Into the Third Week…

The first two weeks of Semester 1 have been extremely busy. I always find it hard to adjust to teaching after the summer break even when I’m teaching familiar material, but this year we had quite a lot of timetabling issues which required swapping and juggling classes. I think it has now settled down, though, and at least I’m not behind on covering the material in lectures. Next week will be busy for different reasons. For a start, tomorrow sees the first day of industrial action by the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT). This is relatively gentle introduction, being in the form of a one-hour walk-out from 12-1. I actually don’t have any teaching then so it won’t be very disruptive for me, but I will be attending the demonstration that will take place during the action. I hope it doesn’t rain. I have a lecture at 2pm and a telecon at 4pm both of which will go ahead as planned. The strikes proper start with 24-hour stoppages on Wednesday 14th October and Wednesday 21st…