Tuesday, October 10

 

 

The day started unusually because Irma and I had to attend the same meeting at 9:00, and so we both left at the same time. Rain poured down but we had the car to protect us.

We headed for Stoa where we met Emilia, Josefin and Kipa and spent an hour or more going through the BuddySchool website, and logging a few final changes that still need to happen. We also agreed that the WordPress site did not need to go public on the launch date since the static site works perfectly for everything except updating.

I left for Arcada at about 10:20 and spent the morning preparing for the next two blocks of the CMS course, with the usual interruptions.

At 13:15 I began leading the session, and at 13:45 I spotted Nathalie and the new rector peeping in through the window. Fortunately they had caught me in semi-coherent, arm-swinging explanatory mode, and they mistake the student puzzlement for attentiveness, and felt impressed.

At 14:30 I went for coffee with the new rector and everyone else in the team. She seemed funny, relaxed and very friendly. When I went back to my desk Naa’s Macbook sleeve had finally arrived, so I whatsapped her and she replied happily.

At 17:00 I stood under an awning in Rauhankatu, outside a bookshop, waiting for Naa and Irma. Rain fell in sheets and bounced off the pavement. I had found a chair under the awning so my bag and Naa’s case rested under that.

We have come to the opening of Päivi Arvonen’s show, In the Shadows of a Temple, of photographs she has taken in India. Irma knows her: she writes newspaper columns and essays, and (obviously) takes photographs. After a glass of wine she announces a traditional Keralan dance and we stand in the gallery and watch a kathakali performance. Later all three of us will remark on how it took us back to Kovalam where we saw the males dancers and both Naa and Auo found them extremely creepy. Auo had nightmares about them.

We will drive home in the rain and darkness.