Wednesday, May 12. 8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: I wanted to get half-way through the 50 pages of posts that comprise Diary (July 16, 2014 — September 4, 2018) before returning to assessing. By 10.00 pm, the intent had been realised. Having gone backwards into my timeline over the last few days, the past seven years seems, now, to be compressed into a single and very-long moment. My understanding of the posts is unique. I can read between the lines; I know what could not be written. My inbox deloused, I opened up the Art/Sound submissions. Yet another task undertaken for the last time.

I’d been impressed by some of the blog submissions for the third year Research and Process in Practice module. They exhibited a mature (sometimes poetic) reflection of their practice. I suspect that, once this diary concludes at the close of June, my blogging endeavours will return to the Intersections site. There, topics can be explored at greater length and in depth:

The Art/Sound PowerPoint presentations include a voice-over spoken by the student. As I listen, they’re (as though) present with me. Writing for reading sharpens their articulation. The sentences are more succinct, grammatical, and immediate. Assessing each presentation takes a long time. On this occasion, I was glad that there weren’t many registered for the class.

1.30 pm: In between presentation assessments, I played the numbers game — post-by-post, page-by-page:

The dance between marking and web maintenance was kept up throughout the afternoon and evening. 4.15 pm: I took an end-of-day walk around the locale.

Approaching one’s past, day-by-day and in reverse, is a fascinating experience. I meet outcomes before aims; completions before preparations; solutions before problems; recoveries before losses, and funerals before deaths. This is time travel, of sorts. Or, better, a TENET-like ‘inverted entropy’. However, walking backwards into one’s life isn’t for the fainthearted.

Thursday, May 13 (Ascension Day). 7.45 am: I pressed on with page 36 of the Diary posts review. Reading over some of them, I could be persuaded that I’d been living the last seven years in loop mode. Each academic year, each teaching week, and each day of those weeks comprises sets of routines and subsets that are repeated, although not exactly. 9.00 am: Onto regular admin and appointments planning, and on with the Art/Sound assessments. This is a truism: it’s far easier to write negative criticism than constructive praise about a student’s work. In between assessments, I began refurbishing my pair of Sennheiser PX 100-II headphones. They’re no longer manufactured, and are excellent quality for the price. I want to keep them functioning for as long as possible. I’m like that with clothes too: I wear them until they’re worn, and repair them when they’re torn.

I checked the links on the posts’ pages. A surprising number now lead nowhere. Unsurprisingly, referrals to music and videos on YouTube have disappeared in abundance, as copyright infringement has been recognised and acted upon. (I shall strip my diaries of all of them on my second pass over the contents.) What I’d not expected was that so many individual artist and conference hub sites would vanish, and their URLs be assumed by someone else. After lunch, I completed what Art/Sound submissions remained. (There’d be another batch coming in after the extension deadline has passed.)

6.30 pm: Practise session. 7.30 pm: I made a dash for the last page of website posts.

Reflection on the indefensible. (Just to be clear):