I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!

I just attended my first very serious faculty union meeting, and someone actually said that. I was privileged enough to be part of an overwhelming vote to "authorize the negotiating team to call a strike if necessary." So, we're not on strike (yet), but we may well be as of next Sunday night. It's excruciating, as an individual taught to think logically and use reason, to endure the irrational, political mind-game that is the negotiating process. I'd much rather be thinking about and teaching mathematics than feeling disrespected (even though that's not a verb) by the administration.

Meanwhile, our 8-year-old Mazda 626 is having serious transmission issues, so we get to try and prepare for a new school year this week with one functioning vehicle and jobs that are both 35 minutes from home in opposite directions. It's not the best of my life right now.

It's hard for me to keep everything in perspective sometimes, because ultimately these are temporary problems that will be overcome, but I still hateithatehateit while it's going on. Ugh.