Friday, January 29

I got to work safely over a mixture of running water and smooth ice. I got the 68 from Sörnäinen because research now shows conclusively that buses get to Arcada much faster than trams. Research also shows that trams still give me a boyish delight and so cannot be forgotten in my travel plans, just put aside sometimes.

I spent most of the morning writing a first draft of a conference paper that I intend to submit to Global ELearn. Since it relates very closely to my intended areas of research and also to my current teaching and to the reasons I want promotion I put a lot of mental effort into it.

At 13:00 I had a tutorial and after that I started planning next week’s courses. I have two new courses and no time to prepare anything once they have started, so I put even more mental effort into this.

At 15:00 Tomas and I went through the plans for ending the Masters course and then at 16:15 we met the students and began.

The students have broken into their groups and are scattered around Arcada and Chico’s. I am about to have an instant porridge from India: a Saffola Masala Oats in a delicious curry and pepper flavour. I am noticing that Hulk Hogan has adopted a particularly belligerent pose, and I can also see that Barbie has been repositioned out of shot. I blame Jutta for all this.

We will gather again at 19:30 and the students will present their timetables and working plans for their final projects. Once they have all been explained, discussed and approved, we will finish for the weekend.

I will be happy to leave.