Thursday, December 17

Something was falling heavily from the sky when I left the house this morning, and I couldn’t tell if it was rain or slush. It continued to fall and I continued to be unable to identify it properly.

I am standing at the tram stop waiting while everything glistens in the wet.

At Arcada I will race to get everything done before I leave this evening. I will write a report for the thesis I examined yesterday. I will give it a grade of excellent which it genuinely deserved. I will cross everything off my to-do list, either by doing it, deferring it, or deleting it. I will create publicity material for the summer course: a rerun of the course Erik and I created.

I will have lunch in the restaurant in order to talk with some students. The food will be a strange mixture as the kitchen begins to shut down for the holidays, and I will have chilli with roast potatoes.

In the afternoon I will have a Skype conversation with Jutta to finish some matters; a longer Skype conversation with Jake Harries to kickstart some matters; and a backup session to make as certain as possible that nothing gets lost that houldn’t. I will finally get Jack and Denise’s address and send Casey a late birthday present and a (hopefully not late) Christmas present. Both will involve Duplo, and both will involve Amazon.

At 16:25 I will be waiting near the British Embassy because we are about to go and have mince pies and wine with the ambassador. In the evening I will shower and go to bed early because tomorrow we fly away.