Day 5 of the Strike (or Day 7 if you count weekends)

Not a lot to report, so I'll just do it in bullets:

• We're going on shifts starting tomorrow, so I'll only be on the line from 10:00 to 1:30.

• Yea! There will finally be another negotiation meeting on Wednesday!

• Laura (my wife) came up to see the school and offer moral support today. As there was a special meeting for new teachers, she took my place for a while, carrying my sign around.

• The weather was much more pleasant for this sort of thing today, overcast and much cooler. But they're talking rain beginning tomorrow.

• At the new teachers meeting, both the MEA and WEA assured us that, basically, everything will be all right and work themselves out in the end. We also got a little more background about how all this bad blood came about (much of it I was already partially familiar with, but it was nice to get the details).

• The local news/talk station talked about the strikes in both Marysville and Lake Stevens this morning, including a guest from the WEA. The callers very obviously do not understand just what it is teachers do and how hard they really work.

• To boost morale, we had a drawing, with entries based on how many times you walked the line. Of course, I ended up winning. My prize? A foot rub from someone in the math department. Trouble is, I'm in the math department! Do I have to alienate one of my colleagues? Or should I just rub my own feet? (Regardless, before I could collect, I had to take off for the new teachers' meeting.)

Gee, I guess I had more to say than I thought!