A day like any other...

Happy Thanksgiving, my compatriots! Here I have a brief ex-pat holiday checklist:

Turkey? No
Chicken that has been re-labeled by my father using a scrap of paper as a 'turkey'? Check
Sweet potatoes? No
Miniature sweet potatos because normal-sized ones are not to be found? Check
Brown sugar? No
"Brown" sugar? Check
Cranberry sauce imported from the States via my mother's suitcase? Check
Access to a live broadcast of this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade? No
Access to an internet recording of last year's Macy's Parade? Check
Poor-quality internet streaming of It's a Wonderful Life? Check

I hope you are both enjoying turkeys and stuffing and Pilgrim-joy, or some similar substitutes should the situation arise. Now I would like to take a brief moment to tell a story of what transpired today, and also to demonstrate Why I Am Thankful for the American Higher Education System, Despite Its Fair Share of Flaws --

Unfortunately I had a class today that most distressingly disrupted my planned festivities with my family; my history class is from 4 until 6:30, right smack in the middle of our usual late-lunch / early-dinner eating period on holidays. Alas, I needed to go, as my strict academic professor takes attendance. So I puttered off on my bike at 3:45, having stuffed my gullet full of our small Thanksgiving dinner.

I arrived at the Palais Universitaire at 4:55, only to find a large crowd standing outside the steps of the front entrance. Confused, and wondering why that many people felt such a strong urge for a smoke break in the drizzly, damp weather, I walked through the crowd to the doors, only to discover -- they were locked. All of them. And there was a large crowd of students on the other side, stuck inside the building.

Guess who I saw, finally, after three weeks? Lauren! On the other side of the door! Stuck inside the building after her class got out! We mimed things through the door (it took me five minutes to convey "Happy Thanksgiving" to her), before Matt, another student in my class, showed up. We stood there aimlessly for about ten minutes, during which time I was handed a flier about the Loi LPU -- against the privatization of universities that the French government has proposed and that the students are protesting.

Our time was spent thinking, "Should we go? How long will this last? How long has it been going on? No one seems to be demonstrating anything? Did they really just lock all those people in the building? Our professor is probably still holding class. Tanks bulldozing the building wouldn't stop him. What do we do, we poor clueless foreigners? We are not a part of this!"

Finally Lauren called me, to tell me that she had escaped the building via a back door. We then walked around the building, practically SNUCK INSIDE through a door that a few other students were using, and walked up to our class, thirty minutes late. The professor made no remark, and a few students continued to trickle in as the minutes went by.

Just thirty minutes of lecturing later, an alarm all of a sudden sounded throughout the entire building. The French students groaned and began packing their stuff up. ("What's happening?!" my internal monologue pleaded.) One French student was explaining to someone else in our class that the alarm was set off by a student as a protest, or maybe to signal that they're going to start protesting. Or maybe it was the administration calling out, "Flee! Save yourselves!" The professor also began packing up his projector and computer, and said "Next week." We all left class. The bell was still ringing. We walked through the front doors (some student was holding them open for the exodus of students), where someone tried to give me another flier.

I decided to come home before I got locked in the building, an innocent bystander trapped in the crossfires of crazy student protesting. As I biked away, I saw police vehicles parked along the sidewalk, the policemen watching the students amassed in front of the building.

I think I'll go eat some more sweet potato soufflé.