Schblool

Heading back to classes next week.

I don't know how to feel...

Relief... anger... worry... relief... whoops I already said that.

I'll check in later. But right now, I think I need an impromptu therapy session.

Back To Blurk Blegislation

Back to work legislation looms over us this weekend and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I wonder this afternoon, sitting at blurk at the org... back at work after a week's worth of flu. The Legislature is meeting today... I assume that the NDP will fight it, not wanting to set a dangerous precident for employers to just ignore unions and the bargaining process.

But I also just want to go back to school -- omg... this lethargy has seeped into my muscles and bones and I fear wht little discipline I had has been sweat out in nervousness, anticipation and flu-fever. I want my schedule back. I want to sit and discuss things with like-minded intellectuals. I want to WORK.

Oh, I also want to get paid.

So, as I sit at the brink, I'm not sure how to feel. I guess I'll just keep checking the message boards and news and wait for the various powers-that-be to sort it out. I guess what I dislike most about all of this is not having ANY power to affect it. The waiting is the hardest part.

I have been making better use of my time this week. Yes, the week that I was most sick! I've finished the first edit of my "Biology of Psychopathy" paper, I've completed the preliminary draft of my biology take-home test, and I've made considerable headway on the environmental scan. Oh, and I got to do a peer-review for a journal. That was trippy. I don't believe that as a first year Masters student that I am a "peer" of an established research professor. But due to the amount of times this author referenced themselves, that's what I assume the author of the paper I reviewed is. How do you tell the Emporer about their "new clothes?" Ungh... an exercise in tact to comment that while the paper is excellently written and the analyses flawless, that I just don't think that this article will be of great interest to your readers... Thank goodness the peer-review process is confidential.

Yikes! And who knows how brutal they'll be with MY modest little paper?

Blurk, blesearch and blickness... stay tuned for more.

Time Keeps On Slippin'

And so the strike lingers on. Like a party guest that doesn't see you putting your pajamas on as a signal that they should go home, it just keeps on keepin' on. A mediator, one of the best I'm told, has been dispatched to the scene. The media keep on sensationalizing what is really astonishingly boring and childish.

But it's okay.

There is a silver lining after all.

That is that I've been repeated hit in the back of the head with one shovel of a headcold and taking considerable time to recover. Today marks my first full day out of bed since Sunday. I'm only on the couch... but it's not my bed so I'm excited. Hork Honk hork honk honk...

I'm sharing the couch with my wonderful partner who is "working" from home today. He's getting a lot of reading done... and by reading, I suppose I mean he's turned on the closed captioning on some MST3K reruns. I am attempting to get some work done on a referencing project, but my prof's admin assistant isn't responding to my requests for some word documents. Oh, well. Watcha gonna do?

The lesson of this stike for me is this: don't fret over that which you have no control over. So I'm not fretting. I'm deliberating deciding to have faith that everything is going to work out okay. It's necessary because - well, I was sick this week and I missed the deadline to pick up shifts at the org. I take it as a sign... if I had taken the shifts and then we went back to school, I'd be in a tight spot having to work and be in class at the same time. So please, please... let the negotiator work his or her magic.

In psych news:

I get to peer review a journal article submitted for publication. It's my first time doing this. And it's intimidating. It's also a bit of a conflict of interest seeing as I have also submitted to this publication and there is a competition for the publication spots. They have all the people who submitted evaluating each others' papers. Isn't that a bit weird? I mean... I want to be chosen over the person I'm evaluating (who I can tell is a prof because they site themselves as "Author" several times), so I'm inclined to give them a bad peer review. But then I'm only a first year's masters student -- uh, this paper is a bit beyond my purvue to criticize in an in depth manner.

Fortunately, I'm not a hose-beast and will do my honest best.

Now if only the union and admin would do the same thing.

Lazy Days Of Winter

There is really no end in sight for this strike. The two sides have been bargaining, which is more than they did in December, but things really aren't getting anywhere. The administration is attemping to force a ratification vote... but get this... not until Jan 19/20. That is 8/9 days away. 8/9 days that could be spent BARGAINING. I do not anticipate going back to school anytime soon.



On top of that, my wonderful employer, the ORG, has messed up the casual shift list. I applied for 7 shifts and got 4. That's a problem because the shifts that I was denied were given to relief workers. That's not supposed to happen. First of all, I have seniority. Second of all, I have status over them as a part-timer. It's supposed to go PT, FT, then any remaining shifts to the relief pool.



This took weeks to sort out, and now I'm being denied the shifts because they've already been given out. Old feelings of being fucked up the ass by an incompetent management team dance in my head. It's not as nice as sugarplum visions, believe me.



I'm also just experiencing that pressure of having much less money than the very little money I'm used to having. Please, let this strike end soon. I'm hungry for education. I'm lazy and directionless. I apparently will just waste my time if left to my own devices.

And then that got me thinking... You know, I wasn't always like this. I used to relish having nothing to do so that I could spend time and energy on the million of alt. projects I had on the go. I would write, I would create, I would study what interested me. These days, I sleep and sit around feeling insecure for various reasons. But here I am with over two months of strike under my belt, most of which I have not been picketing for, and what do I have to show for it? Am I more relaxed? Caught up on my work? My reading? Do I have a cleaner appartment? Better relationships with my friends, family or partner? Have I exercised more?

Nope.

I've read one book.

I've baked a lot.

I've helped put my chiropractor's kid through university.

But I haven't really DONE anything with my time.

Which begs the question: What would I LIKE to do with this time?

I have time and I have things that I wish I had time to do. But do I do them? Nuh-uh.

Apathy.

Dude...

Apathy...

I haven't even done things that I need to get done. Why am I telling you this? I don't expect you, or anyone to rescue me. But maybe that is what I WANT? Maybe? Is it possible that although I REALIZE that is not going to happen, I still HOPE for it? And to a point that I allow myself to sabotage my goals?

I suppose it is...