Europe

“Quando è stata l’ultima volta che hai visto un finlandese in televisione per aver fatto qualcosa di grande?”. La mia risposta fu “Mai”.

“When was the last time you saw a Finn on the television for doing something big?”. My answer was “never”.

No sooner had I landed in Cairo after four long years of absence than I discovered my watch broke.

The fellow student couldn’t even tell me what city their Croatian relatives were from. I was disappointed, it’s a small country after all.

I am caught between two generations and two homes. I am an immigrant in a world that does not want to remember.

I recalled that I too had faced the heat of racism but I had conveniently kept this hidden away in some corner of my mind.

One poem that did strike me and that I do still think about from time to time is ‘Digging’ by Seamus Heaney.

Getting a PhD is a unique experience, and it’s nothing if not humbling. Successes are a needle in a haystack of failures.

Instead of facts humans often use emotion when making decisions and show a personal connection to the things they believe to be true.

I kept my head down and worked hard. Then it happened.