Vol 19 Issue 21

INSIDER 24.03.17 | VOL. 19 | ISSUE 20

STUDENT MAGAZINE

ACADEMIC WRITING

BY GRAYSON LEIF HEFLIN

Features & Recipe  Poll Results  Profile: Sara Czabai  Cupcakes

Reviews  Humans of Xamk  The Magnetic Fields: 50 Song Memoir  Hidden Figures

EDITORIAL STAFF

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INSIDER STUDENT MAGAZINE South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences Paraatikenttä 7 45100 Kouvola Editor in chief: Hugh Clack INSIDER ISSN 1457-1587  /INSIDERSTUDENTMAGAZINE

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PHONE +358 44 702 8758 WEBSITE insider.xamk.fi EMAIL insider@xamk.fi WRITERS first.last@edu.xamk.fi

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EDITORIAL IN A WORLD where writing editorials is like really hard and I never know what to write about, a glitch came around on Wednesday to save my sorry donkey sat there wondering what to complain about this week. The glitch disabled a number of student accounts, making it not only impossible to log into any computer on the Kouvola and Kotka campuses but also disabled access to OneDrive, student emails, Moodle... you get the idea. Apparently they had to be enabled manually

by IT(??) but you had to go to the Student Affairs Office, write them an email, send a pigeon or summon a demon willing to help out. I wonder how many people haven't even noticed that something was off, that their accounts may no longer be accessible?

While I was staring at the blank space before me something else came to mind: Have you ever seen those knights fighting snails illustrations on medieval scripts.

Turns out there wasn't a huge invasion of alien snails in medieval times, disappointing, I know, but it was ancient scholars idea of meme. The scholars were the only ones who could read and write at the time and decided to drag the Lombards by drawing them as cowardly snails on the white spaces of the script pages as that was the only area available for them to get creative and make a statement about what they thought about the scripts they had to copy in the days before Xerox.

More interesting facts in this issue of Insider include a profile about Sara Czabai, the results of the poll conducted two weeks ago by Seti, Suvi's sassy recipe, an introduction into academic writing and a guest article by Mai Lan Le about the Humans of Xamk as well as the usual reviews.

Sarah

SARA CZABAI Sara Czabai is originally from Hungary. She has been living in Finland for 16 years. She loves to travel and experience new cultures. She hasn't been everywhere, but it's on her list. Sara is also an avid amateur photographer. In the summer she does a lot of gardening and binge-reading.

Do you have a specific teaching style? I like to use a sense of humour in teaching. Nowadays I have to compete for students attention because they have smart phones.

It's not that teachers have the absolute truth anymore because you all have the information - it is out there. So I am here to trigger some interest or motivation and guide in the right direction.

years ago, Finnish summer started out cold and rainy so my friend in Montpellier mentioned that we could visit. I made a travel plan and we flew over but it was really awkward because we could not order food, even pizza. I've learned to outsource the work this time, now my kids are learning the language.

I give them time on their iPads to learn Spanish and French.

How long did it take you to pick up Finnish? One year. I went to this course in Kouvolan Ammatillinen Aikuiskoulutuskeskus. It's really efficient. You learn different subjects like chemistry, mathematics, and geography. If you want to live here you have to learn the language, otherwise you are an outsider.

Which TV shows do you like to watch? Game of Thrones, Homeland, and Girls. I used to watch The Walking Dead but I stopped because it got too brutal and because it just kept going.

Do they teach the spoken or written? They teach strictly the written, so I had to learn the spoken language here. Päivi, one of my dearest colleagues, from the moment I came here, she spoke Finnish so that was a big help.

Then again Hungarian is not exactly an easy language. No and they are related grammar-wise but that never really helped me except with pronunciation.

For vacations do you prefer the warmer countries? Yes. It's not all about the heat really, in Hungary

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the summer can be easily 35 or 40 degrees. I don't like that. I like the Finnish summer when it's 25 but not when it's 12 and raining. I have to make sure to get two weeks of sun abroad and maybe if I am lucky, I get it also in Finland. We are going to the South of France and Spain so that is what I am waiting for.

Have you used Airbnb before?

Yes, I really like it. I would never go to a hotel any more except if I am travelling on business. Hotels are so impersonal and having three kids, it is a lot cheaper for us.

Five of us in a hotel in the south of France would cost a fortune.

Will you have to learn any French for that trip? Well the last time, 2

When it comes to gardening what are your favourite plants?

I like flowers. I have a lot of raspberries in my garden. Edible things and also things that just look nice.

I'm an aesthetic person.

In Finland my attitude towards good weather has changed because you cannot take it for granted. When there is sunshine you have to go enjoy it because the next day you would not have it. That is not something I had in Hungary because there is good weather every day. Here you have to appreciate every day when the temperature is about 25. They have a separate term for that because it is so rare helle day.

Grayson Leif Heflin

Setareh Nourzad

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AN EXAMPLE OF

ACADEMIC WRITING Grayson Leif Heflin

WHY I LOVE STAR WARS [spoilers alert]

As my first article at the Insider I have been given the task of letting you know “Why I love Star Wars. ” While the film series has never been a favorite of mine, I do enjoy the event of seeing a new installment in theaters every couple years. Star Wars is so big that people camp out at the movie theater to see the next iteration. This is really astonishing considering movie ticket sales are rapidly declining every year.

These theaters are allowed a tourniquet to quell the bleeding just for one day, or week, or even month, every time a new Star Wars comes out. When the Jon Williams composed theme song with a massive fanfare, coupled with the skewed yellow lettering hits the silver screen, goosebumps ensue.

Like any good story, Star Wars starts in the middle of the action.

Darth Vader and his storm troopers blast down the door of the Rebel Alliance ship and let their presence be known. With a robotic finger, he demands Princess Leia hand over the plans for the Rebel Alliance. It is pretty lucky though, that “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….” they actually speak English. So a majority of people can understand it in the present era. There is a chance, however, that they are speaking an ancient language and it was just dubbed for our viewing pleasure.

This would explain the kitsch nature of the writing and acting. For instance when Luke whines “But I was going into Tashi's station to pick up some power converters, ” it really makes the viewer want to cringe.

This attitude is a precursor to the snobby Anakin the viewer will meet in the future movies...which take place in the past in relation to the first Star Wars...Well, like previously stated, it starts in the middle. You just learn the beginning and the end later on. The ironic part is how the childish Anakin turns out to be the biggest, baddest brute on the block – Darth Vader. One could argue that the Emperor is even more sadistic, with his electric shocks he uses to fry his enemies, but come Halloween, compare the number of children dressing up as Vader to the Emperor. There are also the ones who choose Jar Jar, but we tend to forget them for good reasons.

For the adults there is also one costume introduced in episode six, Return of the Jedi, which needs only be mentioned to make a man giggle like a school girl. Princess Leia in a gold bikini. The explanation for the power of this attire is somewhat perplexing. Maybe it is just the fact that she is attached to leash a slavish manner. Carrie Fisher is not the first woman to wear a bikini on screen. It has multiple influences including “a native dancing girl in The Desert Song from 1929, Yvonne De Carlo in Slave Girl, 1947, and Maria Montez adventure films from the 1940s.” [1]

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Star Wars introduces the world to a wide range of iconic characters including, but not limited to, Princess Leia, C-3PO, R2D2, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Yoda. When the viewer is first introduced to Yoda, he or she might think that he is some hairy turtle with a robe and a walking stick. That notion is completed flipped on its head come episode two and three, when Yoda takes on Count Duku and the Emperor in some truly acrobatic and telekinetic brawls.

Some of the most witty dialogue, which may also be considered a monologue, is between the two robots: C-3PO and R2D2. R2 just makes robotic noises consisting of bleeps and bloops but it is still personified in a way that the viewer can detect some emotion. C-3PO on the other hand is very proper with his British accent and unwillingness to take any guff from R2. He will decrypt R2's noises with a response so that the viewer can merely guess what was really said, often insulting R2's arrogance or ignorance in the process.

The series started in the late 70s and still continues to this day with the most recent entry being released last year. The first six were made under the jurisdiction of George Lucas, who at the beginning was rather unknown. Lucas' confidence skyrocketed after the first film (episode four) however, and after that, any filmmaker working with him felt the need to bite their tongue on multiple occasions. After all, how could you question a now-legend? This unfortunately led to a lot of backlash from fans. Mostly for episodes 1-3 they gave Lucas a lot of flack for delving too deep into the politics of the universe and sucking the action out of the picture. Equally as detestable he became quite enamored with CGI and almost completely ditched any live-action sequences. This is in stark contrast to the earlier films (4-6) which relied on small hand-crafted models to film a majority of the battles in space and snow. For better or worse, the series is now under the ever-expanding umbrella of the Disney corporation. It would seem for the time that the saga is building up momentum again, and will continue to entertain millions for years to come.

1. ^ Bowers, Dwight. "Princess Leia Slave Bikini, from Rebel, Jedi, Princess, Queen: Star Wars™ and the Power of Costume, a Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition." Princess Leia Slave Bikini, from Rebel, Jedi, Princess, Queen: Star Wars™ and the Power of Costume, a Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition. Smithsonian, 2015.

Web. 04 Sept. 2016.

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"YOU MUST NOT JUDGE THE CUPCAKE BY ITS COVER"

CUPCAKE

Well, let’s admit that what you see in front of you right now is not the most spectacular cupcakes of all time. In honesty it has to be said, that expectations for these cupcakes were much higher than the outcome is. Such a huge disappointment. But, the taste was delicious and that is the most important thing, right? Anyways, maybe you guys can make your versions better, and if so, please send photos of your artwork and we will publish them on our Instagram in the new section we call “How to beat the Insider in-house chef”. It is a completely new concept, inspired by these cupcakes.

What you do: 1. Cream the butter and sugar.

2. Beat in eggs – one at a time – to the mix.

3. Add milk 4. Combine dry ingredients and add them slowly to the dough. Mix well.

5. Spoon the mixture into muffin paper cases (approximately 10 cupcakes) 6. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Be careful, these burn quite easily so check up on them and when golden-brown, take out of the oven even if there would still be time left. Set aside to cool for 10-20 minutes. At this point you can choose whether you’ll leave the paper cases on or take them off.

Then it’s time to prepare the icing: 7. Mix on all the ingredients and finally add the food colouring. Mix well.

8. If you are clever, you will use a piping bag at this stage. The Insider inhouse chef chose to just add the icing with a large spoon, and hoped that the nonpareils would cover the damage, which they didn’t do, as it now is obvious.

9. Finally, sprinkle nonpareils everywhere and send us the results so that we can show them on Instagram.

Suvi Karell

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What you need: • 50 g butter • 1 dl sugar • 2 eggs • ½ dl milk • 2,5 dl wheat flour • 2 teaspoons baking powder • 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar • 1 teaspoon cardamom • muffin paper cases And for the icing: • 200g cream cheese • 150 g butter • 6 dl icing sugar • 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla sugar • 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice • food colouring liquid • nonpareils

HUMANS OF XAMK

EVERYONE HAS A STORY - TELL US YOURS Humans of XAMK is a Facebook-based project launched by International Business students (IB15) of XAMK South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences. The main aim of the project is to collect and share stories of students, teachers, and staffs who is and was studying or working at XAMK. After the success of the Humans of New York and many other Humans of X projects, we come to realize that each and every one of us has an interesting and inspiring story to tell. Especially in this diverse environment of our university, there are so many stories and perspectives that worth sharing and being known. This has inspired us – the Humans of XAMK team- to come up with this project. Ever since we launched the page, we have had the chances to speak to a lot of interesting people and listen to their experiences and their time spending at our university.

Currently, we are also a part of a bigger project called Career Path – Straight out of college Kick-off event. Therefore, for the time being, our Humans of XAMK page is focusing mostly on sharing after graduated and seeking employment stories from alumni and foreign students that come to Finland to study with a view to connect current students with employment experiences and opportunities in Kouvola and in Finland generally. We also hope that, by sharing stories of alumni, we can connect current students with graduate students and create a wide network for experience and information sharing. However, we welcome any stories that you want to share.

Mai Lan Le

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THE MAGNETIC FIELDS 50 SONG MEMOIR Stephin Merritt, Thomas Bartlett, Charles Newman Indie Pop // March 10, 2017

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ndie pop group The Magnetic Fields is known for its curious, gimmicky concept albums. Their 2004 album i contained tracks that only started with the initial “I”, and the 2008’s Distortion bathed in 90s noise.

However, their most well-known work is the massive 69 Love Songs, a megalomaniac collection of the titular 69 tracks of various genres and styles. However, if we’re being honest here, despite its clever theme and concept I don’t think 69 Love Songs quite holds up all of its length. Many of the tracks are barely a minute long experiments, ranging from catchy to outright unlistenable.

Because of this, I had an initial prejudices when it came to their new, eleventh studio album 50 Song Memoir, which has a concept very similar to that of 69 Love Songs: the five-disc set contains fifty tracks, each intended to document one year in singer-songwriter Stephin Merritt’s life. Packed in are many childhood memories, loves, deaths, break-ups, antics of his hippie mother, abusive stepdads, living in Hawaii, failed movie projects, tributes to people who inspire him, and many other events and happenstances throughout his life.

The music follows alongside the times; many of the 60s tracks feature vaguely psychedelic folk instrumentation, reminiscent to that of the latter era Beatles; through the 70s the music gradually turns from folk to disco; during 80s the songs become more and more synth-heavy; the synth turns to Marilyn Manson-esque distorted electronic in the 90s. Some tracks, like the delicious, atheistic faux-spiritual “‘74: No”, the sitar-heavy “‘92: Weird Diseases”, and the depressing waltz of “‘05: Never Again” diverge from this pattern, providing variety. As an interesting meta joke some of the tracks documenting years during which the Magnetic Fields released an album sound similar to the albums released: “‘08: Surfin’” features similar heavy distortion as their 2008 album Distortion, and the uku-

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lele-keyboard combo of “‘10: 20, 000 Leagues Under the Sea” mimics the style of their 2010 album Realism.

However, the lyrics are often what steal the spotlight.

Merritt has an uncanny ability to produce interesting texts from seemingly mundane, sometimes even boring subjects. “‘A Cat Named Dionysus”, which chronicles the tragic love-hate relationship of a house pet and a toddler; “Blizzard of ´78” contrasts the devastating effects of the eponymous storm with the mundane, laughably bad pre-teen band practices he was having at the time. No matter the subject, Merritt keeps his texts from becoming too whimsical, sentimental or sappy.

Only few of the tracks, like “Hustle 76” and “Foxx and I”, are outright earworms; most of the album is full of subtle hooks that slowly dig their way into your head upon multiple listens. From the pile of fifty tracks new ones seem to stand out on every new listen. 50 Song Memoir is not an album you put on for a background music of a party; it is something you sit down to concentrate on.

Not every song is a perfect bullseye, but given that most artists can’t have 50 bullseyes even on their Best Of collections, the level of quality here is astounding. It is more of a rule than an exception to see a double album that would work better if trimmed and condensed into a regular one; here Merritt showcases that he can do this fivefold. None of the issues that plagued 69 Love Songs are present here: instead, the result is a fascinating collection of little vignettes that also function as surprisingly insightful look into Mr. Merritt’s life: it actually functions as a memoir of sorts. While it does not offer a thorough biographical look at his history, it paints a concrete, clear image of him as an artist and a human being.  Roope Sorvo

HIDDEN FIGURES

STUDIO 123 Kymenlaaksonkatu 1 45700 Kuusankoski 05 3792082 www.studio123.fi

STUDIO 1 SMURFFIT: KADONNUT KYLÄ (7) | 10€ | 1h30min Every Evening 17:00h Sat-Sun 15:00h, 17:00h BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (12) | 12€ | 2h10min Every Evening 18:50h

TARAJI P. HENSON

OCTAVIA SPENCER

JANELLE MONÁE

Director Theodore Melfi // Writers Allison Schroeder, Theodore Melfi Biography, Drama, History

The story of a team of African-American women mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the US space program.

The movie follows the stories of Kathrine Goble a physicist and mathematician who made contributions to the United States' aeronautics and space programs with the early application of digital electronic computers at NASA, Mary Jackson who took advanced engineering classes and in 1958 became NASA's first black female engineer and Dorothy Vaughn a mathematician and human computer who worked for the NACA and NASA and in 1949 became the first African-American acting supervisor of the West Area Computers.

The movie combines excellent storytelling, made to grab and hold the viewer's attention with an amazing cast that paid tribute to these historic figures. Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae worked together well to bring this shining trio convincingly to the big screen. Octavia Spencer in particular had the evenness and consistency that took her role above the others and with that earned her a nomination for best actress in a supporting role in the 2017 Academy Awards. Kevin Costner was wonderful as the team leader even though I had the feeling that his character was mostly designed to pander specifically to white audiances.

Jim Parsons as the selfish second in charge seemed like he was just the perfect cast for that particular role and Kirsten Dunst as the wielder of small power HR director made the most of their opportunities.

Hidden Figures was definitely meant to be a feel-good movie. It tackles issues of racism and sexism head-on without having the gritty feel like 12 Years a Slave or The Birth of a Nation. It's a film about overcoming those odds and difficulties in order to prove your self-worth.  Sarah Rosenthal

STUDIO 2 VAIANA (7) | 11€ | 1h54min Sat-Sun 15:15h GHOST IN THE SHELL (12) | 12€ | 1h47min Every Evening 17:30h LIFE (16) | 11€ | 1h44min Fri, Sun, Tue-Thu 19:30h LOGAN (16) | 12€ | 2h18min Sat, Mon 19:30h

STUDIO 3 ONNELI, ANNELI JA SALAPERÄINEN MUUKALAINEN (S) | 10€ | 1h15min Sat, Sun 15:40h TOIVON TUOLLA PUOLEN (12) | 8€ | 1h38min Fri, Mon 17:15h TOM OF FINLAND (12) | 12€ | 1h55min Fri, Mon 17:15h MOONLIGHT (12) | 11€ | 1h51min Sun, Wed 17:15h HIDDEN FIGURES (7) | 11€ | 2h07min Fri, Mon 19:15h Thu 19:30h THE SALESMAN (12) | 11€ | 2h04min Sat, Tue 19:20 MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (12) | 12€ | 2h17min Sun, Wed 19:20h

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