On Sunday Morning

Yesterday I was a very good girl -- I sorted through the contents of three of the four boxes that have been sitting behind my tv since I moved in and brought the contents down to *drum roll* ONE BOX to keep, ONE BOX of stuff to sell/give and ONE BOX to recycle! And a handfull of random little things I'll find a place for elsewhere. Perhaps it's all those episodes of Clean Sweep that have finally caused me to do something, as I'm particularly decisive. The only thing I didn't cull with extreme prejudice was the stack of poems in various stages of completion (circa 1994 - 2001), though I spent a good hour reading through them. Surprisingly, among the easy rhymes and questionable metre, there were some rather good bits that I might post sometime.

This week, the union that represents a good number of my students may or may not go on strike. Because I am not unionised, this theoretically has nothing to do with me, apart from the fact that many of my students would be expected to stay home. However, since our building is way out in the bush and it's very small, compared to the other massive government buildings, we were hoping that the union would not picket it, seeing as the only people who drive by are neighbourhood residents and it's so small, so everyone could come into work anyway. Then someone said they'd heard that if there is indeed no picket line, a union representative will be snooping around the building to see who's there so they can properly be "sanctionned" by the union at a later date, because even if there's no physical picket line to cross, they're supposed to respect the strike and not go into work.

My students are worried about this, especially the union members, because as they've got a limited amount of time to complete their training with us, a long strike could put their jobs in jeopardy. I don't think it will last that long if it takes place, but it's still a pain! I have no problem crossing a picket line that's none of my business, I did it during the last government strike in 2001, but I find it fascinating how the subject stirs up such visceral feelings in everybody when it comes time to choose, even those who'd never really thought about it before.

I remember once when bashy's mother was driving the two of us somewhere; she was talking about unions and protest marches and strikes. She said to bashy, "But you'll understand it all better when you're involved in union work." He turned to me with this look of horrified disgust in his eyes, like "Do I look like I want to be involved with this kind of thing?!" :D

The cold I though I'd out-manoeuvred apparently lay in wait and pounced on me when I wasn't looking, i.e. during the night. I didn't sleep for 12 hours this time, only 8, and now my nose is stuffy and my throat feels tighter than is its wont.

I got David Bowie's Heathen at a garage sale and my computer doesn't seem to like it -- it plays all right, but it keeps trying to open a new programme for what looks like a bonus thing on the CD, and when I take the CD out it keeps on trying but then the drive doesn't contain the proper disk anymore and I can't close the stupid thing. Durr.

Hmm, I had much more to say than I thought I did!