Day 3 - 288 -- Feeling the Pressures

While the week has been shorter due to the Monday holiday -- part of a four day weekend on campus -- this has been one very long week. Tuesday began early with an 8:15 class -- need to get there in advance to get things set up and transported to lecture room. That day ended about 7 PM after a union meeting, That meeting presented the highlights of the latest negotiations. Ratification votes were held Wednesday and Thursday with the result shared today -- overwhelming majority voted to accept the agreement. Between the lectures and evening meeting were many further short meetings with students and colleagues. Wednesday started a bit later in the morning but a late faculty meeting ended about 6:45. Since I was still on campus, I chose to drop in to a talk by a local artist who holds the Chair in Social Justice at the Coady International Institute. Alan Syllaboy is a Mi'kmaq artist who grew up about an hour and a half from town. He spoke as a story-teller to give us a brief history of his life as an artist, his mentors and supporters along the journey, and where he is at present. He took us on a visual tour of many of his artworks from different periods. While holding the Social Justice Chair, he plans to move into a different style that focuses on protests by indigenous people. He spoke of the strength of protests that are organized by women versus those organized by men. He called the latter the warrior way and the former a more advocate way -- less violent, but continually hammering away at decision makers. I left just before the session ended though it was about 8:20 PM. Dinner at 9 in the evening is a bit odd here, though there are parts of the world where this is the norm. <smile>

Thursday and today held classes, more meetings, report generation, and planning larger meetings for next week. Committee work will play a major role in the coming weeks. A large pile of papers arrived today that will need to be graded in a week. Other online assignments are in the works, so those will be ready to grade next week. The weekend seems preordained as a time for grading. I'd rather that it be a time to do housework and fun things. It seems that this is common at this time of year, at least I've written about it in the past two years. I'm not sure why I find it surprising to be overwhelmed with work when this is the 19th year I've encountered this -- it really must be something like denial, pushing the negative out of mind.

The song chosen to share today talks about work that seems relentless. It is from a band that I have often featured here -- one I enjoy now just as I did in the past. Enjoy!

Door to Door -- Creedence Clearwater Revival