Thursday, May 15

This morning began with a meeting between Nathalie, Eija and me. This stemmed from an email Erik had sent me in which he said that the International Coordinator at Odense had suggested that Eija explain the existing web of cooperation to Nathalie.

Eija produced copies of the formal agreement between the two institutions which included the aim to “identify cooperation possibilities in the field of Media programmes” – and here we are doing it. However, Eija then introduced a plot twist that took me a moment to get to grips with. She suggested that what Erik, Jutta and I have planned should become a subgroup of Nobanet, a Nordic/Baltic network that she coordinates. Seconds later I realised that Eija was answering the soon-to-be-asked question “where is the money coming from?” by offering us access to an existing and well-stocked pool of funding.

Nathalie and Eija then agreed that I would rearrange everything in order to attend the Nobanet summer seminar in Tallinn on May 26 to 28. This required me to try to move the first Arcada MA thesis presentation, where I am the supervisor; an exercise in which I completely failed. Mats was intransigent, and reasonably so. So I will now attend two of the three days of the seminar, which Eija is happy about.

At 12:30 I met Riita to discuss introducing wellness, positive psychology and Garrett Kramer’s ideas of stillpower into the media students leadership training. Specifically we agreed that we would make a joint presentation at the big staff seminar in October, and meet several times before that to work out how we are going to do this and how we are going to present the ideas to the rest of the staff. We discussed whether this would mean introducing a physical compnent into the Online Media course, and decided that we should think about holding some of the leadership course in the gym.

Now Jutta and I have decided to finish off a lengthy conversation about next year by walking to S-Market to buy ice creams. I have got a Sour Jattis, which is nowhere near as good as last year’s Iso Pingvini Hot & Sour. We are walking past a Plymouth Park Lane that is in mint condition.

I will spell-check and proofread Ville’s MA thesis – the one whose presentation cannot be moved – and mail a marked up copy to him. I will then leave for home. On the way I will realise that today is 123 days after Auo died. It will please me to have discovered this on the right day, because it is a fact that Auo would have enjoyed and laughed about – if she was not dead, that is.

Naa will be at Kamppi, where she will spend the night. Irma will go shopping and return with creams, lotions and medicines. The cat will want non-stop attention and follow me around making “look at me” noises.

Later we will have showers and watch Criminal Minds, where the plot will be focused on an unusual subgroup of the team.