more fun at my high school

the past few days and especially yesterday, i have witnessed mass chaos in the nice little high school where i work...or worked..considering i havent worked this week yet... and in the past 3 weeks, 17 of my classes have been cancelled.

let me start. yesterday I got off the bus only to see hundreds of students blocking thegate. there were trash cans and signs galore. one of my favorite parts was when my student walked by me pushing a trash can to block the door and said "hello" then i walked into the school. no students were being admitted. i went ot my first class and there were 3 students. we played taboo. then the teacher and i had a break so we went outside to see the action...and oh what action we saw.

students yelling, throwing glass bottles around and at cars driving by. dumping huge recycling bins, picking up cars (or trying to) to put them in the middle of the road. breaking cars. pushing shopping carts in the road. starting fires in trash cans.... just to talk about a few things i witnessed. studernts were trying to climb over the gate to get into the school grounds to break things.

so i did what any other foreigner would do... i got out my camera. i took pictures and lots of them. im sure the principal and asst. principal were thrilled that the american was taking pictures of the craziness.

we were not allowed to leave school grounds. no classes.. nothing. i just hung out. the police and riot police came. they threw tear gas bombs at the students. students were running in all directions. im talking about like 10 or so tear gas bombs. the air was full of it. the trash bins were burning.

i ended up leaving at noon...even though i was supposed to stay till 6. but there were no students and i was not looking forward to staying inside all day.

now fast forward to this morning... i went to school. on my way there, i saw students running down the middle of the street with signs (a different high school) and i got all the more nervous to see what i was goign to see at my high school. when i got off the bus, it was relatively calm. i talked to a few of my students. some of them were frustrated casue they wanted to go to class but the school wasnt letting students come in. so they will get marked absent. i dont agree with that. i went in, i talked to a teacher. no students. so i left. apparently tomorrow will be the same and friday is a maybe and next tuesday forget it.....everyone is goign on strike next tuesday.

so these are the adventures of jen eureka. i have never seen anythign like this before.. and to be honest neither have many of the french. this has been an exception. mostof the french ive talked to have told me that this is more than usual.

the students are striking over a law that will allow employers to fire people anytime they want. i know there is more to that... but i am not really that sure what else. feel free to comment on this.

ok look at the pictures..


also this past weekend i went to oyonnax with ruth lise and vero to visit ruth lise's brother. we drove up there (4hrs) friday night and hung out. we went hiking around and we went to a frozen lake. there was snow there! ruth lise tried to break the ice and her foot got soaking wet. then we went sledding without sleds. we watched 3 movies. the something of the flying daggers.. effroyable jardin and another one that i forgot the name. we ate a lot. we went to church on sunday. monday afternoon we came back. i got back, went running with olivier. he stayed for a nice american dinner of macaroni and cheese and taco salad. hahah. then him and i met our other friends at the movies and saw truman capote.

this is my life.