Wednesday, May 23

 

 

I walked from Kalasatama this morning, listening to Nick Lowe on my headset.

At 9:00 I talked with Jutta about two students who have gone missing: one to England and one to Borgä. We felt hopeful that at least one of them would return to write a thesis of some merit.

At 10:00 I had a tutorial with Natalie, who has just finished the coding on the Job’d project, about a set of experiments that she would like to make as a thesis project. They added up to the most interesting and exciting project a student has presented to me in the last decade or so. They will have clear, and potentially large, real-world implications and yet they seem like something that she can do within the time available. I left the meeting almost as excited as her.

After this I overheard Maria, Monica and Nathalie talking about throwing away the fatboys in the open space opposite the staffroom. I joined in to check that I had heard right, and then went and grabbed one of the orange ones, and rearranged my space so I had a reading space that didn’t let me look at a screen. I sat on the fatboy in the corner and read through two theses: one for this afternoon and one for tomorrow.

Tomas and I heard an MA thesis presentation at 13:00. At the end of our feedback and discussion the student volunteered to take the draft back and rewrite it according to the notes he had made when we critiqued it. We agreed and postponed grading it by a week.

After this I wander around at a loose end. Jutta has two thesis presentations today and they will run one after another since they will both report on different aspects of the Buddyschool project. Emilia has written her thesis about human centred design, using Buddyschool as a case study, and Josefin has written about the actual design decisions that they made. I walk into the room before their presentations begin and manage to take a photograph that captures both of them in characteristic poses. Josefin looks at her laptop while Emilia reacts in delight.

The Buddyschool team will graduate successfully and together, which will seem like a near-perfect end to an excellent project.

As soon as I have done this I will meet Seti, who has a tape measure with her. We will walk around the building and down into the basement measuring tables. At some point we will take a detour while she shows me Arcada’s secure bike shed: something I did not even know existed. We will finish with a plan to remake the Online Media Studio over summer to provide more space and a better working environment. Nathalie will approve it as soon as we show her the scribbled plans.

I will remember to take Naa’s Afrikan Tähti home with me.

Irma and I will garden for a couple of hours; planting, pulling up weeds, and removing the stubbornly remaining oak leaves from flower beds. Sunshine will follow us around watching. He will manage to disappear just before we go indoors.

He will reappear again, as though by magic, just before bed time.