sssshaksssshouka

1. Yesterday was a busy, busy day. I had Greek, of course, and then my job interview at the Fiddlehead; I think they like me, but it's hard to say if I'll get the job. The building is a little residential house that had been built for a university president probably fifty years ago, and is buried in the most remote area of the campus, down a little dirt lane in the woods. I had never been there before, and it was like finding a secret hiding place. They have two rooms to run the journal out of, and I gather it can be quite hectic at times. It sounds like a great job.
For lunch, I had some mediocre soup and discovered it went from a two star to a three star soup from its stay in the fridge. I will have to overhaul it if I make it again, but it's acceptable for now.
And then, of course, Latin, and then I had my meeting with Financial Aid to arrange for an advance on my loan to pay rent. I hoped to walk out with a loan set up to be picked up on Friday for $650; I walked out with the loan set up for Friday for $800, and an extra $150 cash that very afternoon for books I still hadn't bought. Have I told you how awesome the Financial Aid angels are before?

2. Today was a pretty quiet day. I was feeling under the weather, but still made it up to campus and even got my pictures taken for the grad photo composite. A couple of them aren't even terrible, which is an accomplishment considering how difficult it is to take a good picture of me.
I slept off most of the bad in the afternoon when I got home, and spent some time wandering around some blogs I haven't read before, but that are recommended by bloggers I like. I've added Quelle Erqsome to my list, and am considering adding A Chicken In Every Granny Cart, even though most of her recipes are way out of our league in terms of skills and necessary ingredients (when you can pop out to the local farmers' markets and then a few little specialty stores as a matter of course, gourmet cooking is a lot easier). That having been said, I'm going to try out the shakshouka recipe she listed, because the ingredients aren't hard, the instructions aren't scary, and the name is awesome; I might even be persuaded to roast some beets and try making beet pasta, even though it is a terrifying shade of pink.
I did hear back about the children's collection curator position - unfortunately, just as I feared, someone with a more pertinent interest in children's literature came along and I was outclassed. So... goooo Fiddlehead!

3. More links and thoughts:

• a while ago I pointed out vinyl laptop decals on Etsy; the guy now has an extensive collection, and they're really nice. I don't think they would work for my Toshiba, being black, and the ones that are on the inside of the laptop under the keyboard would be pretty impractical because I rest my wrists on that area all the time and the wear would be considerable... but they're pretty anyway.
• one of my blogs has an ad for Seeking Millionaire, which is a truly funny concept for a dating site: you have to have oodles of money or be shockingly beautiful to join. It's oddly efficient, but kind of depressing at the same time. Still, it's funny to browse the pictures and see the millionaires; a lot of them manage to be beautiful too, though I suppose it's easier with buckets of money.
  
• The STU faculty have rejected the latest offer to end the strike, meaning it's back to the table, which means that it will be at least another week before they even vote again; we're looking at early to mid February for the start of class, at the earliest. Finally, the Student Union president (who hasn't been very useful thus far) has stated that the SU is going to be filing a lawsuit to recompense students for these shenanigans:

  Banks said the student union plans to launch class-action lawsuits against the faculty association and the university in a bid to seek compensation for tuition, books and rent.
  "The general damage portion of our claim would be for the stress, inconvenience, loss of opportunity and amenities that students have endured as a result of this," Banks said.

It's about time, really. It's deplorable that the students are probably not going to see any voluntary action from the university or the faculty union to give them any compensation - the STU website has a question and answer section for concerned students, and every time someone writes in asking if they will be compensated for lost class time, the university responds that you pay for the education you receive, not the time you spend in class, which is utter stupidity. Also, if the semester were to be canceled, student loan situations would get very hairy, especially as it's practice to pay the university for 2/3 of your tuition in September and the remaining 1/3 in January; they've already paid for the education they're not getting. Similarly, the meal plan at STU is paid in full at the beginning of the year, and you can't get your money back from it in any way, for any reason that I've ever heard (including dropping out of school, moving out of res, etcetera). A lot of students, like Megan, are living in residence now because they have no choice, having no other place to live in Fredericton and needing to be here for jobs or UNB classes; what happens to the student loan to pay for that if there isn't any academic credit received? Nothing good, I'm sure.
I'm so so glad Sean switched to UNB this year.