A Little Eccentric

La grève continue

The title means, "The strike continues," which is unfortunately what it is doing.
I have not had a class since last Wednesday and was looking forward to get back in the swing of things today. Yesterday was the national "against the CPE" day, and over 160 universites/schools across France were closed. Everything was supposed to open up today, but the students are having such a grand ole time protesting they decided to extend it until the end of the week for no real reason. It is getting ridiculous. Tchykita and I also are constantly having to explain to people that we have to pay large sums of money for school and that we are not happy with having classes consistently canceled. Here, education is socialized so the students have no vested interest in going to college.
I have learned, too, more about this cause they are SO unhappy about. In France, they have work contracts when they hire a person fresh out of college. This contract is for life and the person hired cannot be fired unless in case of very extreme circumstances. It is like giving someone tenure the day they start a new job. This is a big part of why everyone is so unenthusiastic about their jobs here; they won't be fired so they don't care if the service is crappy, etc. Well, this new law represented by the "CPE" changes the system so that the contract expires after the first 10 years. The employer can and will easily renew this contract, but they would have to be good employees to ensure contract renewal. Basically, this law is in no way harming anyone, just causing people to work hard enough to not get fired after 10 years. The students are furious about this because they want a life-time job right out of college that they don't have to work at. THIS is the country I chose to come live in? Jeez. You'd think they had passed a law sending all students to be drafted into the armed forces or something, the way they are acting. I'm sure years from now I will find this experience interesting, rewarding, enlightening, and all that crap. But right now, I just want to throw rocks at French people.
I really do want to go to class. Otherwise it tends to get a bit boring with not too much else to do. Alot of the French students here go home for the week when something like this happens, but us poor "etudiants etrangeres" have no where to go. We could have been traveling or something if the break had been expected, but obviously its not. I have been doing nothing but shopping (but not buying), walking around, eating and drawing day after day. Plus, the weather continues to be cold and rainy. And the worst part is, when something like this happens, you are supposed to make-up all your missed classes! Either they schedule the classes multiple times a week (which will be a scheduling nightmare) or they extend classes into the summer. I do NOT want to have to stay here in class until July because students felt the need to cancel MY classes. I am actually not in a bad mood right now though because my daddy called me this morning (since he is in Berlin and thus the same time zone.) and it made my day. And I ate a sugar crepe.

posted by Molly Jo @ 7:05 AM