tuesday blahs

at least we can paint while we wait for school to resume

the teacher lockout continues in this country. if the government hadn't locked them out, they would have gone on strike, so it's sort of a six of one, half dozen of the other sort of thing. the teachers gather and "demonstrate" with smiles on their faces and lattes or beers in hand, hanging out with their friends in the sunshine on the squares of the cities around denmark. i'm not even entirely sure what the dispute is about and i frankly have read quite a number of articles about it. something about not having their preparation time dictated to them (or taken away from them). as it is, they spend only 16 hours in the classroom actually teaching our kids. that seems like not very much to me.

but most surprising is the utter lack of outrage. parents have begun to complain that they don't have any child care options (many are taking their kids with them to work). i haven't heard a single parent who was concerned that their kids are missing out on three weeks of their education and the implications of that. no, it's as if school is a babysitter where you park your kids while you go to work and when you can't do that, what do you do?

maybe it's just that it clouded up again today and was windy and intermittently the sky spat at us, but i feel a little disappointed in people. where are their priorities? where is the outrage? doesn't anyone care about anything anymore?

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when tragedies like the bombings at yesterday's boston marathon happen, the whole internet is awash with sympathy and photos and opinions. and i have a hard time relating to it. i've never been to boston. i've never run a marathon. i don't know a single person who was involved. it all feels very far away (which, in actuality, it is) and remote from my safe little corner of the world. there's nothing i can do about it. i don't have any answers. and it strikes me that people are killed in tragic circumstances all over the world on a daily basis and we don't go nuts on twitter about it. why is one place's tragedy more worthy of attention than all of the others? i'm sorry about what happened in boston, but i feel quite helpless to do, or even feel, anything about it.

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love lisa congdon's nordic adventure occasional series.

i think i need to assign myself a project.