I walk the line

The picket line, that is. We've gone on strike. Having faculty be a union still strikes me as a little odd; I grew up thinking of unions as for factory workers, construction, that sort of thing. The oppressed proletariats earning bread by the sweat of their brow, not the intellectual elite. What would Marx think?

It's all about what you'd expect from a bunch of striking academic geeks. The Modern Languages contingent is carrying signs with slogans in languages from Arabic to Spanish, while Classical Studies uses Latin and Greek. Some Music faculty have signs with what I eventually realized were the first two bars of the music for Solidarity Forever (also Battle Hymn of the Republic, also my alma mater's fight song, but I'm pretty sure that's what they meant). Engineers have gone in for functional notation: f(no)! There are also the puns, ranging from mildly clever to dreadful, and a few sexual references to our administration.

Strike in German is "Streik," which I'm sure has caused some passing onlookers to mutter to themselves "what are they doing asking for more money, damn academics, can't even spell."

I've been feeling, more than I'd have expected, a sense of ... solidarity, I guess. And affection. Marching and attending rallies with my colleagues, spending time walking and chatting with people I don't usually see much, carpooling in. Sort of: these are my people, with their incomprehensible signs, awkwardness and slight diffidence, intellectual chatter and harried disorganization. I'll happily carry signs with them, and snark about it later, just like they will.