A proper winter storm
and teachers can’t teach!
Well, a few things are worth mentioning today. First off, it
has been snowing on and off here for the last three days. Looking out the
window just now, I can see that it has started yet again. I would say that
total accumulations range between 3 and 4 inches. I have included some pictures
from the last few days demonstrating this. First off is a view from my window
showing the little accumulation
that there was late Monday evening. Here is a picture of the accumulation up to
that point from the vantage of the bus stop on High Street. Here’s
another one looking up the other end of the
street. Next is the view just in front of the bus stop, that of King’s College Chapel. This building is
the original structure that the university first used when it was founded in
1495. I couldn’t quite get the entire building into view, so the stone crown on
top isn’t shown to full advantage. These pictures were all from Monday,
February 27. To end the day, I snapped this picture, showing that the snow had begun
to become quite heavy during the overnight hours. The next day (Tuesday,
February 28), we easily had in excess of 2 inches. Snowball fights were taking
place everywhere you turned, and I almost got creamed by sniper fire a few
times! Again, while waiting for the bus, I snapped a picture of High Street in one
of the heavier snow bands that happened. I holed up in my room for most of the
day, as it seemed like every time I placed one foot out of the door an
extremely heavy band of snow would start up, quickly sticking to me and
covering me like a walking snowperson.
Here’s another picture with a view
from my room. Not ten minutes later the snow stopped, so I took this picture to try and show the snow
accumulation thus far. You can see how much we already got by comparing it with
the first snow picture. Finally, I snapped this last picture during yet another
heavy band that
began falling on Wednesday, March 1. If you look at the ground, not only can
you see the footprints of all the people who ran about outside, thinking it was
funny to throw snowballs into all of the windows that were open (mine was shut,
thank you very much, I’m not stupid!), but you can see how much more accumulation
we had gotten. I thought it might be all over this morning, but the off and on
snow continues to fall today as well. In fact, hardly anyone turned up at most
of my lectures today. I don’t know why…conditions were worse yesterday than
today! And so, the library is expected to close early (5pm) yet again tonight
due to ‘inclement weather conditions’. Pretty pathetic, when you think that
there has to be well over 6 inches in MN before anybody even thinks about closing early!
Another interesting thing worth writing about has occurred.
Well, firstly, there’s a student referendum regarding whether or not to stay
affiliated with the National Union of Students (NUS). There is absolutely no
good reason why we shouldn’t, and I have yet to hear about any students who
will vote ‘no’, but nonetheless there will be a vote on the issue. It’s a
complete waste of time if you ask me, but I suppose for democracy’s sake, we
must oblige. I was all ready to vote today, but then I found out that balloting
has been cancelled (remember when I said that a lot of students hadn’t gone to
lectures today because of the weather?). So now I have no idea when it’ll
be…all this hype and now nothing! However, this is not the main issue I am
concerned with. What I am most worried about is that the teacher’s union has
called a strike, which will take place this Tuesday. Therefore, students have
no classes and no tutorials (whoo hoo!) that day. That’s not such a big deal
(in fact, I think quite a lot of students are excited about it), but the issue
that worries many students is what comes after Tuesday. The teachers will be
continuing an action strike after Tuesday. This means that they will refuse to
mark student’s work until such a time as the issue of their pay is settled.
This comes at a horrible time, because (at least in the History department)
during the next week or so, we have to turn in our Essay Outlines and Draft
Bibliographies for each class. We have to get feedback from these pieces of
work before we can begin to write our essay (or risk getting a poor grade on
the essay due to incorrect formatting, etc.)
The essay, I would like to point out, is worth 40% of our final grade
and must be turned in on time regardless of the teacher’s situation! However, this
is not the only issue. From what I’ve heard, with the teachers not
participating in student assessment, they also cannot schedule exams.
Apparently, there is a deadline for scheduling final exams (I’ve heard it was
the 8th, but nobody mentioned of what month), and after that day, no
more finals can be scheduled. This means that should the strike continue, we’ll
have no finals and thus we won’t have 50% of our final grades (how much each
final is worth)! This is especially difficult for me, as I have made the
decision not to continue my studies here next year (too expensive for me…and Americans in general!), so if exams
get pushed back to next year or
something, I don’t know what I’ll do! I just hope that the university caves in
quickly and gives the teachers a raise, because otherwise the consequences will
be horrendous (for me and graduating students in general)!
