It's always something

This country, I swear. Shit just doesn't work. I now understand why the French are so grumpy and negative -- they are constantly being inconvenienced. Today I was late to work for the third time in the month I've been teaching. This morning, the crise du jour was a fire on the train tracks about 15 minutes from my stop. Lovely. So we had to get off the train, and then it was a crush of humanity to board the buses outside. Originally I was planning to patch together a couple bus rides to get to Marly, but the buses were being slow and quickly filling with lots of pushy people. So instead of crying, I called the office that is in charge of me to ask them to give me a route and to call my first school to tell them I couldn't make it. Silver lining: at least now I am sure that I can understand and speak great French under pressure. I ended up taking the train to La Défense, then taking the RER out to St. Germain en Laye, then taking a bus to Marly. Fucking ridonk. And of course I got there at 9:45. Too late to go to my first school (where I finish at 10), but a good hour before my next class. So I photocopied and made handouts, the best way to kill time at work. And of course I tried not to pass out because the commute had sucked all of my energy. Luckily I'm not feeling very sick anymore.

So after surviving the day well enough, I had an easy ride back to Paris and to the Sorbonne. When I got there, I saw a big protest outside. No big deal. The government is thinking about charging students to go to college. Obviously for me it's like "duh, college costs money," but it doesn't for the French as of yet. And plus they pay taxes out the ass so they shouldn't have to pay for school. Anyway, I thought it was just a fun little demonstration until I got closer to the entrance (to look for classmates and/or the professor) and saw what I think was a French SWAT team outside. Like most other authority figures in France (except for the national guardsmen with machine guns at the train station), their style of dress made them very hard to take seriously. First of all, they wear these helmets with plastic screens like welders or something (the firemen wear them too, so silly). Plus they were wearing these shin guards and chest plates that can only be compared to catcher's gear (baseball). And of course there are the enormous plastic shields (to protect themselves against rotten fruit?) that they used to form a wall to block us from going to class. Picture that epic masterpiece Troy, when Hector's army is guarding the gates and they make a big wall with their shields. Yeah, that's exactly what it looked like. I had to giggle a little. So, for all intents and purposes, I assume that was canceled today. Although I can't for the life of me figure out why, if some of the students are protesting, that the whole Sorbonne had to be closed for business. And guarded by policemen. Plus, the cops just stood there silent, looking more scared than anything. Another very French phenomenon. In France, the Man is afraid of YOU.