Three weeks into my first semester as a PhD student, and the Alberta prairies are painting themselves in gold.

The transition from Stockholm's archipelago to Edmonton's vast prairie landscape has been more dramatic than I expected. Here, autumn announces itself not with the sudden shock of Nordic winter, but with endless fields of golden wheat stretching to impossibly distant horizons.

Walking across campus yesterday evening, I was struck by how the setting sun turns the entire world amber. My supervisor mentioned that this is just the beginning—soon the aurora will dance across these same skies, but with a different character than Stockholm's aurora. Prairie aurora, he calls it, broader and more theatrical against the wide-open sky.

There's something profound about this landscape's honesty. No mountains to hide behind, no forests to create intimacy. Just pure space, demanding that you either embrace the vastness or be overwhelmed by it. I'm choosing to embrace it.