Monday, October 26

The clocks went back yesterday, so this morning was daylight for the first time in several weeks. Tonight will be pitch black though.

I started the morning with a long Skype meeting with Erik, because it has fallen to us to plan the entire Nobanet meeting in Oslo in two weeks’ time. We came up with a plan and I hurried back to my laptop, wrote it down, and sent it to Eija.

Then I had to enrol another eighty students into Lynda, which I did, before beginning to recompile my cv in preparation for applying for promotion. I also made a doctor’s appointment, for a check-up, and discovered that the doctor I have always seen has now left Diacor. I made an appointment with someone else.

Now I am on my way to an afternoon meeting, and I am walking past the new Starbucks coffee machine. Ah, the sweet smell of branding. The restaurant has always sold coffee by the cup. Now the Starbucks stand, which appeared last month, sells more expensive coffee in Starbucks cups. There are queues every morning, and every lunchtime.

The lighting effect is caused by the blinding autumn sun streaming through the window behind the coffee machine. If I step one pace to the left I will not be able to see anything.

At the meeting we will discuss supervising the masters’ theses. During a lull in this fascinating conversation I will check Feedly where I will discover that the World Health Organisation has now officially declared that sausages and processed meets are as carcinogenic as cigarettes, and should be treated with as much caution.