t sneaking back into thread

So, I'm supposed to be teaching now, but the students (not me!) are on a strike. So I lucked out on a couple of hours when I'm in this strange not-teaching position. I feel obligated to waste them with fun. Or, well, at least part of them, because I'm so behind in my work. But still, obligation for wasting, right? I mean, a strike and solidarity and all that, right?

[Edit: 2+7=9+0. Clearly this means that I've made the right choice.]

University students can strike? This would have made my college years a tad more interesting.

University students can strike?

Oh, yeah. They protest the raising of the tuition fees, in contrast with past promises of keeping them constant if not lowering them. Some of them even try to walk around the gates of the university and shout at people who insist on getting inside (because they work there or want to use the libraries or whatever).

And this strike, for the record, has nothing to do with the teachers' strike (protesting the really horrible conditions and salaries they're getting), the post-office workers' strike (protesting a current change in the structure of their workplace which will end up in several of them losing their jobs), or the general all-you-can-get strike we had just before Passover (protesting the really horrible way several city-workers of several cities went without any of their salaries being paid for months). We are quite the multiple-striking little country, these days.

This would have made my college years a tad more interesting

You mean you couldn't go on a strike? At all, under any circumstances?

Allyson, your garden (and neighbors) sound lovely.

I did NOT wake up at 3:45. This is good.

You mean you couldn't go on a strike? At all, under any circumstances?

Not without expecting expulsion. We've a VERY different educational system here, obviously. Think more "binge drinking" and less "social consciense."

I think this might just be a language thing. College students have sit-ins and other kinds of protests here, all the time. A sit-in is kin to a strike, I think.

I think this might just be a language thing. College students have sit-ins and other kinds of protests here, all the time. A sit-in is kin to a strike, I think.

That makes sense. That sort of thing happened A LOT less where I went to school. Small, Midwestern state school. Football games and drinking were more the order of the day.

I should have picked a more progressive school. I think I'd have fared well at a protest-heavy school.

Some McGill students chained themselves to fences to protest the 100% increase in tuition while I was there. Since it brought a semester up to about $1200 Canadian, I didn't bother with it. But there was quite a bit of demonstration, etc. But McGill was kinda like that.

ita, did you and brenda know each other at McGill? Were you there the same years?

We've a VERY different educational system here, obviously. Think more "binge drinking" and less "social consciense."

Well, obviously. I mean, even the age differences alone - students here are very rarely under the age of 21, and in most of the cases only start their after-highschool studies after a minimum 2 (girls) or 3 (boys) years of mandatory army service

College students have sit-ins and other kinds of protests here, all the time. A sit-in is kin to a strike, I think.

Do all the students in a country (or, well, a state, I guess), as a whole, not just of one university, go together on this "we won't enter classes until our demands are met"? Because that's what's going on here.