gripe

i woke up at 6:30 today for my 8am class, not daring to skip it because the manifestations are highly irregularly in continuity--the students decide very last minute whether or not to continue.

So I arrived at the Sorbonne at 8:05, puffing from the metro...only to find a cavalcade of riot police blocking the street on both ends. Since my classroom is opposite the Sorbonne historique (what they call the main building), I asked the police if I could go in. They dismissed my request, saying, "No one can enter." Then, Regina sends me a message saying "Where are you??? There's class right now!" So I wave the cell phone with the text message in front of the police, saying "S'il vous plait monsieur, est-ce que je peux entrer, j'ai un cours maintenant!!!" (Please sir, can I enter, I have a class right now!!!). No, no and no. Actually, they didn't even listen to me. They waved me off like a little fly. So Deborah, a student from Fordham who is in my TD, and I shivered for an hour in the biting cold alternately talking about French men and trying to convince the police to let us enter. I was so frustrated at one point, I said (in French) to this little old man next to me, "I'm a foreign student, I PAID a lot to be here!!" To which he said, "That's really too bad, but there's nothing you can do..." At 9, our TD professor, who is really nice and accessible, for a French professor, came out and tried talking to the police. Same answer. He told us, over the metal gates, that he'd give us the lecture notes next week.

I don't know how long this will go on!!! But I actually would really like to attend one of the student rallies, just to see what they are doing. Poor Maylen, she hasn't had class for 2 weeks because of the strikes! I suppose I am lucky...but I really want to go to class, I find the topics more interesting than any I've taken at Harvard, and it makes me slightly annoyed that my parents are spending good money for me to study here, and I can't do it. But then again, students have the right and indeed the logical and reasonable right to protest for their personal rights.

Maylen and I went to a Chinese supermarche in the 13th, the dregs of the 13th, the very bottom of the neighborhood, in our weekly grocery shopping expedition. I am SO happy--I found grass jelly and that green jelly (Chinese people will totally know what I am talking about). I am making eggrolls tomorrow for dinner and a tofu and seaweed soup. I loooove cooking SO much--it's both an art and a pleasure. I really should have been a chef. Why am I at Harvard and not the CIA (Cooking Institute of America)?