Conference Day

Today began with a morning run around this part of Helsinki. There certainly are a lot of bikes zipping around the city and great paths for them to zip on. I even saw a fat bike last night.
Today was also the first day of my conference at the Univ. of Helsinki. The sessions have been varied, from interesting to boring including a discussion on the syncretism of religion in video games, the dangers of Slender Man for youth, the religious presence in Kanye West video’s, the role of religion in Estonia’s youth, what religion can learn from popular music and vise versa a couple of others and then my own. Mine seemed to be received well and there was some resonance with it. That always makes one feel better about one’s effort. Academics is an interesting world to poke one’s head into, there is a lot going on in little spaces.
The Finns are nice people which seems like an odd thing for me to say but there is a genuine care underlying most of the conversations I have had which is certainly not always with generalized observations. Maybe it is the circle I am in here.
I don’t have much more to articulate as it seems I’ve been articulating ideas all day and they’re starting to seem inarticulate.
No pictures today because I was mostly concerned with my presentation and who wants pictures of people talking. I’ll get some tomorrow.
Good night.