Friday, September 21

 

 

I woke up half-remembering a flurry of household dreams in which I did or did not do various cleaning tasks on time, and in the right way. In the one I remembered most clearly Irma got angry with Auo and me because we had (deliberately she claimed) misunderstood her instructions and cleaned the wrong cupboard. Interestingly, in the dream Auo seemed like a tall teenager, and certainly older than when she died.

I don’t think I have had that happen before.

I cycled to Puotila and, as I left the house, I grabbed one of the overhanging apples from Minna’s tree.

I registered all of the nine student theses that I will supervise this year and then emailed all the students asking them to contact me and have a tutorial next month on Zoom, using my new personal Zoom Room. I then drew up a long set of comments on a draft thesis I received last weekend, with a step-by-step list explaining how I think the student might address the issues I raised. I finished, of course, by suggesting that we have a tutorial in my personal Zoom Room.

I go for lunch downstairs because I want to talk to Monica and, if possible, find someone from HR to chat with. I manage the first but not the second. I have autumn root vegetable soup for lunch, and since I like soups I like this one.

Returning upstairs I sit down to eat Minna’s apple for dessert. I have pulled it off with leaves intact so that it looks as though I bought it in an overpriced organic shop. I photograph it to capture the evidence.

In the afternoon I will continue writing the essay that I promised Mats Bergman, and try to complete a blog post that Nathalie started, about the seminar that we attended on Wednesday.

I will have a WhatsApp messaging session with Jutta that will turn into a Skype video call until her internet fails. We will then try to turn it into a Zoom session but she will turn out to have forgotten how to use Zoom. Or we will fail to put our joint knowledge into a form we can both use. Return will we to Skype, where discuss Photoshop alternatives we will. I will point Jutta to Serif’s Affinity and to Pixelmator.

We will fail to find a viable Windows alternative to Adobe XD, though we will note that Affinity Designer could well replace Illustrator.

I will have a short festival planning meeting on Jitsi with Aga and Ilpo to determine exactly what Job’d workers we will need. I will then sit down and turn my notes into job offers and upload them onto the Treamer website.

I will arrange a meeting with Maria Höglund of HR for Monday, in which we will discuss my working hours for this year, because something important occurred to me when I went to fill in my arbettidsplan earlier today.

The weather will brighten up, the sky will turn blue, and at 17:15 I will find myself outside the British Embassy for an unusual Well in the Park: their first cocktail evening. Let’s see how this turns out, I will think, as Irma and I show our IDs and enter the building.

It will turn out fine, I will think, when Irma drops me off at Puotila on the way home, so that I can collect my bike and exercise the cocktails out of my system by cycling home.