After that hurried little post I banged out this afternoon, the day got significantly worse. Perhaps this was the most unpleasant weather-related experience I've had to deal with all year!
Well, at first it was exciting. Like the first time you experience something "different," once you realize that it's a bother and imposing on every-day well-being, it becomes more of a burden than a novelty.
The hail and slush quickly melted off and turned into 45 minutes of non-stop torrential downpour. It wasn't that long really, but strong enough to cause mass flooding all down my street. I even saw the underground drainage system overflowing with water, running down the streets only adding to the car-size puddles in the roads. Because of this, the local police deemed it unsafe for cars to "float" down the street and subsequently closed off all roads near my apartment complex. Cool right? I could walk down the street, listening to my iPod in peace, without having to worry about French jackass drivers plowing through the puddles and unnecessarily spraying me with nasty road-water.
Except when the rain started coming in stinging angles and my pants were soaked higher than the knees -- front and back -- I realized it's probably worth the 1 Euro to take the bus. Well, that was 35 minutes into my walk, I was nearly halfway and sat and waited for the bus. However, since all roads north of me were closed, that meant the bus changed routes so I was left waiting in vain 20 minutes for a bus that never came!
Either way, I called my school and warned them that I'd be a little late because the floods were blocking my normal route and I couldn't hop on the bus like normally.
...Little did I know, my tardiness was pretty low on the grand scale of the day's events at my second school.
Now, I'm going to put out a radical statement here. I'm going to demonstrate, in my one small life-observation, how one English assistant's daily experience is a microcosm for France's immigration policy as a whole.
The second school at which I teach on Mondays and Fridays, and the following statement is by no means an over-exaggeration: is 75 percent populated by children of immigrants, notably from Northern Africa. Actually, I would venture to say that UNDER 25 percent of the students there are white and/or native French citizens.
This is mainly because Antibes is one of many French cities where children have to attend the closest school to their residential units. Thus, the school -- can I point out that it's right on the train tracks -- is plopped right in the middle of the immigrant district.
Why do I mention this fact?
Because after attending my other, whiter school this morning in the rain, nothing out of the ordinary happened. But when I arrived 10 minutes late at Juan-Gare, I noticed all the teachers were suited up in their rain gear, yelling at all 250 students in the courtyard (playground I guess as we'd call it in the U.S.). When I went up to the teachers' room to drop off my stuff and dry off a bit, I noticed no one was up there. Then I noticed one person running down from the third story, absolutely drenched, warning me not to go into any of the rooms. That's because a massive leak was dripping water from the third floor, including the now over-flowing toilets, all the way down to the first. The directrice deemed it unsafe for students to be in class, because should there be a fire -- HIGHLY unlikely in this sopping weather -- all fire exists were blocked and/or running with water. It would only take one student to fall down those stairs to cause a lawsuit that would eventually close down the school.
But my point here is that the rainstorm really was not that long. It lasted for 45 whole minutes. Where was the school district's maintenance crew? Why did one small leak cause such a massive problem? Why didn't the white school have this "inconvenience," as the administration kept referring to it, so not to verbally step on anyone's toes by pointing out the blatant racism at hand in this situation.
Well, it affected me, too. For two of the three hours after lunch, all the students were free to run around outside until the janitorial staff mopped up all the water. Luckily, the sun came out and halted any further damage from happening. So, as useless as I was, I was told to stay at the school during my normal hours, until someone decided it was ok to return to the classrooms.
Well, I only got in 40 minutes of actual instruction, which essentially was supposed to be a review session for Friday's unit test. Since two-thirds of my students never received such a review, I now have to push the test back until after the two-week winter break and expect them to have studied up and be ready to go.
Please, God, let my students be disciplined enough to study over the next two weeks without instruction...
Well, at first it was exciting. Like the first time you experience something "different," once you realize that it's a bother and imposing on every-day well-being, it becomes more of a burden than a novelty.
The hail and slush quickly melted off and turned into 45 minutes of non-stop torrential downpour. It wasn't that long really, but strong enough to cause mass flooding all down my street. I even saw the underground drainage system overflowing with water, running down the streets only adding to the car-size puddles in the roads. Because of this, the local police deemed it unsafe for cars to "float" down the street and subsequently closed off all roads near my apartment complex. Cool right? I could walk down the street, listening to my iPod in peace, without having to worry about French jackass drivers plowing through the puddles and unnecessarily spraying me with nasty road-water.
Except when the rain started coming in stinging angles and my pants were soaked higher than the knees -- front and back -- I realized it's probably worth the 1 Euro to take the bus. Well, that was 35 minutes into my walk, I was nearly halfway and sat and waited for the bus. However, since all roads north of me were closed, that meant the bus changed routes so I was left waiting in vain 20 minutes for a bus that never came!
Either way, I called my school and warned them that I'd be a little late because the floods were blocking my normal route and I couldn't hop on the bus like normally.
...Little did I know, my tardiness was pretty low on the grand scale of the day's events at my second school.
Now, I'm going to put out a radical statement here. I'm going to demonstrate, in my one small life-observation, how one English assistant's daily experience is a microcosm for France's immigration policy as a whole.
The second school at which I teach on Mondays and Fridays, and the following statement is by no means an over-exaggeration: is 75 percent populated by children of immigrants, notably from Northern Africa. Actually, I would venture to say that UNDER 25 percent of the students there are white and/or native French citizens.
This is mainly because Antibes is one of many French cities where children have to attend the closest school to their residential units. Thus, the school -- can I point out that it's right on the train tracks -- is plopped right in the middle of the immigrant district.
Why do I mention this fact?
Because after attending my other, whiter school this morning in the rain, nothing out of the ordinary happened. But when I arrived 10 minutes late at Juan-Gare, I noticed all the teachers were suited up in their rain gear, yelling at all 250 students in the courtyard (playground I guess as we'd call it in the U.S.). When I went up to the teachers' room to drop off my stuff and dry off a bit, I noticed no one was up there. Then I noticed one person running down from the third story, absolutely drenched, warning me not to go into any of the rooms. That's because a massive leak was dripping water from the third floor, including the now over-flowing toilets, all the way down to the first. The directrice deemed it unsafe for students to be in class, because should there be a fire -- HIGHLY unlikely in this sopping weather -- all fire exists were blocked and/or running with water. It would only take one student to fall down those stairs to cause a lawsuit that would eventually close down the school.
But my point here is that the rainstorm really was not that long. It lasted for 45 whole minutes. Where was the school district's maintenance crew? Why did one small leak cause such a massive problem? Why didn't the white school have this "inconvenience," as the administration kept referring to it, so not to verbally step on anyone's toes by pointing out the blatant racism at hand in this situation.
Well, it affected me, too. For two of the three hours after lunch, all the students were free to run around outside until the janitorial staff mopped up all the water. Luckily, the sun came out and halted any further damage from happening. So, as useless as I was, I was told to stay at the school during my normal hours, until someone decided it was ok to return to the classrooms.
Well, I only got in 40 minutes of actual instruction, which essentially was supposed to be a review session for Friday's unit test. Since two-thirds of my students never received such a review, I now have to push the test back until after the two-week winter break and expect them to have studied up and be ready to go.
Please, God, let my students be disciplined enough to study over the next two weeks without instruction...
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