Teacher's Strikes and the Fidgets Have a Turn

This morning, for two hours, we have a teacher's strike. To protest the lack of special education places. The funny thing is, I don't recall being told anything about this prior to the strike being announced.

I should say, while I'm in a union, I have no real patience with teacher's strikes. The people to suffer are the students. It's a problem for me right now, as I have a shift tonight, so instead of being able to just go off to sleep today and hope for an unbroken three or four hours, I'm going to be lucky to get two hours instead, but that's neither here nor there in my mind. I could have dropped my son off to watch movies in the library.

Is the thinking that every time a strike gets called, oodles of upset parents contact the Department of Education and thus the problem is solved? I'm not inclined. If anything, I'm inclined to contact the teacher's federation and object to the holding to ransom of children and their education without appropriate notice to parents.

Want me to write a letter to the Department? Ask me. Lay out your case. I'm lucky enough that I'm not affected by this particular issue - but what's fair and right will never go out of fashion. If there are deficits in the education system (no doubt really, but I'm laying out my case), then involve all of the stakeholders. That includes me, my husband and my son. Talk! Find ways.

Going out on strike should only ever be a last resort.

Well, having got that little controversy off my chest, nothing much else to report.

From my keyboard to no-one's ears.

The Eyes Have It

I'm awake, it's true.

The new job. Oh, it is terrific. I'm repeating myself on that score quite a lot lately. I don't really believe I've been this lucky.

In May, after Alex's birthday, when all of the dishes were washed, everything done and squared away, I had this thought that "this is how normal people live". Now I'm there. I'm living like a normal person. I'm living - as opposed to lurching from one shift to the next, listening to all of the whingeing about how the roster, she is so bad; listening to complaints about everything under the sun.

My old job was not all bad in total, but it's leading that the best thing anyone can say about a workplace is "it's the same everywhere else". It isn't, something I already knew - after all, I had worked somewhere else - and now I'm living the proof of that. Granted (while I'm qualifying this), not everyone was in the same boat. And that's enough qualification.

I'm still in the honeymoon period, true; real shifts, all on my lonesome, are at the end of this week. All at full tilt (five-on, five-off, two-on, two-off) from then on - but I will have regular days off. I have plans in those days that I will be able to carry out.

Bliss.

So today's plans include some cleaning, some journal writing, some musing on the state of the non-existent but being worked on bathroom (renovations, thy name is hysterical laughter), and some kitchen planning, since that is the next room to go.

First things first. Mindless entertainment today - vacuuming plaster dust. The fun never stops.