Friday, May 9

 
 
YEAR:  2014 | Tags:  | | |
 
 
 
 
 

Multihallen, Arcada, 14:58

 
 

This morning I slept in late and still needed the alarm at 7:30. Naa was at Kamppi and Irma was working from home, so I got up, dressed and ate, and left just in time to catch the 7:55 bus.

The morning was taken up with two simultaneous activities.

Firstly I guided the CMS group to a moderately successful conclusion to a course that had been plagued with technical difficulties that were neither their fault nor mine. In the end we achieved less than we set out to do but much more than could have been expected in the circumstances.

Secondly I set up the live video feed on the Omtänk site. This should have been a piece of cake but part of the technical difficulties spilled over onto this task. I had no ftp access to the HostMonster account, despite hours and days trying to deal with their technical support, and so I could not upload the necessary javascript files. I could only use the WordPress edit screen which, as I always tell the students, is an act of insanity. In the end I was reduced to using an iFrame, which then refused to play nicely with the css. Finally I hacked something together that, if you didn’t look too closely and if you had no idea what I had originally intended, might have been said to work.

Just about.

Now I am looking down at the studio where Michaela is getting into her role as host. The judges are already in their seats. The hall is full and, through sheer force of numbers, the whole thing has assumed the feeling of a genuine spectacle, and everyone is treating it as such. Any cynicism that any of the students had expressed earlier has now completely evaporated.

I will retreat upstairs to watch the show on my laptop, in order to check that the feed is actually working. The show will finish at 19:00 and I will go downstairs to mingle with the staff and students. There will be universal agreement that the project was a success, and that we should do it again next year.

We will all walk through the rain to Corhuset for the after-party. I will stay long enough to establish an alibi before beating a retreat through what is now a perfect storm.

I will be home and wet by 20:45.