8.30 am. Postgraduate Open Day. I’m stationed at the School to receive redirected student from the Arts Centre. 9.00 am. A pastoral tutorial. Sometimes, it’s enough to merely affirm one’s support for the student. I completed formatting the text for tomorrow’s Art/Sound lecture, before wading into administration, sorting of a general nature, and preparing a box of tricks for my colour-mixing demonstration tomorrow:

11.30 pm. I enforced my ‘zero-tolerance’ policy on absenteeism from lectures and tutorials. They aren’t many problems in this respect, but enough to keep one vigilant and issuing shepherding emails to the lost sheep. I wonder whether there are a few students who feel that it’s legitimate to be lax with their studentship because they’re now paying for it. However, if I miss a dental appointment (which I pay for) without due cause or notification, I suffer a financial penalty.

2.00 pm. I was on advisory duty at the School, awaiting potential postgraduate applicants seeking advice. The sunlight burned through the School mid afternoon:

4.00 pm. I recalled Vermeer’s View of Delft (c.1660-1):

As I waited for no one, I finalised the handout for tomorrow’s demonstration on colour. Thereafter, I used the last hour of the afternoon to put away files that have been lying askew for months and to clear table tops of ‘dead’ mail. In a cupboard, I came across the class notes I wrote during my first year of teaching, in 1985-6, at Pontypool College in South Wales. They cover ‘O’- and ‘A’-level Art History, Painting, and Printmaking. I think I distilled everything I knew then into those courses, and a great deal that I didn’t too:

6.15 pm. Practise session 1. 7.30 pm. Onto Matt. 19.11, while fielding emails, professional messaging, and uploading files to Blackboard.

9.40 pm. Practise Session 2.