The World Cup has started, and everyone seems swept up by the mania of it. Every ad on TV is World Cup-themed and tons of people are walking around wearing England football (soccer) jerseys. Things have started off well for England, because they won their first game, and the other two teams tied, so they are ahead of everyone in the group. If they win the second game, they will be guaranteed to advance. Hopefully Trinidad and Tobego won't prove to be too much of an obstacle.

The lecturer's pay dispute has finally been resolved, paving the way for exams to be finished, and grading of coursework to be done. It's a good thing it has ended, because I think the students were going to start really suffering in some cases. They wanted a 23% pay rise over three years (typically it has been 3% each year to counter inflation). They ended up settling for much less than they wanted, 13.1% over three years, with 3% a year each fall as usual, plus 1% in February, and 2.5% in fall 2008. So I will have to wait a long time to feel any added benefit from it.