Friday, October 19

 

 

I woke up in the night having a heated debate with myself about the complexities of using self-definition as the basis of cultural and social organisation. Prompted no doubt by reading about the women’s movement in Britain objecting to a bill designed to make it easier for trans people to declare their gender on the basis of self-identification, I found myself in a hall somewhere trying to make my point heard.

As I woke I lost any notion of what point I wanted to make in the dream. I had no idea what position my sleeping self had taken in the fictitious debate I found myself involved in.

I cycled to work through a clear autumn morning and sent a flurry of emails as soon as I got to Arcada: to Arlene and Sophie, to members of Pixelache, and to the CMS class to tell them that I had agreed to run an extra class next Monday afternoon for those people who had fallen behind.

I devoted the rest of the morning to reading a paper from Pluti about a failed attempt to establish a hyperlocal online news site in Helsinki. He wanted my to check the English, but I found an added bonus: the content interested me greatly and seemed very relevant to the forthcoming Digital Mediascapes MA class that I will give in December.

At midday I had an MA thesis tutorial which lasted almost ninety minutes. The thesis now nears completion and so I ran a session in which I asked questions as we read through the draft and the student answered them and then made notes of the final answer, with a view to inserting the answers into the text later.

At 15:00 I notice the tree that I photographed every month a couple of years ago. It looks briefly magnificent due to the particular combination of sun, shadow and fallen leaves. I walk outside to photograph it before the light fades, and then walk round the block because I want to.

I will leave for home, and the weekend, at 16:30. Well in the Park happens tonight but Irma has felt increasingly tired all week, so we have decided to miss this one. As I cycle from Puotila, I will decide that I do not mind this one bit.