We’re honing in on our last few weeks as genuine Parisians and I couldn’t be sadder.
Saturday was Fete de travail, aka Labor Day, throughout France. Experiencing a French labor day was perhaps one of the biggest culture shocks that I have experienced so far. Labor Day in France is nothing like Labor Day in the States. For one, everyone actually has the holiday off, as opposed to businesses in States where only corporate industries, private industries, governmental industries and any other cushy white-collar jobs get to have Labor Day off. The laborers, on the other hand, are forced to continue to labor on what justifiably should their day of reprieve.
France, on the other hand, grants everyone the day off, especially the laborers. Having lived here for several months now I think I understand the system well enough to knowingly assume that if the government doesn’t allow everything the right to a day off all hell would break loose, most likely in the form of violent protests. While I was slightly inconvenienced this morning when I couldn’t find a boulangerie to get my sandwich crudités thon, a large part of me was really happy to see that all of my favorite bakers had given themselves the day off. Bakers have got to be the hardest working individuals within the borders of l’hexagone, getting up at the crack of dawn to begin baking bread and whatnot, and really not stopping until after dinnertime. So, for that, I am willing to get my lazy ass up to make my sandwich myself for once.
Taking my typical, Saturday afternoon lazy stroll through the Bastille, I noted something rather different from anything I had ever seen in Bastille: HUGE mass protests with thousands of protesters, spectators and the like. Every street that branched off of the round-about was blocked off to traffic, police were EVERYWHERE and anyone with a microphone was shouting some spiel about how the government doesn't control them, how the workweek must be shortened, etc etc. One of the larger groups of protesters even promised a social revolution come July 13 (France's 4th of July, for those who don't know). I think that group was the one that intrigued me the most. Their message and presentation of said message kind of came off as crazed radicalism, but I'm not gonna lie, I'm considering making it back to the City of Light for Bastille Day just to see what kind of hell these radicals can raise.
In other news, classes are finally over! Not that I didn't enjoy all of my classes (sort of, heh), knowing that it's the beginning of May and classes are still in session and finals are even further away is incredibly annoying. I didn't realize how spoiled I had become by attending Northeastern and having spring classes end so early, but I reeeeally don't like having to be in classes this late. My attention span and overall interest in learning has been slowly dissipating for several weeks now and it's getting harder and harder to pretend to be interested in class. Not to mention that my thoughts have recently been almost entirely consumed by my impending vacation-within-a-vacation to Nice in a few days! Words simply cannot describe how stoked I am at the anticipation of this short trip to the Cote d'Azur.
That brings up another interesting point: Reading Day. AUP gives its students a "Reading Day" before finals week starts. Except that it's not just one day, it's about a week. Yet AUP still calls it Reading Day.
I just don't get AUP sometimes. They try so hard to come off as a respectable institution of higher education and then they go and do something like pretend a week is just a day, or making spring break 2+ weeks so that we have "more time to travel".... Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to returning to normalcy, like, for example, a place where a day is just a day and a week is a week.
Who really needs a whole week to "prepare" for finals, anyway? Talking to friends and other students, half of their profs aren't even assigning real finals anyway. And all those term papers that snuck up on us towards the end of the semester are all due by the last day of classes, so really though, what does the AUP administration really expect us to do with that "Reading Day"?
I'll stop the fashionable AUP rant there because I'm almost finished dealing with their shenanigans and I don't want to put a damper on my end-of-classes good mood.
Up next: Nice and beyond!
