Monday, August 29

Today was Irma’s birthday and I gave her two creams, from Shiseido and another Japanese company, and a voucher for a Finnair flight. I got one for my birthday so now we can go somewhere together.

I cycled to work before the rain started, and got there just as the first serious drops fell. I was not so lucky at the other end.

I spent the morning doing preparation work, interrupted by unnecessary meetings. At lunchtime we all went to Dylan for a departmental celebration to celebrate the fact that the ministry had admitted that the figures they were using to claim our rate of graduating students was approximately 8% were completely wrong and based on a misreading of something they had, in any case, misunderstood. It was pouring with rain when we left but Monica leant me a spare umbrella. It was raining even harder when we walked back, so I was extremely grateful.

In the afternoon we had a media team meeting in which I got volunteered to be on a working group looking at how we might revise the entrance procedure.

At 17:00 I have an appointment in Stoa with a Somalian voluntary group to discuss a project they are planning. The rain is heavy and relentless and I am taking shelter halfway between the metro station and Stoa. It helps that the metal statue is a pokestop, and one which seems to attract a lot of unusual pokemon. I stand here hoping the rain will ease. It doesn’t but I catch three pokemon, two of them new.

Irma will start the meeting and then leave to collect Naa. I will sit for a couple of hours with the group and we will make progress with their project proposal. I will not be sure how much help I am but I am happy to act as a sounding board which, if I was getting paid for it, would enable me to describe myself as a facilitator.

I will walk back to Puotila to get my back and cycle home in pouring rain wearing my bright orange Tiger rain cape. I will be visible to the naked eye.