I only have one exam this semester. The exam period ends on the 21st. So when is my exam? The 19th. At 7:00 PM. Of course. It couldn't be on a nice day, like the 8th or something, or DURING THE DAY. Argh. Oh well, I'm likely going to be on campus a lot during the exam period anyways. One of my bosses signed me up for twice as many hours than I can possibly do during school, so I'm going to take advantage of that during the break and make some coin. Woo, transcription editing!

Of course, this is all assuming that there isn't a strike on Monday. CUPE (course directors, graduate assistants, teacher's assistants) is negotiating a raise with the administration, and there has been a strike vote, which means that they're willing to strike if there isn't a satisfactory offer. This is necessary, because there's no way the administration would budge otherwise. Negotiations are supposed to finish on Saturday, but that probably means Sunday. I've been hearing horror stories about the last time this happened -- they were out for two months or something? And Lorna Marsden, our lovely president (ahem), has announced that if CUPE strikes, all classes are cancelled. So, even though only one of my classes has a TA, I can just go fuck myself and find some other way to graduate this year. Thanks a lot, Lorna. Apparantly only the Senate is allowed to cancel classes, so she might be BSing it, but who knows. Negotiations Update page.

So far as I understand (and I could be totally wrong), CUPE is upset about two things: Lorna got a 30% raise (or so they say), whereas everybody else in the university got a 3-3.5% raise, and CUPE got 1.5% or something. So, they're asking for 30%. Clearly they're not going to get it, but that's not the point. Half of our grad students are here studying something in Arts, and being taught to question power and the structure of corporations and why exactly there is such a huge gap between the rich and poor in our society, so obviously that's going to be questioned. The other thing they want is this: They want TA/GA pay to rise with tuition. Now, the university has countered and said that they simply won't raise tuition next year, which works out to the same thing next year. No tuition hike = no raise. But, you know, the year after that, maybe that means a tuition hike and no raise. CUPE is all "we gotta be able to live, you know" and the administration is all "fuck off, we like our money," so... obviously I'm on the side of the poor students. Here's something else they're asking for: Teacher's assistants make $12K in two semesters. Graduate (research) assistants make $8K. They do the same number of hours. They pay the same tuition (at least 6K). So, GAs are asking to make the same amount as TAs, or at least closer. The other thing is that TAs get $600 back from their tuition, and GAs only get $300 or so back. Apparantly research assistants just aren't worth as much?

Anyways. I'm just hoping that there isn't a strike, or that if there is, it will be very short. I would, in fact, like to graduate this year without having to be in class until May. That would be nice.