Friday, January 25

The weather felt a lot warmer this morning. I checked. The temperature had risen to minus four.

I left home feeling like a man who had slept for ten hours, which indeed I almost had. For the second night running I had woken up with a clear idea in my head, written it down, and gone back to sleep.

I started the day by standing in for Monica who had to act as an overbearing mother for some students using the the medical simulation studio. She had brought her son with her so that should could act overbearing with him. The students would have to find a way to talk past her and elicit information directly from him.

Since my first task was classified as thinking I sat there supervising the re-examination that Monica should have supervised while thinking. By the time Monica arrived to take over I had well and truly thought.

The rest of the morning passed in a blur of administrative tasks which all got done.

After a quick lunch I go a-walking. I stop at the International Office to ask a few pertinent questions and then start changing floors, walking up and down stairways. As I walk back up to A3 I stop and photograph this charming geometric arrangements. The details in this building will serve as photographic subjects for the rest of my working life.

In the afternoon I will catch up on writing. Among other things I will continue editing and adding to the text of the paper I delivered in Hamburg. I promised Elize on Wednesday that I would have it ready by the end of next week, and I will. I will also write up the minutes of the Nobanet meeting and start a document listing the major facets of the new plan we intend to develop for the grant application.

I will end my working week with a tutorial with an MA student who wonders whether I should supervise her thesis. We will decide that I probably should.