HALIFAX, NS — Despite uncertainty leading up to the winter term, Dalhousie University and the Dalhousie Faculty Association have come to an agreement, avoiding a faculty strike. While this turn of events has been a relief for greedy students hoping for a single uninterrupted semester, some TAs are bitter after their painstaking efforts to prepare picket signs for professors over the winter break.
Thomas Wilkins, an industrial engineering TA, was crushed to hear the change of plans. He returned to campus with bags full of cardboard signs beautifully accented with glitter glue. “Do you have any idea how much it cost to bring this many signs here?” He explained to us. “I live in Vermont, and picket signs filled not only my carry-on but three checked bags too. What am I supposed to wear? I don’t even have my laptop — just signs, signs, signs.”
Richard Fischer, a physics professor, was quite relieved to have the whole ordeal resolved. “The stress of configuring a syllabus not knowing how much teaching time I’d have was stressful, but nowhere near as stressful as wrangling my damn TAs. Whenever I asked for pictures of their progress over winter break it was never even half of what I asked of them. I can’t believe I was forced to call them on Christmas Eve, I shouldn’t have had to tell them they should be working.”
Students returning to campus can find the hard labour of the TAs scattered around campus garbage cans, with experimental slogans like “Dalhousie = Dal-lousy” and “Be Villainous And You’ll Get No Syllabus”.
Bianca Laurent, an Aquaculture TA, largely resigned herself to her wasted resources and Christmas break. “After all the new felt pens and cardboard I had to buy, it’s like I never got a pay raise to begin with. More ramen, yay.”
By Samuel MacDonald