America Passes

Yesterday, I was focused on two important tests. One was the morning final exam in my Investment Law class. For the past two weeks, since lectures ended, I’ve been helping students wrap their heads around the NZ Takeovers Code. A lot of them were pretty tense and scared about how it would turn out; I empathized.

Last Sunday was Guy Fawkes Day, a traditional British holiday to celebrate the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot (to blow up the king and parliament). It’s traditionally celebrated with bonfires and fireworks. Signifying the fire and explosion that would have happened if the plot had succeeded? Anyway, it’s the big spring festival here. But this year things got a bit out of hand. According to the Dominion Post:

Guy Fawkes festivities combined with "mass disorder" to stretch
emergency services to breaking point throughout New Zealand.

Kinda makes you wonder what would happen if there was a real emergency to deal with.

On Monday, students began lining up outside my office before 10 am, and didn’t stop until after 4 pm. It looked like I was gonna have a little break around 1 pm, so I grabbed my lunch from downstairs, but another student arrived before I got my first bite.

In other news, Hell Pizza has been causing “public outrage” over its latest promotion. They mailed 170,000 condoms along with flyers for their “Lust” meat-lovers’ pizza. Kiwis have a great sense of humor, especially when it comes to advertisements. But this, apparently, crossed even their limits of good taste.

If students took a break from their studies, I’m sure they were relieved by how the vote turned out. The vote in Parliament, that is, over whether to raise the drinking age to 20. It was lowered to 18 in 1999, but there’ve been calls to raise it back up in response to New Zealand’s partly-acknowledged alcohol problem. In what was termed a “conscience vote,” the measure was defeated 72-49.

Yesterday afternoon I saw Jason, one of my students, at the gym. I said hi, and kept walking, but, as the fact that he was smiling registered, I backed up. “So, how’d it go?” I asked. I had wanted the questions to be challenging, but not so hard that it's unfair. Since I’m so new at teaching, however, I don’t feel like I have a good handle on this yet. “Ok, you prepared us well,” he answered. I had a great workout.

The other test I’ve been worried about also turned out ok. The AP has declared Webb the winner in Virginia, which means the Dems have taken both the House and the Senate. Woohoo! It’s not like I think the Dems are really gonna fix things, but at least the forces of evil haven’t completely rigged the system. Yet.

For great covereage of the election, click here for The Daily Show’s “Midterm Midtacular.” Then click here to watch Stephen Colbert remind us exactly what’s coming next.

Right now I'm going to take a deep breath. Relax. Let my guard down. But not too long.

Tomorrow I've got a big pile of exams to mark.

Cheers,
Sandie