aaaaaand, break!

So after three (not quite) full weeks of teaching, I have a week and a half of break.  Oh, my life is so hard... I should be leaving on Monday to spend a week in Barcelona with Molly.  I say "should be" because although we have already bought bus tickets from Toulouse to Barcelona, you never know what can happen with these French people deciding not to work and not letting people buy gas, etc.  So as the Senegalese say, I'm going to Barcelona, inchallah.

Yesterday, I had a lovely class with my terminales, students in their last year of high school.  Less than half the class showed up because of the strikes, so we stayed in Anne's classroom and had a discussion about strikes and retirement pensions, and differences between France, the US, and England.  I actually learned some interesting things from them (and I hope they learned some from me as well!).  They explained to me how the students actually have meetings, where they discuss and vote on whether they're going to block the doors of the school on a given day.  I thought it was just mob mentality, and things just spiraled out of control like the French Revolution, but in fact it's a democratic process and students are allowed to object, and finally they take a vote.  I in turn explained to them that in the US, if students decided to stand outside of school and block the doors and throw eggs, we would call that a protest, but not a strike, as they call it.  Then we talked about why they're striking (remember the retirement pension thing?) and they were surprisingly familiar with the French retirement system, parliament decisions, etc.  I was kind of embarrassed that I had to keep saying, "Well I'm not sure, but I think it's this way in the US..." I mean, people my age have no hope of retirement, right?  We're all just going to work until we drop dead... Which is why we Americans find it so ridiculous that the French are up in arms about having to work and extra 2 years, until they are 62, which is basically middle-age.  I mean, they barely work when they do work (no more than 35 hrs per week, with no less than 5 weeks vacation) and they stop working when they're 60, and then they complain about the government taking away their precious relaxation time.  I mean, I know Americans work too much and all that, but you have to work sometimes!  It's just a complete difference of attitude towards work.  Americans spend a lot more time worrying about what they're going to do when they grow up, because whatever you choose basically defines who you are, whereas here you have to decide when you're 16 what career path you want to take, so most kids probably just choose at random, but it's not a big deal because they don't define themselves by their work like we do.

Tomorrow is Marta's birthday, and she kind of got carried away planning things so apparently we're having a birthday potluck dinner tonight, going out dancing or somthing, and then having a birthday barbecue lunch tommorrow afternoon.  Then Sunday evening, Marta and I should be driving to Toulouse, so she can spend a few days there and I can get my bus Monday morning.  So convenient!  I don't want to take my computer with me so probably won't write till I get back from Spain, alors, bon weekend à tous, et à la prochaine!