En grève

If there's one thing the French like, it's strikes. Instead of merely complaining when things go bad, they go out and demonstrate their impatience with the government by skipping school and work to gather and show their solidarity with one another and demand change. Today there's a sort of nationwide general strike, at it's worst in Paris, but it's affecting us in Montpellier too. The entrances to the University were filled with people handing out pamphlets urging us to go to the demonstrations. I had someone knock on my dorm room door last night asking me to participate (I can't, as I'm pretty sure it's against a lot of rules.) My class this morning had only 6 of about 20 people show up, since the tram system is also affected by the strike and most of the people living off campus had too many difficulties in getting here. While this strike is only for today protesting the state of the economy, there are rumours that starting next week there could be a professor's strike. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that, since I did come here for school... I'd hate to lose out on that experience, but then, as my lit professor said "for all of you foreign students: welcome to France!"