Wednesday, December 5

 

 

Last night Irma felt tired from a long and stressful day, and I felt I felt somewhere between puzzled and upset, and these conflicting emotions flared into an unneccesary argument about nothing at all.

This morning I woke feeling optimistic, with a plan that might fix everything. I looked out at the cold, wet darkness and opted to take the bus.

As soon as I got to Arcada I rescheduled the CMS presentations for January 22, booked a room for Tuesday’s workshop, and wrote a long email to the students laying out the new timetable, with a list of things they needed to do.

I explained everything to Fred, Jutta and Nathalie, and left for Slush.

I spent the morning looking at presentations, including an excellent discussion between Caterina Fake and Asa Raskin.

Irma joined me when her meeting finished at 11:15 and became fascinated by the Wärtsilä exhibit, which we both liked last year. Later, on the way out, I photograph their projected tent in one of its many different moods.

We will take a long time trying to find a place to eat which has queues less than fifty metres. Eventually we will go upstairs to the very edges of the show where the Fazer restaurant will stand almost empty. We will have sandwiches there.

At 16:00 we will leave to go to the grand opening of Oodi, Helsinki’s new library and cultural centre by the railway station. We will find a two hundred metre queue standing in the rain waiting to get in. Fortunately we will also find Sami, who has worked there all day with people from Job’d. He will let us in through the stage door.

Once inside we will meet Tommi, and many other people from Irma’s work. I will wander round the new books looking and reading, and admiring the extraordinary space.

We will finish the evening with some Christmas shopping – as in: shopping for things for the Christmas party on Saturday – and go home to a cat wondering where everyone has got to.