Dark humor

Happy Halloween!
The other day my Korean flatmate, Seungho, and his girlfriend, Hansun (sp?), were asking me about what Halloween is all about, and I gave them the whole schpeal about how it is the eve of All Saints Day, the day to honor all of the saints at once. Then I couldn't remember where the association of evil and spooks came from so I told them it was because all of the bad spirits are jealous of the souls who went to heaven, and they are out to git 'em on the night before, and we have to dress up like scary demons ourselves so they don't mistake us for good-a's and haunt us. I SWEAR that is what they told us in grade school.

And in the spirit of Halloween, be sure not to miss the Conan O'Brien show on November 6th. The Finnish monster band, Lordi, will be the musical guest. They are the first-ever Finnish contingency to win the EuroVision Song Contest (in 2006 with the highest margin ever) which is normally cheesy, campy music.


But really Halloween comes from the pagan holiday, Samhain, which signifies the end of summer. I don't know how I could forget that, as I LOVED the book "The Mists of Avalon" This is the time of year when everything outside seems to be dying, and Samhain is the night when the dead revisit the earth and signifies the new year. The Celtic calendar is divided into two halves: the light half and dark half. This is the time of year for gathering-in and shutting, and the beginning of summertime in the "otherworld". "The dead have passed away from the social concerns of this world to the primordial chaos of the Otherworld where all fertility has its roots, but they are still bound to the living by ties of kinship."

That fits SO WELL with life in Finland. This is the part of the year when everybody is in a bad mood and constantly complaining. They/we get reclusive and concentrate more on work, watching TV (both Finnish Idols and American Idols are super-popular here.... what-ever), hanging out at home with only family or your respective boy/girlfriend, contemplating what is wrong with the world, drinking excessively (they do that in the summer too, only with a different attitude), and killing each other.

Indeed summer is over in these parts (you can't really tell how hard it is raining in this video that I shot the other day, but you can see how not-sunny it is these days):

It is also a good time of year to pursue your own hobbies and interests. This winter I plan on (oh you have no idea how nice it feels to type that... both last summer and the summer before I wanted to make plans of how to pass the time in the winter, but never had the certainty to be able to really do so).
After this post, I will draw up my goals for this winter. Work starts again on Monday, so this weekend will be the last of free me. I plan to attend two parties, one at a friend's place in Espoo, and the aforementioned masked ball. And get all of my clothes ironed, and hopefully get some exercise and spend time outside. I feel like I haven't moved around enough the last few days and I feel somehow dead.