End-of-Semester Escapism

Things are starting to wind down here in Edinburgh as my last few lectures of the term are tomorrow and next week. Of course, the fact that lectures are finishing only means devoting myself full time to essay writing for the next few weeks, and although I love my course the idea of 10,500 words to be written (thankfully across 3 papers!) is not appealing. This is where the escapism comes in, because my personal coping strategy is a terrible one is a lot of daydreaming and pretending the overwhelming responsibility of writing doesn’t need to be fulfilled until the last possible moment.

So instead, I’ve been thinking a lot about other places I would like to be – places where essays are not looming over my head. This has brought a lot of smiles to my face, as usual, so I thought maybe I’d share some of the things that have been on my mind lately.

One of the places I would most love to be is in Oakland, enjoying the mild weather and the still-green trees! Even better, I would love to be back in the Bay Area summertime, since last spring and early summer are the setting for some really great memories. There’s not much that beats lying on the front lawn in the sunshine and drinking wine with friends, or celebrating a best friend’s birthday together after months apart by making your own lemonade and wandering around snacking on samples from the Lake Merritt farmer’s market. I miss the smell of wisteria and eucalyptus that was always present in my Mills life.

I’ve also been thinking about Denver and the first couple of weeks I was there, when my brother was coming over to cook dinner with me or taking me out for pho. Although the summer was hot and I spent a lot of it trying to get the most out of my office air conditioner, it was also quiet and calm, with lots of swimming and walking and just enjoying a new city. Plus, time to hang out with my brother is always one of my favourite things.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about my parents’ house in the mountains, where I am always happy to be (even that time when Mum and I arrived home in the middle of the night to find that the thermostat had broken and we had to round up all the blankets and sweatshirts in the house to avoid freezing). I’m daydreaming of sitting on the window seat with a novel, or sitting on the deck chatting with my dad. There are always lots of home-baked goodies in the kitchen in these daydreams.

Edinburgh is still one of my very favourite places to be, even if I’m not out enjoying the city much these days. I have lots of great memories here, too. And I’m lucky to have a whole lot of really great people filling up my life! Essay-induced daydreaming just makes me think of all the relaxed and sunshine-y times in my life, I think. And it’s awfully nice to think about them!

Next week I am very excited to make my escapist daydreams reality, as I am taking a (sadly short) trip to visit my dear friend Emily in Hungary. I’m very much looking forward to our post-Thanksgiving cookie baking, hummus eating, tea drinking, sightseeing weekend together, and I have a hunch it will be just the boost I need to come back to Edinburgh and finish off those essays before Christmas!

What to Do when your University Staff Go on Strike

Yesterday, staff at the University of Edinburgh organized a strike in protest of what are essentially 13% pay cuts since 2008. If you want more information on the reasoning behind the strike, you can click here, but I want to focus on what my day was like yesterday, since the professor in my Thursday morning lecture was striking.

First off, I’ve never been in a situation where my teachers/lecturers/professors were on strike before! (Why this doesn’t happen in the States isn’t completely clear to me, but I guess it has something to do with a general distaste for union activism. If anyone has any theories, I’d love to hear them!) So when the news came that most of our department wouldn’t be in yesterday, I wondered what the contingency plan would be. We’re currently in the seventh week of the semester and with the way the schedule is organized, it didn’t seem like it would be easy to reschedule lectures. I wondered if things would be cancelled outright.

Then a brilliant email came through from my Thursday morning lecturer. He confirmed that he was participating in the strike, but said he didn’t want us to go without meeting since he’d already prepared the lecture and there was a student presentation planned. Plus the week’s topic was blood diamonds – of all the topics to be potentially skipped, who would choose that one!? The lecturer offered another solution based on his experiences as a student in Germany: Why not have an unofficial class at his house?

The basic idea was that this would allow us to meet without crossing picket lines, providing a solution that met everyone’s needs as staff and students. He wasn’t being paid for the day since he was striking, but he still offered to teach us and on top of that, invited 20 students to crowd into his living room! This blew my mind (and continues to do so) as I never expected such a generous offer to come up in this situation. It’s honestly a testament to how awesome my professors are and how deserving of fair pay they are, too! Inviting your students to your home at 9am when you’ve also got a wife and small baby is a real commitment to teaching.

And the lecture was great! I think all of us students wished that we could do the same every week – not that blood diamonds aren’t interesting on their own, but any lecture is enhanced by the opportunity to simultaneously play cars with a sweet little kid! Alas, it will be back to the classroom next week.

The rest of the day caused some internal conflict. Our afternoon lecture was going ahead as planned, on campus and on schedule. The lecturer only acknowledged at the last minute that perhaps some of us didn’t want to come in support of the strike, and even then made it sound like we should be coming to class anyway. Most of us turned up, since it didn’t seem like we really had a choice, but it was uncomfortable. Obviously not every lecturer can arrange to fill his living room with students, but I wished that some alternative had been brainstormed. Maybe we could have crowded into a cafe instead? It was really strange to see no support from a staff member who I otherwise like quite a lot.

In any case, as I said above, things are back to normal in the upcoming week. The strike was planned as a single-day action, so it’ll be back to the classroom come Monday! Only time will tell if anything changed as a result of the strike, but I certainly hope a fair wage is guaranteed for university staff. They’re really all great people, and they deserve a salary that reflects that! Plus, as someone who pays one of the highest tuition rates, I want to know that my money is going to the super dedicated folks on the university’s frontline.

 

All that’s to say, here’s to creative solutions for boring life problems!