Spent tuesday and wednesday in Paris. Presented a paper with Mikko Ketokivi, a friend and colleague at HEC, a business school outside the city. Got a chance to meet some interesting colleagues on the top of their respective fields, including an old acquaintance, Xavier Castaner, Mikko's coauthor.

We presented a paper in a joint seminar with Bill McKelvey, a giant in organization theory, which was somewhat unnerving, yet I think we did ok. The main idea in our paper, that the current practice of equating specific research designs (e.g., hypothetico-deductive, inductive, hermeneutic/dialogical, etc.) with specific basic forms of inference: inductive, deductive, abductive is simply unwarranted, did not meet any open resistance, so I think it's worth developing the paper further.

The last time I was in Paris, I have been told, was when I was a babe in arms. So, it is a new city for me. In new cities, I enjoy immensing myself in the art of strolling around. It's strange how strolling creates a completely different mode of being, a connection with the city. Typically, when in a conference, you emerge out of the airport, give an address to the taxi driver, and emerge in some location separated from the airport. You do your stuff at the conference, and take yet another taxi to a hotel. You jump between discrete geographical points, without commencing in the process of living in a new city.

Strolling is a perfect antidote to such alienation from one's surroundings. I try to find a few hours in each city just to wander around. Actually, I think there was a philosophical movement for strolling in cities I read about recently, but don't remember much of what it was about. I also had a digital compact with me for capturing some moments in time.

Some glimpses of Paris-in-practice, submitted to memory:

- at the airport two African (I think they were) nuns, a young and an old one. The younger guiding the elder, holding hands.
- people facing each other on the streets, animated in conversation, hands waving wildly in the air.
- dogshit everywhere.