I feel like in a transition period in my stay. Automn has passed but winter hasn’t come yet. No leaves, no colours, no snow. Only cold rain. And darkness.

Maybe winter won’t change a thing. Maybe this feeling of slackness will go on until the sun comes back in spring.  There is a certain droopy desparation in the air. I can feel the depression lurk around the corner.

But it can’t be the sun; I mean, Edinburgh is quite up North too, right? …I just checked the map, and there is quite a difference. Same as the difference between Copenhagen and Prague… I have been underestimating it.

And if only I could see the sun between the sunrise at 8:10 a.m. and 3 p.m. when it sets. But clouds cover the sky so densely that you can hardly see a change, until it is 3 again and you recognise that (truly) it was light, realising what you have just lost.

These gloomy perspectives turn one away from the idea of going out altogether and I find myself playing risk or drinking wine in underground pubs or watching a movie with friends or by myself. I have once again rediscovered the art of cinema, and once again it has deterred me from my studies.

Not to worry, things are going well. We did an example Swedish listening exam, which most of us failed (I got 63% with a passing mark of 65%) but from my experience the ‘example’ tests are much harder than the real thing. They want to scare you into taking it all more seriously 🙂

So the exam is next week; the thought I would not ever study swedish again seems wierd, but I’ve decided that there is no point of devoting my time to a language I would probably never use anyway. There are some people in the course who do practice with their Swedish friends, but I just get annoyed at not being able to express myself properly, and switch to English immediately. I don’t think that this attitude of mine would change by June, and after that I think I’ll spend my life in warmer countries with less conservative nightlife (huge taxes on alcohol, alcohol shop monopoly, and they all close at 7:30, rumours of weed that few people have actually seen in this country, pubs that close at 12, clubs that close at 2).

Apart from that hanging out with people to catch up, tea flasks waking me up in the morning lectures, as well as addicted devouring of movies that have been on my watch list for years, are among the things that make me feel more alive.