When was the last time you said something nice about a Vestal Virgin?

My seminar on Snakes and Birds went very well, thank you all for asking. Melanie gave her seminar on Vesta first, and although the short seminar is only supposed to be 10 minutes long, she went on for a full 20, which was fine with me. Vesta is an interesting goddess, being the only Roman deity who is not personified in images. She was always considered a spiritual goddess, and so when Christianity started knocking gods and goddesses off of pedestals, she was safe from vandalism, and actually persevered as a household and public goddess until 300 C.E. Also, being a virgin helped her become idenitified with Mary, so that the transfer of worship was easily enacted.

I think my seminar went well, anyway. I mostly read from the paper I had written up, occasionally going off on a tangent as I expounded on some note I had pencilled in the margin. There was time for questions and discussion afterwards, and we were done at class end. Not bad. My seminar on Medusa is scheduled for Monday, but I am now concerned that we are going to strike Monday morning, and that will put everything on hold.

Yes, friends, the association of university workers which includes buildings and grounds, secretaries, janitors and technicians, is now officially part of the union to which I belong as a part-time prof. This gives us a very strong bargaining position because if we do walk out, the university will be literally crippled. If negotiations do not go well, and we are giving corporation until midnight on Sunday to meet our demands, we strike Monday morning. Acadia University apparently just settled a two-week walkout, getting what they wanted from the administration. So hopefully we will not have to strike. It would totally screw up everything for the students and us. But that is the whole point, that our future as employees of this institution means enough to us that we would put ourselves through this inconvenience to get the settlement we want.

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