Wednesday, June 1

It was a blazing hot day so I cycled off merrily, albeit slightly later than usual. In the bright summer nights I seem to wake up about 2:30, and then go slowly back to sleep. Since I didn’t set an alarm this meant that I woke up fifteen minutes later. Then again, since I have no teaching, it matters not at all.

I spent a good part of the morning doing administrative work for the remaining theses, and also for those students desperately needing compensatory tasks for the course assignments they decided to miss. I have been trying to develop compensatory assignments that generate the least amount of extra work for me, and I think I have begun to succeed. I then made the slide show that I will use at tomorrow’s Retrospective event, which will also be the one that I use at next week’s Nobanet presentation. It was based on the one I used in Limerick, and I decided that I should make a comprehensive and compatible set of these, stored in one place, so that I can pull them out whenever I need them. I decided that I would do this with the Cultural Democracy slides I need to make for Sheffield, building upon the ones I used last time.

At 14:15, lunch having been eaten, I raced out of the building for the 14:19 number 8 tram to Töölö.

There is a late Spring party at the place where Irma’s father stays and guests are welcome, and we are some of the guests. We are sitting with Irma’s mother and father. Naa has just arrived from work. We are eating sausages or ice cream, and watching two young belly dancers, who are providing the entertainment. All the staff have (literally) let their hair down, and it takes me some time to recognise some of them.

Fun is being had by all.

Later, Naa will come to our place and pull sheets, which I will then iron. We will do gardening, and I will sit in the swingchair until I have finished another Ross MacDonald novel. This one is Find A Victim, an early Lew Archer story, and an interesting look at small Californian towns in the period just after the war.