Name: Mina Beeler
Year: Senior
Major: History
Relationship status: Taken
Hometown: Cohoes, NY
Activities: “Anime Club Treasurer, and I’ve got an internship working for the North Adams Historical Society, surveying St. Joseph’s Cemetery and helping with inventory.”
In honor of the month of October we decided to interview a few cuties whose awesome fashion sense and love of spooky lore make them irristible. Meet Mina Beeler. She loves history and wants to someday be an archivist. She credits her love of history to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Fun fact, the main female character in Dracula, Wilhelmina Harker, just happens to share her first name.
How long does it take you to do that awesome makeup every morning?
“10 to 20 minutes, the swirls and the bats are the quickest but the spider webs take a bit longer.”
What do you like about MCLA?
“I like how small it is, because I feel like I can make better connections with people. I love my major, and I know all the professors and people in that major.”
What’s your favorite book?
“Dark Tower series by Steven King.”
What’s a cool place you’ve traveled to? Where would you like to go in the future?
“I went to Whitby Abbey for Goth Weekend around Halloween last year [while studying abroad in England], and that was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had, because I was on my own. What I really want to do is work in Romania!”
What got you interested in history?
“When I was in 6th grade I read Dracula, and sometime afterwards I found out how Stoker was inspired by Vlad Dracula from Romania. That just flipped some kind of switch in me; I still love fantasy, but it’s just so fascinating to read about people’s real lives, even if we just know bits and pieces. I sort of stumbled upon a job search for being an archivist, and that’s where I’ve been headed since freshman year of high school.
An archivist works with cataloguing collections that come in such as people’s belongings like books, journals and diaries. We also work digitizing files, like papers and books.”
How long have you been a goth?
“[The summer before] seventh grade I went to camp and I met this girl who was already goth, and we became really close friends, and she really got me into all of that. She really got me into anime, too. “
What sort of music do you like?
“Poets of the Fall is my favorite band; I got to meet them in London, actually. I listen to Five Finger Death Punch, Disturbed, Into Shadow.”
What are your hobbies?
“I really enjoy wood burning, I haven’t been able to do a lot since I came back to school, but over the summer I started an Etsy shop for it. It’s called the Dragon’s Hearth. I also really like writing poetry.
I study divination, I do tarot cards and I’m a novice at palm readings.”
What are your favorite horror movies?
“The first Sinister movie is the scariest one I’ve ever seen. Psychologically, the original Wicker Man is one of my favorites ever.”
Got any Halloween plans yet?
“I wanna do something terrifying for Halloween, but someone wants me to do something cute, so I don’t know what I’m going to do. I was thinking of being Jekyll and Hyde at the same time, kind of like Two-Face, but I’m not sure.”
Fun fact about you?
“Goats are my favorite animal!”