I have to admit that with the arrival of November, I began to feel the shortening of the days. Each day lasts from 6 to 7 minutes less (in ten days one hour less) and, since my biorhythm is not just “traditional” , it happened  that I didn’t see the light for several consecutive days. The sun then I think it is only a vague memory, as the sky is covered 9 of10 days (and probably the tenth day I was sleeping when the sun appeared for a few hours!). The days will get shorter until December 21 (I think).

To browse the length of days, this is the page for you!

I don’t know if it happened for the first time since I am in Oulu, but it is the first time that I notice. This morning we have been under the -10 ° C. Then some rays of sun came to “restore the situation.” Hyvää Pyhäinpäivää to everybody (today here is “All saints day”).

An Italian in Finland listening live the U2 concert in Los Angeles on YouTube. A couple of years ago I would not bet a penny on the fact that this could be me in 2009. Coincidentally now Bono is singing “I Still Have not Found What I’m looking for”.

Oulu, -1° C

There are songs, movies, books that occasionally emerge randomly from my memory, where they had remained dormant for years. The same can be said of this poem by J. R. Kipling (the author of  The Jungle Book, Captains Courageous, Kim and other books that have populated my childhood with strange characters) that left me open-mouthed for the first time many years ago during an English class and that makes me think a lot.

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

Oulu, 0 °C

... and to see everything white while it continues to snow. In the beginning of October. Today I want to go to the university!