Marissa Marleau '09 in France

I've got two great stories for you. The first being the strike and riots that have occurred at our school this past week. Sarkozi passed a law stating that as of next year there will be a privatization of all public colleges. The FAC (the college that we attend here) is public and free of charge to all students so as you can imagine they are upset at the idea that they might have to pay a tuition to continue school. All the French students refuse to come to class until Sarkozi changes the law. They have piled chairs in front of all the entrances so no one can enter for class and last week a small riot broke out in the center square of school. The SLU kids of course still have class but to get in to the building we now have to call the dean directly for her to let us in what is normally a fire escape exit, off the side of the school. In the mean time all the facilities on campus have also shut down, meaning the fitness center! Just to use the equipment you have to pay 25 Eros and now it's not even open! hahahaha, So I'm giving up, I've resorted to doing squats, lunges, and sit-ups in my room. I thought about putting various pieces of furniture on my back as weight for the squats, but I'm not that desperate yet.

The second bit of news probably takes the cake. Today I went for a run and got lost in the east Jesus of France... and somehow I managed to accidentally join a semi marathon race that was going on. After running for a half an hour I had no idea where I was so I decided I would follow a group of runners that I saw up a head. Normally you never see ANYONE in France run so I assumed it was a race of some sort. No one reprimanded me for running with them so I went with it. I jammed out to my pod, cruised along, and started passing people. Spectators were lined up along the side of the road cheering and half way through there was a feed station... I figured what the hell, I'm running in a race I haven't entered, I might as well take the feed too. I did about 35 min of intense running and then I crossed the line. I had no idea how big the race was until I saw the finish. It was great that I found out where the race ended but then I was like "Oh god, what if they actually check to see if I registered... then I would have to try and explain myself out of the mess in French. But nobody checked me or seemed to notice that I was out of place so I ended up finishing a race I never entered. After I crossed the line they had oranges and water set up for the finishers so I took part in that and then just before I left somebody gave me a bag of sweet gear just for participating. They didn't ask me questions and I didn't ask them questions; I just took the stuff and started running back the way I came. On the way down the mt. I asked one of the officials for directions back to my house. When I got back I opened the bag to see what I got and luckily there was a t-shirt in there to tell me exactly what I had just participated in: Semi-marathon, Bois Guillaume. I laughed all the way back down the mt. and I am still laughing now... weird things like this only happen to me.