long day

it was a long day, whether in the classroom, or the office. those are the only places i've been. and i think i'm nursing a throat infection.

the day began with a horrible incident with the slow girl who annoyed me the whole of last semester. she called me over, then stood with arms open expectantly until i couldn't not hug her without making a scene. i didn't want to hug her. then she spoke inanities at me that i had no response to. when someone i knew came past, i jumped at the opportunity to run away, feeling mortified at needing a pretext and disgusted at myself for butting into what could well have been a private conversation. no amount of apologizing could make me feel better about what i'd done.

it was a long day - my last professor had seen me arrive in the morning - a long day of supremely intriguing ideas. then i came straight to work, and have surprised myself by doing almost nothing but work since i arrived. and that was about six hours ago.

sheesh.

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memorable facebook argument for today: on academic strikes and whether or not they're justified.
you're not a customer, you're a student. and those people who are on strike are also students, who have no job security and it's their only way to pay for their studies.

the responsibilities in academia for actually learning anything fall on the student, not on the teacher - this isn't high school. the classes that are cancelled have to be made up... they probably will.

...

one of the problems with the university is that it's a giant bureaucratic organism and there're always "rationality gaps". the question is, if you were only taking two courses this year and were paying an amount accordingly, would you be less upset?

i don't think the money's the issue. most of us are paying a lot. but then, most of us aren't planning professional academic careers and it doesn't matter to us if the (non-tenured career academics) get fucked. but that's their career, and it matters to them. and if they don't get better conditions, in the long run the chances are there'd be far less people willing to choose academia as a career path. far less people to teach you stuff.

and then actual universities would be even closer to shutting their doors than they've become. you'll be able to choose whatever college you want to learn a trade, education can get stuffed and welcome to a Much Better World filled with Only Practical Things.

...

dick moves are all they have. the problem with any strike / boycott / protest is that if you don't mess things up then nobody will care. it's a sign of desperation that they're resorting to this :(

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and speaking of protesting: this just blows my mind - people put up with this shit?
good on this guy for slicing through. we're talking about non-violent and apparently non-disruptive protest. if it's a private school and the students are making a nuisance of themselves, they're more than welcome to have them removed in a reasonable fashion. the methods employed were not reasonable. and as far as i can tell we're talking about a public institution.