whoooooooooowwowo.......Today was a crowded and intense one. It consisted of:
1. Going to a local petrol station at 8am (regular shops open at 9:30am here) to buy Cat food, coffee and toilet paper as money was paid at midnight and we are broke.
2. Getting son to day care and then accompanying my wife to the Art School to submit an application portfolio for a 5 year art degree that I hope she gets a place in (good luck Erika).
3. Going to HUMlab and being confronted with a barrage of people, several from media who are attempting to speak to doctoral student Stefan Blomberg who is researching computer games and the culture around them. His short course in HUMlab on Computer game violence has attracted a huge amount of interest.
4. Negotiate possible buying of mobile phone and digital camera with impoverished colleague in HUMlab (I am also impoverished but this deal is so good I must make an effort)
5. Spend an hour rearranging schedule so as to attend Stefan's short course and also an inworld conference in Online Traveler with a group of students for Gymnasium (senior high school). Meet with my Pedagogy teacher to negotiate my consistent absence from his really good course (feel bad about this as radical pedagogy is starting to engage my interest more and more)
6. Rush to my son's day car to attend a parent feedback meeting with one of his teachers.
7. Rush back to HUMlab to begin the short course on computer game violence.
8 Leave short course on computer game violence to attend inworld meeting in 3D collaborative virtual environment Online Traveler. Enjoy a conversation with the Director of HUMlab and Oz, a Traveler coordinator and environment builder (in the USA at 6:30am after he has been up all night building a world environment for the online launch of a new CD by Paul - or was it Peter- from 1960's folkies Peter Paul and Mary). The students from the high school can't get around the firewall in the school lab so have only a visual presence inworld.
9. Return to computer game violence short course. I play several games including Postal 2 and Mortal Combat. I can't remember the names of the others but although they contained depictions of violence they were not approaching realism and relied more heavily on parody I feel. Falluja is a possible name for a really violent computer game of the future (a shock that has settled into my bones).
10. Leave HUMlab and run back to my son's day care to attend his first art exhibition which is exceptional- I will be photographing it tomorrow and will include images here. He is almost four and is blossoming.
11. Return home eat a sandwich and then go alone to the supermarket to purchase my own body weight in products: Food glorious food! While there I witness a deranged man in the fruit and vegetables section eating a lot of produce, throwing it around the place and speaking to the produce. He also yells a bit and at one point tells me to "get out of his way" from the other side of the room. Staff are watching him but in a instance of Swedish tolerance (if it was Australia he would have been removed by security; even in a cooperative as this place was) he is allowed to make a purchase before leaving (and returning and leaving and returning again; last seen talking to a carton of eggs in the recycling section of the store).
12. Return home to a fine meal prepared by my partner as we watch children's TV.
13. A visit from a neighbor friend from New Zealand who has a three year old son. We drink coffee and discuss the world etc. etc. etc. while the children play.
14. Do the dishes (a mountain of them) and begin applying for a summer job over the internet.
15. Check and answer email.
16. Return a call to Marta (if you are reading this I tried) that is organizing a concert against racism and would like me to perform. No answer, will try again tomorrow.
17. Blog