Friday, January 19

 

 

This morning the snowplough arrived just as I left the house. I stepped into Minna and Tommi’s drive to let it past. This answered the question about whether the snowplough could pass the van left parked in the road or not. Yes it can – just.

I started the day by persuading Nathalie that Tova should receive a stipend as part of her graduation. I showed her a way of interpreting the numbers so that she passed the threshold (which she should because she will graduate six months early with a good degree) and in the end we agreed.

I then set about writing an email to Gunilla, reminding her of the Buddyschool launch, and skyping Jutta about the nurses’ project. We may now have students keen to do this, for which I thank Jutta.

The rest of the morning disappeared in a flurry of writing. I wrote abstracts for two conferences and the first draft of an article for a short book to celebrate Henrik Wolff’s career at Arcada.

At 11:30 I had a clinic with a group who had trouble with their Innovation process. At 12:30 I had two clinics with Tomas on the same topic. The three felt startlingly different and I found myself offering very different kinds of advice.

At 14:00 I walked down to the graduation ceremony with Maria and Tomas. I searched for Tova and Varvara who had both got stipends for passing with an overall grade of more than 4. Eventually I found them, and congratulated them. I then stood chatting with Maria, Monica and Tomas.

Now I stand in Itäkeskus waiting for a bus. I just missed one by approximately thirty seconds when the driver looked at me and pulled away. I suspect that this balances out the time earlier in the week when a driver waited for me to run across the road. Another bus will arrive in ten minutes.

We will spend the evening exploring our television problems. The channels seem to come and go, with an increasing emphasis on the go part of the equation. We will manage to watch the documentary about climbing Everest that we have got midly addicted to, but only with the picture and sound stuttering, breaking up and freezing throughout.

Irma will try to contact the woman who looks after our television antenna but we will fail to make contact. Presumably she can’t answer her phone because she has a television to watch.