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...

How Can?

How can someone who is a therapist/counsellor still explore the possibility of being a performer? Okay okay, and not like an opera singer or anything that wouldn't involve a ton of ethical problems... but something more like a standup comedian?

Discuss. I need your pointers.

I think I want to actually give it a try, but I don't want it to bite me on the ass.

The Clinical Hour Seems To Be Getting Shorter

That was the joke I made today at my own therapist's office when I arrived with only ten minutes left in our session. There is a mild snowstorm where I live that seems to have incapacitated most of the transit. Nevertheless, I arrived with homemade cookies to share. I have always wanted to be able to sit down with my therapist and just "chat" with him about whatnot. Of course, it didn't happen, but he seemed to apprecite the cookies.



Cramming your last therapy session before the two week holiday break into ten minutes is a trifle disappointing, so say the least. Perhaps a new theoretical school will emerge? "Speed Ego," "Rapid Transference," and "Quickbitch Session" are all terms that come to mind.



I've been told by many practising therapists/psychologists/psychiatrists/analysists that they learned more from their own therapy than they did from their university education or from any professional school they attended. Hmm... being at the beginning of my graduate career and on strike at that, I can only guess if this will hold true for me as well. I suspect that it will. It is the same kind of long-term, experiential learning that one gets in an acrobatics class. Learning by emotional doing. We can talk about a cartwheel all day, but you can't actually DO one until, well, you DO one.

I guess it is the very basics of genuinely needing to have an idea of what this process is like for the client/patient. The whole process is about coming to an empathic understanding of what their experience is like for them. How can you do that without having an idea of what it is like to be in therapy for yourself? It truly amazing me when I meet people in this field who think that therapy is "not for them." What does that say to the client?

Okay, no more coherent thought today. Back to blurk.

It's Today And Still No End In Sight

I admit that I've not been writing so much because I've been under the assumption that all of my posts must be high calibre writing to impress. But a good friend of mine kindly got some sense into me and I've dropped that ridiculous notion. Write because you enjoy writing. Blog because you want your friends to know what you're up to. Ignore jerks who criticize you and don't have the deceny to even tell you who they are.

Well done and well spoken. I hereby cast of the shackles of my oppressor!

Here's my news.

There is no end in sight for this strike. If things are not resolved by tomorrow, then we will not be going back to class until at least the new year. So more forced vacation. But it's okay. I'm relaxing in to it. I've also heard back from C*** that they are going to make good on my strike pay... so huzzah! I need to plug it into the debt hole, of course, but huzzah nonetheless.

I'm trying to work a bit more during the strike at the old org. Sigh... it's okay because I'm not full time here and have a very relaxed attitude towards everything. But I still don't LOVE it. I guess I need more absence to make my heart grow fonder. But I could use the money, so we'll see what happens. Oh, and for those of you who know me well, I'll be on that TV show I used to be on a lot this Monday from about 3:30 - 6:30 again. Talking about holiday stress with the youngin's! That's something I am looking forward too. Oh, and I'm picking up a new rolling pin from a freecycler right afterwards. What a time to be alive!

I guess I don't have a ton to do, but I still feel busy. I finally have a research project doing an environmental scan for a networks centre of excellence, and I'm prepping a manuscript for publication. Also super exciting. Since it's mostly my work. If I got published at this early stage of my career I would just be over the moon. I'm not holding my breath, but I am hopeful.

Other than that, I suppose I should actually do my assignments that would be due if the strike gets called off. And just get ready for holiday insanity. My sweetheart and I are going to barricade ourselves in with a bunch of MST3Ks and food and enjoy.

Despite not having anything to do, I'm really looking forward to having someone to do all that nothing with. I've been very lonely since school started, and moreso since the strike came on. And yet, I find myself so busy all the time. So here's to a season of creature comforts and delightful creatures to enjoy them with.

Psyche.

Step Right Up, Win A C*** Doll!

It's been a while, again and obviously. This is largely due to the large-scale disruption at my university. Classes have all but stopped, and there is much, MUCH confusion. For my part, it has to do with the union and the ongoing question of my membership.

When we were instructed to vote on the strike mandate, I dutifully went to the polling booth. I was not on the list, but assured by a union rep that my grad student ID was valid, given a ballot, and cast my vote. Weeks later, at a general membership meeting, I was still not on the voting list. A union rep examined my ID and my paystub and assured me that I was a union member. Again I was allowed into a meeting and voted.

I picketed. Not only that, but I stepped up as the picket captain for my department (yeah, the only volunteer and I'd only been there for two months at the time). I did strike duties for 3+ weeks. My stike pay never came... I called to inquire...

Apparently, I'm not a member.

Now, understand, when there was originally the problem with my name not being on the list, the union told me that the only way they know if I'm a member or not is if the administration tells them so. I talk to the admin... oh, yeah, you're a member.

I call payroll yesterday, I'm not a member.

I call the union today, I am not a member.

I get an email from the union today, I am not a member.

Member or not... I'm inconvienienced greatly... very frustrated... and upset that I may have been walking around with a picket sign and getting up for a 7am shift or earlier.

Welcome to grad school, Psyche.

Sigh... I will accept your pity now. Especially if it comes in the form of taking me out for a coffee etc...

Psyche.