Monday, May 8

 

 

Today I woke up expecting to stay out late. Today advertised itself as Arcada Day. I forsook the bike and walked to Puotila.

I spent the morning workshopping a thesis report with a student who has developed a fear of writing. I asked questions. She answered at length. I took notes. She edited these into her own report. She has used autoethnography as her methodology and this seems to me to fit with this. I have treated this as a pedogogical experiment, and continue to do so.

While I drew out information my less fortunate colleagues listened to lectures about Generation Y in the workplace. They also had an introduction to Cuckoo Start, a Swedish app and website that Arcada has apparently subscribed to. Idiocy, family ties or corruption: you be the judge.

The previous sentence, you point out, contains an example of the verb to be. Yes, I reply. I have wondered whether I might sanction its use in deliberate clichés. “You be the judge” counts in my view as a well-known cliché that I cannot rewrite or paraphrase without losing the point of using the cliché in the first place.

First language problems, you say. Rightly, too.

I went downstairs to partake in the “healthy salad buffet” to discover that it cost almost seven euros. Jutta and I found ourselves in a long, long queue for this and peeled off in favour of buying a salad at S-Market. When we returned, salad in hand, the people in the queue still stood queuing, in more or less the same position.

In the afternoon I had to choose between several workshops. I started with “air hockey” (translated from the Swedish by me and verified by Google, Jutta and Maria), to discover I had chosen the hockey version of table football. I left for the games workshop where I played three games of Mastermind with Calle. This proved as hard as I remembered it, and Calle agreed.

During the final session Jutta beat me at table hockey and we broke into the StressLab to have a game of Mastermind. We drew one all.

We caught the tram to Sörnäinen and walked to Kellohalli, joined by Mikael Paronen. Only I seemed to know where we should go. It’s my patch, guv.

We stand in Kellohalli, flutes of sparkling wine in hand, listening to the manager making a speech about the history of the abbatoir and the revival of the whole compound as a cultural quarter. I turn around and see a woman finishing setting up the buffet we will get very soon. I like the table arrangements and the unaltered industrial nature of the building. Clichéd? Yes. Irritating? Not really.

Soon we will eat. We will each get one glass of free wine. I will hand mine to Maria to have or share. Replacement glasses cost about 10€ and I would rather start (and continue) with iced water than wonder whether I can justify buying a second glass. Mirkko will opt for a beer as his second drink. He will spend 7.60 on 33cl of Kukko that I could buy in Prisma for 1.90.

I will leave and walk through a hailstorm to Kalasatama. When I get home the sun will come out. Irma will arrive home from Niilia’s birthday party and I will go for a walk.

I will experience another hailstorm. Heavy and prolonged, since you ask.