sister (Japan) /  Shirt: Zara / Tights : Calzedonia /   
Shoes : Customized/
  Bag : Brigitte Bijou (old) /  Necklace: Family heritage / Hairclips: Primark 

But ey, after some post-considerations we started framing the whole picture and decided that a couple of years in some other European capital was a good thing for both of us (lots of professional experience and good money to save up). I even got another teaching position over there, so everything looks fine at the moment.

So yes, darlings, this little Vamp girl is moving to Romania on September.

My whole family had a good time joking about spotting me in Transylvania!

Nonce, and as you can see in the pictures, I am having a lovely summer here in Spain (maybe the last one for a while).

Stay stunned, this is the beginning of an era!

Life is just a bowl of cherries

Welcome back, dear readers. 

First of all I want to wish a happy Midsummer to everyone! I had the most wonderful one with friends and better half and a really memorable weekend after my recent academic nightmare.

I´ve been away from the blogosphere for one month now and, although I really missed it a lot, I did have no time for procrastination at all. As I had planned, semester exams consumed my entire life: I had books to read, essays to write and notes to memorize. Not funny indeed. My last test took place on Wednesday evening and since then I fell in a strange kind of clinic coma. I wanted needed some sleep. Finally I came back from the grave on Saturday, just in time for Midsummer celebrations. The Gentle One is a really empathic person and did his best to make me feel reborn. We met many friends of us in the afternoon, had dinner together and hanged around to drink lots of tasty cocktails by the midnight fires. So nice to let stress going away!

But exams were not my only source of concerns. I formalized my pre-registration for the literary research work next year. To understand the whole thing, I´ll explain the process quickly. Applicants are supposed to contact a tutor and to present informally a personal project for next semester, then they get a position for their project. I fulfilled every step and when the list with the positions was published. Somebody had replaced me on my project! Apparently, a classmate who was spending a year abroad did not learn about the burocratic process and just chose my project without making any consultation to the department head or the tutor who, by the way, knew nothing about this girl abroad. I had spent one month and a half preparing my project so you can imagine how dissapointed I was! I had to talk to the tutor again and she gently fixed it all but for three days I lived in hell. The girl apologized and evidently she did not do it on purpose but I was under a lot of stress and this did not help. My project is very important to me because it will let me to improve my academic file notably, which means that I´ll have the chance to get a teaching position grant the following year. Of course, I am in the project again and I´ll be spending my summer working in the bibliography. So everybody is happy now.

This week my holiday goes on at my parents´place, it will be good to get relaxed by the sea for a while.

Have you any fantastic plans for summer at the moment?

Do you know, I always thought unicorns were fabulous monsters, too?

These days I have enjoyed an unexpected break from daily duties. My Friday classes were canceled, so International Worker´s Day holidays let me free until next Wednesday. Well, certainly I am not fully exempt from schoolwork at the moment (semester´s exams are around the corner again) but at least I have some extra time for writing essays. 

On Thursday evening I visited my parents´place. It was really nice because I could study harder with no better halves around to get me distracted all the time. Besides, I met many friends once my work was done: two of my long-term darlings came back from Japan after visiting my sister (http://petitsuisseinformativo.wordpress.com) and we had a great time talking about their adventures. Moreover, I was given many charming presents that deserve their own post.

Though there are no pictures from last Thursday meeting, I have many others from a little assembly with my secondary school friends a short time ago. There´s something nice about meeting old friends, right?

Another good thing about this weekend is that I almost nailed down the details about my academic research work next year. It sounds like I am finally working on North American horror fiction in the first half of the XX century (specifically the work of H.P. Lovecraft and its circle). I am really excited about this as long as it is going to be my first serious experience as a literary researcher at university.

 Of course, I also spent some quality time with my mother and my youngest sister. She is twelve years old now and I can say she is following the personal footprint of the family, which means she is becoming a little nerd. I am very proud of her! On Saturday she made me drive her into the local human evolution event and she had lots of fun learning about Neanderthalis and Homo Antecessor. She aldo made me promise to take her to the premiere of Dark Shadows in Spain. She is a sweetheart, isn´t she?

Finally we went for some shopping together, and it was full of funny suprises. We found a little treassure to combine with the customized shoes my friend Morgan gave me for my birthday (above).

In general, we had a great weekend.

So tell me, have you done recent findings of any type?

 

And Wrought Upon the Clothes in Patterns of the Most Jetty Black

We suffered the terrible hot weather during the whole month, but the temperatures went down on the weekend. The only inconvenience is that, unfortunately, my obligations are not leaving me too much spare time to enjoy. We´re in the last week of the month and the term exams are far, nevertheless academic tasks pile up on a essay´s ocean.

Happily, not everything is bad.

Among all these obligations some attractive loads are hidden.
My north American literature seminars has been dedicated, almost exclusively, to the life and work of E.A. Poe. The author is always a delightful pleasure in which I adore to fall once and again. And there´s not such a big thing as reading it in this season.

There´s nothing spookiest than Poe in a dark October night.

Leaves have begun to fall, rain hits the windows and I ( lucky me) read Poe´s stories with a warm tea for my classes. This drove me to a wonderful mood disposition. I can just ponder about candles and pumpkins!

I don´t know if I mentioned it, but this party is special for two reasons: on the one hand, I enjoy the spirit´s night like one more kid and, on the other hand, this year I am celebrating my seventh anniversary with The Gentle One, ( a gothic couple celebrating their anniversary in Halloween, what a cliché we are). However, unlike it can be interpreted, the date was not chosen on purpose. Destiny linked us that night, which is pretty romantic if you think about masks and red wine every year.

This time I intended to celebrate it with something special, so I started to look for new ideas and accidentally stumbled upon Neil Gaiman´s blog. He proposes to give away horror books in Halloween and turn the party into a literary event. Personally, I think it is a brilliant idea.
What do you think about it?

Habits make the man an old monk

The pleasure of learning.

Going back to rutine can consitute an unexpected pleasure.
A relatively long period far from daily life is very similar to discover an old pair of shoes in the closet which we forgot but still fitting perfect. I spent September at my parent´s, I did not suspect it when I moved away but discovered a wide range of new feelings: one can learn to value little things, even those that you normally don´t think about.
I missed my apartment, my books and films, my teapots and cups, my collection of shoes, my cds and even my sheets. But materialism is not everything. I specially felt melancholy when I thought about shared dinners and breakfasts with The Gentle One (my soulmate), naps on my little and unconfortable sofa accompanied by my two charming kitties and the never ending wine parties with friends on the living.

Autumn´s light is already here.

Fortunately, this forced holiday period is done and I went back, not only home but also to daily life. Seminars at university started on Monday (meaning to meet with my friends after a complete year of social isolation) and I returned to job this evening. The huge change of habits cannot be ignored as long as I went from being completly idle to have almost too much to do. However, being useful is always very nice.

Am I the only one with an antithetical post-holiday syndrome?