all fun and games until someone loses an eye
Well, that was odd. I've just had the Protester Ringleader in my office again, to make the course drop we discussed a few weeks back. It was a weirdly cordial interchange, where he apologised for disrupting my lecture and assured me it was just politics, nothing personal. And that he does not in any way endorse the bus-burning and throwing-things-at-Vice-Chancellors activities of the 2016 protesters, and doesn't agree with the violence, and won't resort to it himself. And was strangely accepting of my argument that, well, I didn't know that when he was threatening my students with a fire extinguisher, did I, and yes, he understands why contextually that would be problematical and result in tension and migraines on my part.
We even laughed about it, and agreed that fuck Jacob Zuma anyway, it's all his fault. And had a fairly open and respectful discussion on Ringleader's actual grievances, which are apparently about his reading of the enforcement of faculty rules (in this case, DP for a particular course) as being unfair to poor/black students. And we agreed to disagree on the rules interpretation issue, because from where I sit we do our damndest to enforce rules even-handedly, even if it doesn't feel like it to him.
Weirdly cordial. And my neck is all in knots and I can feel the headache building, and I'm shaking very slightly. This campus is inducing PTSD.
On the upside, Jo (ty) has finally succeeded in ejecting her overdue offspring, who is a beautiful girl-child rejoicing in the name of Theodora. Huzzah for additions to the small thundering herds in my immediate social vicinity, at least in the abstract. I love the name. It's always been one of my favourites, it's both unusual and strangely dignified. Mad congrats to all three.
This entry was originally posted at https://freckles-and-doubt.dreamwidth.org/954448.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
We even laughed about it, and agreed that fuck Jacob Zuma anyway, it's all his fault. And had a fairly open and respectful discussion on Ringleader's actual grievances, which are apparently about his reading of the enforcement of faculty rules (in this case, DP for a particular course) as being unfair to poor/black students. And we agreed to disagree on the rules interpretation issue, because from where I sit we do our damndest to enforce rules even-handedly, even if it doesn't feel like it to him.
Weirdly cordial. And my neck is all in knots and I can feel the headache building, and I'm shaking very slightly. This campus is inducing PTSD.
On the upside, Jo (ty) has finally succeeded in ejecting her overdue offspring, who is a beautiful girl-child rejoicing in the name of Theodora. Huzzah for additions to the small thundering herds in my immediate social vicinity, at least in the abstract. I love the name. It's always been one of my favourites, it's both unusual and strangely dignified. Mad congrats to all three.
This entry was originally posted at https://freckles-and-doubt.dreamwidth.org/954448.html. Please comment there using OpenID.