Strike Two =)
I had a pretty good weekend =) I'm applying to take a course online from Athabasca University. Has anyone on my list taken classes from them? There is an exam at the end that you have to sit, and I am wondering if I actually have to physically go to Alberta to do it. Not that such an event would wreak mass havoc or anything :)
Yesterday Lin and Lex got hitched. Congratulations, kids.. Just to make it clear- they did invite me to their wedding and encouraged me to come, but it seemed like I would make it into a gong show with the number of people that they were having to juggle. They had a ton of people in their tiny apartment, and they had passed people off to friends and were still running out of room. Rather than turn the wedding into the mob fiasco of the year, I decided to visit some other time- when they might need more excitement than they do at present.
So it was a pretty slack weekend. I took some time off school to go and watch a movie on campus put on by the Indian Students Association. It was called "The Rising: the ballad of Mangal Pandey", and it was about India's first war of independence in the late 1800s. The ISA is a good crew. Its a lot of effort to put Bollywood movies on regularly for the public, but they make time to do it. They could easily get together at someone's house and just watch a DVD with a great deal less trouble, but not only do they put the movies on, they also sell samosas and other treats at the door for everyone. I don't think they really get renumerated for their efforts, which is also what makes them special =)
Also, pash29 and I got caught up over the weekend and really enjoyed ourselves chatting over the developments in her life and the latest Victoria news. She hadn't heard about the general strike that crippled the entire city. I had posted what I felt was an interesting description of the situation, but eljay ate it and I was too busy to throw together a recap. Life out here certainly has not been dull.
After striking for almost a month, the teachers are finally back at work. Last Monday, everyone from the public library to the university sessionals' union was standing out on the pavement to support them. I spent the day marooned at a local coffee shop studying, listening to people come in and out with strike talk. From my window, I could just see the government liquor store employees across the way cowering under a small pavilion, holding their hand lettered signs in the wind spattering rain. I couldn't go the recreation centre to work out, since the doors were locked and people were marching about in the parking lot. Even the Canada Safeway at the corner, which is currently renovating (an tale of oddities in itself) had some people that refused to come to work because they, too, are unionized. Teachers poured in from all over the province for a rally at the legislature, only to have no way of getting there because the busses stopped running. Gordon Campbell, our premier, could not be seen or heard from all day.
Meanwhile, Jinny Simms, the president of the BCTF (the BC Teachers' Federation) stood on the leg lawn saying things like, "I may have to go to jail"- (because the strike was suddenly illegal due to back to work legislation), and adding "We will not be broken. You may bully us, but you will not break us!"
There was a lot of sympathy for the teachers' because their agenda included things like support for special needs students and a restriction of class sizes. A small covey of high school students poured coffee a few streets away from my place and drank as the wind blew, standing next to their teachers in the downpour.
The government kept resorting to the rather lame observation that teachers should be setting an example for youth, and that breaking the law was not the way to model appropriate behaviour. But they were in a bit of a quandry, because it would have been quite the mess if they had, in fact, arrested Jinny Sims, a woman who looks like she could have been your high school home ec teacher.
The whole thing was sorted out with an agreement through binding arbitration, for which everyone is thankful. I couldn't go to class on Monday because the unions had blocked the entrance to the university circle. I'm glad that the decision around crossing a picket line was taken out of my hands. Most likely, I would not have done it, but the option not to miss a class that was taking place would have made it uncomfortable.
All that this story leaves is..- Telus. The buses actually didn't run in part because of the Telus strike, since the phone company employees stationed their pickets around the transit yard. The government had to get a court order to get the drivers back to work, and the first bus rattled by my little station in the coffee shop in the early evening.
Now that the teaching drama is over, everyone has forgotten the locked out Telus employees, except for an unavoidable fact: not a single pay telephone on campus is usable anymore.
They are all still plugged with quarters.
Yesterday Lin and Lex got hitched. Congratulations, kids.. Just to make it clear- they did invite me to their wedding and encouraged me to come, but it seemed like I would make it into a gong show with the number of people that they were having to juggle. They had a ton of people in their tiny apartment, and they had passed people off to friends and were still running out of room. Rather than turn the wedding into the mob fiasco of the year, I decided to visit some other time- when they might need more excitement than they do at present.
So it was a pretty slack weekend. I took some time off school to go and watch a movie on campus put on by the Indian Students Association. It was called "The Rising: the ballad of Mangal Pandey", and it was about India's first war of independence in the late 1800s. The ISA is a good crew. Its a lot of effort to put Bollywood movies on regularly for the public, but they make time to do it. They could easily get together at someone's house and just watch a DVD with a great deal less trouble, but not only do they put the movies on, they also sell samosas and other treats at the door for everyone. I don't think they really get renumerated for their efforts, which is also what makes them special =)
Also, pash29 and I got caught up over the weekend and really enjoyed ourselves chatting over the developments in her life and the latest Victoria news. She hadn't heard about the general strike that crippled the entire city. I had posted what I felt was an interesting description of the situation, but eljay ate it and I was too busy to throw together a recap. Life out here certainly has not been dull.
After striking for almost a month, the teachers are finally back at work. Last Monday, everyone from the public library to the university sessionals' union was standing out on the pavement to support them. I spent the day marooned at a local coffee shop studying, listening to people come in and out with strike talk. From my window, I could just see the government liquor store employees across the way cowering under a small pavilion, holding their hand lettered signs in the wind spattering rain. I couldn't go the recreation centre to work out, since the doors were locked and people were marching about in the parking lot. Even the Canada Safeway at the corner, which is currently renovating (an tale of oddities in itself) had some people that refused to come to work because they, too, are unionized. Teachers poured in from all over the province for a rally at the legislature, only to have no way of getting there because the busses stopped running. Gordon Campbell, our premier, could not be seen or heard from all day.
Meanwhile, Jinny Simms, the president of the BCTF (the BC Teachers' Federation) stood on the leg lawn saying things like, "I may have to go to jail"- (because the strike was suddenly illegal due to back to work legislation), and adding "We will not be broken. You may bully us, but you will not break us!"
There was a lot of sympathy for the teachers' because their agenda included things like support for special needs students and a restriction of class sizes. A small covey of high school students poured coffee a few streets away from my place and drank as the wind blew, standing next to their teachers in the downpour.
The government kept resorting to the rather lame observation that teachers should be setting an example for youth, and that breaking the law was not the way to model appropriate behaviour. But they were in a bit of a quandry, because it would have been quite the mess if they had, in fact, arrested Jinny Sims, a woman who looks like she could have been your high school home ec teacher.
The whole thing was sorted out with an agreement through binding arbitration, for which everyone is thankful. I couldn't go to class on Monday because the unions had blocked the entrance to the university circle. I'm glad that the decision around crossing a picket line was taken out of my hands. Most likely, I would not have done it, but the option not to miss a class that was taking place would have made it uncomfortable.
All that this story leaves is..- Telus. The buses actually didn't run in part because of the Telus strike, since the phone company employees stationed their pickets around the transit yard. The government had to get a court order to get the drivers back to work, and the first bus rattled by my little station in the coffee shop in the early evening.
Now that the teaching drama is over, everyone has forgotten the locked out Telus employees, except for an unavoidable fact: not a single pay telephone on campus is usable anymore.
They are all still plugged with quarters.