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.