... watching the world go by... (71/365, 12 Mar 2022)
Today it was back to work, back to the office and also a special celebration for fourth year students completing one of our programs. There will be formal graduation ceremonies next week, so this was a kind of prelude I suppose.
I wasn't supposed to be there, the staff attendees were supposed to be the members of the committee which oversees this particular program. But, you know, we all have them in our work environment, that whinging, complaining bully who is always criticising you for never doing your job, a complete fail at everything...whinge, whinge, whinge...and then when it comes to turning up...they don't. Yes, well, that's how I ended up here today, representing the department. Of course it fell to me, the 'completely irresponsible and failure of a Head of Department'. (Narrator: sadly, in Japanese universities too, this kind of bullying behaviour is tolerated beyond what it should be.)
The ceremony itself was short. But since I had travelled all the way to the campus I stayed on to try and catch up on some of that work I should have caught up on yesterday. (Narrator: as noted yesterday, you never 'catch up'...)
By the time I decided to leave it was getting a bit late to do much. But fortunately the campus is located in an open space, a large promenade that pre-Covid was always buzzing with some kind of festival or another every weekend. We haven't seen that kind of activity for a while.
On the way back to the station, I took a seat, and paused. One of the things I like to do with the camera is try different, shall we say, 'time experiments'. It occurred to me that the red 'Hana' （花）sculpture we see here is about the only monument in this precinct left from our Olympic moments last year. I was interested in what activity would happen in the space of about five minutes...so I sat there just randomly clicking the shutter. There are some of the more interesting views.
Of course, with the theme being 'flower', how could I not take a few more pics of how the blossoms are advancing as the weather warms up...
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| The tree, reflected |
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| Old school selfie, with vending machines |
Sometimes it is just what is needed...watching the world go by.
Taken with the Canon EOS M5, 18-150mm.
