Hey ho they must go

I know unions have there place but really strikers seem to do nothing but piss me off. Especailly this past week since the public servant strike started, the main components of the strike are the nurses and teachers, there are plenty of others but they aren't having such an impact on me or rather getting in the papers. I have nothing but the highest regard for teachers and nurses and I believe they should be paid very well but the way there going about...

The nurses are the ones pissing me off the most. They are considered essential workers for some unknown reason and so many hospitals across the country are working with skeleton staff and patients are taking care of one another. There were reports from one hospital where the able body patients were helping others to the bathrooms, or turning people in beds over so as not to get bed sores. I'm sorry but if you took on a job knowing full well it was considered essential, yes you have the right to strike and should be able to negoitate a decent contract but you can not not work! They have been barring people from entering the hospitals, at some unless it was an emergency the staff weren't letting you in, they even prevented docotors from entering. It got so bad at a one hospital the police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. I'm sure if one of the protesters were hurt the would demand to get immmediate help from the hospital they just prevented the docotrs from entering.

The teachers aren't much better, first you don't work you don't get paid but you are allowed to strike. Stupid! I think this way you put people in a really awkard position you need to feed your family but if you go to work there is a good chance that one of your co-workers will threaten you for doing so. Read in the paper today one school had to shut down becasue the prinicpal got threating phone calls saying 'they were coming and weren't responsible for what will happen' because the principal should not be there. Some teachers went into another school and started ripping up exams that kids were writing and when one girl refused she was assulted!

I say fire the whole bunch of them, if your going to use violence and intimation to get your way is this really the people you want teaching your children or taking care of the wellfare of your family in the hospital! Just to bad there is such a skills shortage because if you fire them there is absolutely no one else to take over. Why is it that as soon as people go on strike they forget that they are decent human beings, or is it that these are the people who are psychos and just use the strike as their opportunity to get away with shit. Either way I can't wait to the strike is over and I only hope it doesn't get any worse before its over, last years security guard strike was crazy enough for me.

here we go again

I knew I hadn't posted anything new in a while but not since March 20th! I didn't realize I was that bad. I had been think about restarting again (I've had a few complaints) but I got another little push from Leslie, so here we are.

I have a habit of naming people and things, sometimes due to the fact that to pronounce a person's name would be futile for me (when you have two distinctly different clicks in your name there's no real reason to tell me I will never in my wildest dreams be able to repeat it) and sometimes you just don't have a name to call them. I have several people that provide me my breakfast essentials, the muffin man, the coffee guy and the croissant dude. This morning none of my breakfast consortium were around! Three different people at three different location and they all disappeared. I did manage to get myself fed but not what I wanted, I realized the muffin man was gone and settled on the croissant dude only to be disappointed again. So I made my way to the coffee guy deciding that I needed a real coffee this morning since I would be going without my pre-determined breakfast, he wasn't there but at least he has others to cover for him so I got a coffee just not made by him and it wasn't as good.

Something that I have realize I really enjoy is the market shopping. The problem which I outlined above, is that you can't guarantee that the market people will be there when you want them or what stock they'll have. But instead of going to big chains or malls the markets can fulfill your every need. I am careful when I go to the major markets because with the accent I have to fight to get a decent deal (I suck at bargaining). I avoid tourist season in the market or go to the ones not so frequented by the tourists, and I go at the end of the day because if it hasn't been a very lucrative day they are more likely to let the price go a bit lower. I wish I would be able to even fake a have way decent SA accent, but there is no hope for that at all!

It is one of the weirdest accents, usually I can at least pick up a sentence or two in another accent (i.e. British) but not the SA one, I've lived here other a year and I could not for the life of me even say one word with the accent. The problem, you can not put your finger on what makes it different. I saw the preview for Blood Diamond on TV a little while back and I realized that Titanic dude was trying to do a SA accent, it sounds absolutely ridiculous, they should have just let him do another one and forget about the 'authenticity' or you know maybe get a SA actor its not like there's a short supply.

I do want to see blood diamond but movie get released to theatres here much later than in other places so basically as soon as a movie leaves the theatre its available for rent so why spent 4x as much when you only have to wait a week or two. Its winter which means rain (hopefully not to much) so I think its best that I've waited for a few movies to go to DVD I wanted to see so I don't have to leave the wonderful confines of my flat.