Summer's almost here

The school year is coming to an end, and as always my feelings regarding that are mixed. Since Christmas I have been looking forward to the well-earned weeks of not worrying about students, preparing for lessons, correcting endless piles of English and Norwegian essays and so forth. But when summer is almost here, I get kind of nostalgic. My seniors are not coming back after the summer, so there are another 55 young men and women, embarking on a journey into the wild, wild world, and who knows if I'll ever see them again. That makes me kind of sad. But of course: many of my students will return in the fall, and there will of course be the new ones, the cute, innocent juniors. That's the spiral of a teacher's life, I guess.

About the strike: It ended after pathetic one and a half weeks. And what did we achieve? Close to nothing. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. I'm thinking about leaving the Union, but then again; what is the alternative? And also, I have all of my insurances through my union, and I don't see me getting equally good deals elsewhere. So I guess I'll stay, but only for purely selfish reasons, not because I think they're doing a particularly good job for me or my fellow academics. And of course: who would turn down the opportunity to one day perhaps be able to wear this oh-so-fitting striking t-shirt once again?