Possibly a curve ball...

Last tuesday, I was in my literature class, attempting to take an exam which required me to analyze 6 pages in 2 and 1/2 hours while composing a decent 5 page essay. Handwritten essay, because french kids don't type their homework. They also don't write on lined paper, but on essentially graph paper. They all have pencil cases. Anyway, I had just about finished my introduction which meant I actually had to deal with the fact of writing a paper in french without handy wordreference.com. But then they started barricading the doors.
The french kids went on strike. There's no union. It's just that they're unhappy with Sarkozy and a new law interferring with the "autonomy" of the universities, which no one really understands. And they're french. So we're striking. About 2,000 kids stood in the courtyard and voted, while I was attempting to write my paper. Even though it was a little bit undemocratic, enough kids wanted to stop classes that everyone just went with it. The administration does what the kids want. Maybe that's what they mean by autonomy of the universities. From where I was sitting in my classroom, I could see kids starting to pile tables and chairs in front of one set of doors. Everyone could hear the people running through the hallway. Our professor tried to make us just keep writing, but finally she went into the hallway and realized what was going on. She told us just to take our stuff and go, and finish the papers at home for class next week. I had no idea what was waiting for us in the hallway, and I was picturing something very scary and intense. It was actually the most polite forced-exit and barricading of a building I've even seen, anyway, and they let anyone out who wanted to go (as long as you could find the 2 doors that were still open) before they fully sealed off the building. My friend's professor told them they could always climb out the windows...
They originally voted to suspend classes from Tuesday until Friday, and they voted yesterday to continue the strike at least through this up-coming Tuesday. Which again means no essay for me. And also no linguistics exam, but Callie saw our linguistics professor voting for the strike so I don't think he's too upset. The train workers seem to be ending their strike, hopefully just in time so that I can get to Paris to see Mary next weekend and then to Poitiers to celebrate a real American Thanksgiving with Caroline. But now it seems the students are getting more determined. We can barely believe that there's only 5 weeks left in this semester (although we've been debating it and it's possibly only 4 weeks because November only has 30 days...it made sense to me). But if the strikes continue, it will change this last month a little bit. I'm not sure how we're going to cram everything in or if they'll just change the exams.
Still don't know if I'm coming home for Christmas. I feel like that should be decided soon. I really want to go to Sweden in December, but I'm thinking I should be more concerned about having enough money to get to Paris to fly home. If I'm coming home. Which is, again, yet to be determined.
I'm also stressing about getting all the paperwork filled out for essentially my residency permit since I'm staying here longer than 6 months. People keep telling me that I won't get deported, but who knows. Can I request deportation to somewhere warmer? They have started decorating for Christmas here. That's weird. I guess since they don't have Thanksgiving to break up the fall, there's no reason not to start thinking about Christmas already. One day soon, I will take my camera out and actually show you this city. I promise.