Thursday, November 6, 2008

Steeeeerike!

It's 2:00 and I'm in my pajamas, which are stained with coffee because this morning I had a spill while drinking in bed and watching Dexter. And by this morning, I mean noon or so.

My abject sloth today isn't really that much different from any other day, except I don't feel as bad about it this time, thanks to our comrades at CUPE 3903, who as of 7:00 this morning are manning the barricades at Jane, Finch, Keele and Steeles the optimistically rebranded University Heights. Hope they brought their flak jackets! And not just because Schulich is still in session and the business students are going to throw bricks at the picket line. Mostly because of that though.

I don't have a position on the labour dispute. I guess TAs have a right to a living wage. And it's not like my nascent Bay Street career is in jeopardy, like a number of other students. However, my sympathy might evaporate if the strike lasts more than, say, a week or two.

No Canadian law school has ever lost an entire term. After the last long strike, Osgoode gave students the choice of opting out of the grading curve in favour of a pass-fail scheme. I don't know where I stand, should it come to that. On one hand, I feel reasonably confident that I might do well this year, at least the middle of the curve, if not the high side of it. If I choose pass-fail, my transcript won't reflect any improvement over last year. On the other hand, I'm probably deluding myself in thinking there has been any improvement. I am probably a prime candidate for such an opportunity.

But that won't happen unless the strike is quite lengthy. In the mean-time, I have big plans for my time off. I'm going to
  • go back and read the IP textbook which I didn't receive from Amazon.ca until late October
  • create the greatest summaries Osgoode has ever seen -- even better than my first year summaries which, though comprehensive and impressively bound (such that I fooled some people into believing I was extremely well prepared), did not help me at all since I finished them on average four hours before their exams were to begin
  • write a response for IPilogue.ca, even though the assignment is postponed, maybe cancelled
  • prepare to discuss the "Termination of the Lawyer-Client Relationship", even though my seminar on that topic is also postponed
  • read the thirty-odd unread, non-law-related novels (and three Rumpole books) calling to me from my shelf
  • figure out why my toilet is always running
  • get rid of that fucking death smell in my linen closet
  • cure heart disease
The last one is a maybe, but the rest are for sure for sure.

S ... solidarity?

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