Month: February 2003

THE STRIKE BEGINS… ALMOST

Everything was heading towards labour action as of 7am on Wednesday morning. UBC didn’t seem to want to head back to the bargaining table and the TA union and the TAs met tonight to make posters and signs.

I prepared by not reading the pre-lab for my soon-to-be-cancelled-lab on Wednesday. It was coming to a predictable start of a campus strike. Then, at 12:30am, just hours short of the kick-off, I get an e-mail and then the CUPE 2278 web site gets updated. This is what I read:


Notice – A legal impediment due to unforseen complications in Essential Services mediation means there will be no job action Wednesday February 12, 2003. Please be sure to attend the General Membership meeting scheduled for 5pm in the University Chapel.

Apparently, the hospital and firehall essential staff services mediation has raised a legal impediment. So, the TAs can’t legally strike until 7am Thursday now.

Like a false start to a race, people are nervously waiting for the real thing to begin. It’ll be business as usual on Wednesday. Personally, that means I’ll have to go to my lab. Bummer. And I was so hoping to not have to go.

I’m not sure if anyone saw those full page ads in the newspaper taken out by UBC, but they don’t exactly represent the truth. UBC is quick to point out that they are bargaining in “good faith”. However, there are more than a handful of incidents that demonstrate otherwise. Once, all parties involved agreed to meet, but the UBC negotiator failed to show up. Another time, the UBC negotiator went on holidays. Eager to get things moving, the union requested a second negotiator, but was ignored by UBC. When the negotiator did show up, he once said, “I wouldn’t give you the change in my pocket” to the other side.

I know nothing about labour negotiations, but in my mind, this certainly isn’t the way bargaining in “good faith” goes.

On a final note, when this strike goes full-scale, I’ll be needing to get a resident-pass for myself. This way, I won’t be questioned when I need to cross picket lines to get back home.

And so the drama continues…

MORE STRIKE INFO

Today, the TA union entered into a legal strike position as of approx. 1pm. Since there are currently no scheduled bargaining talks, it’s looking like there won’t be an eleventh hour reprieve.

All signs point towards Wednesday being the day it all starts. During dinner tonight, I had a chance to speak to a few of my fellow SJC residents. Most of them have signed up for picket duty. They don’t know where exactly they’ll be picketing. Their assignments will be handed out when they show up.

The interesting thing is that students can choose to honour the picket lines, if and when they go up. As long as you inform your Dean that you’ll be honouring the lines, the University can’t test or assess you on the material you miss because of the strike. So let’s say that the pickets are up outside your classroom. If you don’t want to cross the picket lines, that’s your choice. Unfortunately, they also say you’ll have to make up for the material when the strike is over.

However, if the strike forces you to miss two weeks of class and then the strike ends, any exams immediately afterwards can’t have any material from those two weeks. The gray area is that you’ll need to make up for it somehow and how much time they’ll give you is up in the air.

I linked to CUPE’s web site last time, so if you want to see management’s side of things, here is UBC’s negotiation site.

In completely different news, I have ventured into new underwear territory. Many, many years ago, when I was a little boy, I made a promise I would never ever wear white Jockey briefs. I’d always hear people say that they wouldn’t get a white car or a white furniture. Why? Because dirt and stains show up so easily on white cars and furniture. It occurred to me that was crazy that men, and women I guess, would wear white underwear right next to places on your body where… well, you know… you might be making stains of various nature.

I told my Mom, who bought my underwear back then, who still does to a certain extent, never to pick out the white briefs. Good old Mom got all sorts of colours, but she never did get white.

Well, over the summer, my Dad was at the Bay or something, and there was a sale. He got me a three-pack of briefs: black, gray, and… white. When I opened the pack, I was thought two outta three ain’t bad. I was going to use the white one as a cleaning cloth for my collection of antique muskets, but for some reason I threw it in the laundry. Mom did the laundry and the whitey-tighties got placed in my underwear drawer.

I never did wear them at my parents’ house, but they got moved with me to SJC. Fast forward to tonight. I take a shower. I am completely out of underwear. It’s too late to do laundry. I want to change my ginch. There is one pair left however… the white ones.

Well, rather than go around with day-olds around my loins, I slip on the stain catchers. Click here for a visual representation of my current plight.

I’m doing laundry tomorrow night, and I’m hoping to hell I haven’t made any art on the canvas by that time.

STRIKE!

I’m not sure if everyone has read this in the news, but there is strike action is imminent at UBC. The teaching assistants have voted to strike and picket lines may go up as early as this week.

The main points of contention between the TAs and the University are: wage parity and tuition increases. UBC TAs are among the lowest paid in Canada. UBC has also increased the tuition of grad students, but not their wages. The TAs say this amounts to a wage cut.

If you want to get into the nitty-gritty specifics of the strike action, you can visit the website for CUPE Local 2278, which represents the TAs.

The effect of this strike remains to be seen. It could serve to be a minor disruption, or it could shut down the campus entirely. It wouldn’t be that bad for a while if the TAs stopped working. Marking wouldn’t be done and definitely lots of labs would not be run. The profs however, would still teach for the most part (if they didn’t honour the picket line). The question in all of this is how will the other unionized workers on campus react?

I have no doubt Local 2278 has been in touch with the other unions. Solidarity seems to be a quality most unions have. One of my profs explained that most likely other unions will honour the picket line. How does that manifest itself? I haven’t been here during a strike, but this is was my prof said. Buses will only run to Alma. That’s a 20 – 30 minute walk to campus proper, and what ever is left to get to your building. This will hit the students the hardest. Picket lines might be setup at the major roads into campus. In years past, people on the picket line walked really slowly across the crosswalks, going in pairs in opposite directions. Cars have no option other than stopping. Legally, the strikers can’t block traffic indefinitely, but this slows traffic down.

On the actual campus, I believe that no more construction work will done, and this goes for Plant Ops as well. The residences might be hit hard. Food for them has been deemed an essential service, so the first-years will be fed. Their cleaning staff, however, will not be deemed essential. This means that in Vanier and Totem Park, their washrooms will not be cleaned. From personal experience, I can tell you that after just one weekend of not being cleaned these washrooms were a war zone. I cannot imagine what they’d be like after a week.

I imagine a few UBC Food Services outlets will be closed too. Thankfully, the Village isn’t union run, so people will be able to get food there. I guess we will see how many unionized workers are employed at UBC, just by their absence.

So, will you see me out there with a sign, warming my hands next to an empty oil drum fire? Unfortunately, no. I was kinda standing behind the door when they were handing out TA positions in the summer. Most of my fellow residents here at SJC are TAs however. They’ve all signed up for picket duty and will receive strike pay for doing so. In rare cases, some TAs will actually make more money from this strike than if they just did their TA work.

This week will be a very interesting one on campus. And into the unknown we go…

P.S. Enetation, my commenting service is currently down. From what I see in their forums, their entire user base can’t get into their comments. Yikes. I’ll keep you updated.

UPDATE: Comments are back up! I think…

ANOTHER SATURDAY, ANOTHER LOSS

We played our third ball hockey game today. It was against a frat team. I made sure to tell a few of our newer players that it was a frat. You gotta be prepared for anything against frat boys.

Our entire team showed up for the game. There were lots of spare bodies. We even had a ringer for the game. Arash’s brother came to play goal for us. He was awesome. I played one shift during the first half because there were so many lines to cycle through. It did not help that guys were taking marathon shifts. One of our best players also had only one shift.

At the end of the first half, we were behind 5-1 or so. Suprisingly, there wasn’t as much body contact as I had expected. Aseem got our first goal. He pinched in from the point on an awesome play and was left alone in front of the goal.

The second half was where it got chippy. I was going for the ball, and this guy behind me stuck out his stick and I stepped on it. I went sliding on top of the ball. Dude behind me then grabbed his stick and started cross-checking me on the ground. I grabbed his stick to remove it from my back, and when I got up, the ref gave me a penalty! Two minutes for holding the stick! What the hell? What about the cross-check? I swear the ref had some funny dealings with the frat team, because they didn’t get a single penalty for their stick work.

I sat for two and luckily they didn’t score. Everyone started getting into it at this point. The frat boys were fond of shoving you into corners if you were the first one in. Nic was having this great battle out front with this guy. Of course, the frat guy slashed him but the ref didn’t notice.

Steve said he was gonna fight a guy, but we had so many guys he didn’t get back on for another shift.

The game ended like 10-2 or something. Aseem notched our second goal on another beauty of a play.

So, we’re not the best team in the league, but guess what? We maybe not the worst either! Check out the standings. In Pool A, the Law team has a huge negative goal differential just like us!

In the grand scheme of things, it’s still fun to go out and get some exercise. It’s also a chance to do some bonding with the boys at SJC. So, even we go winless for the season (and we probably will), I have no second thoughts about playing.

NOW AND THEN

Geez, this school thing sure does get in the way of writing for this web site. Anyways, the important thing is that I’m here now.

So, do you ever wonder about what some of your former classmates are doing now? Do you ever think about the guy that used to eat paste in your 2nd grade class? What about the girl that had all the New Kids On The Block pictures in her locker?

I had a few of those questions answered at my ten year high school reunion. However, some things, you just find out by blind luck. This, is one such story.

I have this friend and former classmate, let’s call him R for now. Well, R was at a strip joint one day in downtown Vancouver. This was about two years ago. To his utter surprise, who did he see on stage? A former junior high classmate. Her name was M. M went to my elementary school and junior high. She was blonde and very pretty. By the time we reached junior high, some people noticed she might have been worried about material wealth more than she should have. However, on the occasions when I did talk to her, she seemed nice enough.

My friend R, came home that night and was bursting at the seams to tell me and another friend about his find. He was so excited. One of our classmates had become a stripper and he got to see M naked. Two birds with one stone in a way.

When he told me, I too was excited, but perhaps not as much as he was. I briefly entertained the notion of seeing her myself, but shortly after it just didn’t seem interesting enough.

My buddy R saw her once more and they actually had a brief conversation after her act. That must have been surreal.

So why am I writing about this now? Well, it’s because I’ve been looking for the last piece of the puzzle. Sure, I have old year book photos of her, but what could I offer in the present tense? How the hell could I show you what she does now? Where do you get pictures of strippers? Real ones? In your own city? Only then could I make a worthy post.

My friends, that piece of the puzzle fell into place two evenings ago. It’s not important how I got the piece or who sent it to me, but that I got it.

Below and to the left is the year book entry for her grade ten year, circa 1989. To the right is a picture of M in “work form”. The picture is cropped for your pleasure, but if you click on it, you’ll get to see the real deal. WARNING: clicking on the pic will lead to some tasteful nudity, so if you’re surfing from a place that would frown upon that, wait until you get home.

It’s interesting how few people in grade ten include stripping as a future activity. Had she done so, I would have given her marks for being insightful. Notice that her stage name is Jade Jordan. It rhymes with Morgan I guess.

I would like to point out that I haven’t passed judgement on M for her career choice. Some strippers make a ton of money and you sure as hell don’t have to go through years of ass-kicking school to get the job. If she likes her job, then why the hell wouldn’t she keep on doing it?

The reason I made this post is because she picked one hell of an interesting career choice and this is something you don’t see everyday.

Oh, and one other thing. Now that I found that picture, she’s the only person from junior high that I’ve seen naked. Ha ha ha…

CHINESE NEW YEAR’S DINNER

I have just come back from SJC’s annual Chinese New Year’s dinner. It started off with a lovely reception that featured wine and finger foods.

Before the actual dinner there was even a lion dance. Dinner was great. I had lots of food.

I took many photos, which hopefully I’ll post in a few days. Look for them then!

FILLED WITH RAGE

Perhaps I am not exactly filled with rage, but I am certainly pissed. I just got back a quiz and I got 82%. Yeah, sure that’s an A-… yada yada yada… but he marked liked a sonuvabitch and took off 18% for really, really small mistakes. I went from almost getting perfect to 82%.

It may look like I’m overreacting, but every mark counts and this little indiscretion could cost me down the road.

Arrrrrrrgggggghhhhh!!!!

A HUNCH

We’re months away from final exams, but I already have a hunch on how one of them is going wind up.

I’ve spent the last three hours working on a discrete math assignment. I finished one question and tried two others. I couldn’t even setup the other two.

The course is about mathematical proofs. I hate proofs. It’s the academic equivalent of my Achilles’ heel. When it comes to proving things, I am very, very bad at it. If someone told me to prove poop comes out of my ass, I’d have a hard time even figuring out where to start.

So, why the hell I am taking this course? Well, it’s a pre-req for an artificial intelligence course. Geez, if AI is all about crazy proofs, maybe that’s one area I shouldn’t be looking in to then.

By now, I know the academic side of me quite well. I can recognize slight stumbles and know that I’ll be alright. I can also spot when I’ve come upon concepts that confound my brain, and will always be a struggle for me to understand. Discrete math is one such subject.

While April is still a long time away, I know that I will have to battle this course every step of the way.

And on that note, let’s end with a picture from a Super Bowl party.

the erwintang.com interviews

This new addition to erwintang.com has been in development for weeks. Well, actually it wasn’t weeks of development… more like a few days of development and the rest lethargy. Anyways, I digress.

So, I’ve decided to interview people via e-mail for my site. My readership was grown considerably in the last few months and I wanted to gain an insight on those who visit. By publishing the interview, the rest of you can see who else reads this site. I think it’ll be fun.

I conducted my first interview with fellow SJC resident Marcia George. She was kind enough to agree to it and answer all my questions.

If you want to participate, please send me an e-mail and I’ll see if we can work something out.

Well, without further ado, click here for the very first erwintang.com interview!