Giedre tyttö Ozista

Bushfires in Melrose place

It has been very hot and dry lately in Leijonakaupunki. They say its one of the hottest Februaries in the history of the country. We had about 500 bush fires since the beginning of the year and the air is becoming really bad - stuffy, smoky, dirty, ashes flying everywhere.. Almost every afternoon it starts smelling as if your neighbour is preparing sauna and then it turns really stinky. Funnily enough, I always thought that bush fires are very dangerous, spread very fast (and happen mostly in Australia). But in here I don't think they're so life threatening for humans (except for the smoke). Usually they're isolated and put off by efficient Leijonakaupungilaisten fire brigades. Have a look at the official reports by THE media company.

Otherwise, life is pretty normal. We have unbelievable amount of training sessions at work. This picture is taken at the TGP workshop. See how everyone is smiling happily? Looks like much of fun, but in fact all this organizational and educational planning stuff is very tough. For example, TGP is Target Graduate Profile and it is related to the fact that we are developing a new diploma course. So what we do, is first to define what kind of person should be graduating from IMD (Interactive Media Design) and MOI (Moving Images) programs, then we see how the new curriculum should match this profile and what kind of courses we should offer. The TGP involves not only basic knowledge and skills, but also "character" related stuff, like the graduate should be "enterprising", "curious", "opinionated". So then we have to think how these qualities are taught or incorporated in the teaching.. Complicated, but this still looks very systematic to me. Very different from Media Lab, as it felt to be so "naturally growing" (and much more confusing?) for me. But, of course, Media Lab is a completely different kind of place, it is research oriented and student interest driven. The Lab is like a mature "garden", TP is like "tree nursery" (not really a "factory", I'd say). Still its good to discover that these kinds of things can be planned and designed (yeah, THE word!)

Otherwise as I promised to tell more about the Melrose place style intrigues, here it comes. There is a certain level of friction in the IMD and the whole school. There's 5 new staff hired since December (me included) and we're all very blue-eyed, enthusiastic and energetic (and coincidentally much younger than the rest of people). Naturally we tend to flock together, when it comes to having lunch or coffee or sharing the opinions. However, the bigest difference between us and the old staff is that when the director tells us "jump", we jump happily. While the older staff may have opinions, may not believe things or even oppose (!) some of the directors proposals. Some of the younger colleagues have been told by some older staff (not from our course though) that "why you doing it so fast lah. relax. don't push it, so you'll look busy". So this younger colleague was so mad about it... Anyway, this division between old-new, old-young is probably very strategic - the director can push the older staff to do things (we're very threatening for them -, if we do the same things so fast, is there a need to keep somebody who does it slow or doesn't do it at all?). He can also make us do things, because we're so happy to contribute as we're so new. Ah.. Old Caesar was right, wasn't he? (I'm referring to divide and rule strategy.. haha)