bah ouais, bien sûr!

so i don't remember if i've mentioned this before, but i'd be willing to guess that approximately 40% of my classes are canceled for one reason or another, any given week. be it strike, sickness, or other unforeseen reasons, i end up not working, and wasting more time either attempting to find interesting things to talk about with my students, or more often than not, facebook-stalking my friends at home while i wait for my other classes to actually take place. this week (keep in mind i've only had two days of work, a total of nine classes), two of my classes have been canceled already. one of which, was at least a legitimate cancellation (i.e. my teacher was at home, sick, and she wrote me an e-mail). who knows what tomorrow will bring. more often than not, these said cancellations are not accompanied by a note or an explanation, and i am not the only one who's left in the dark. the students wait around in the hall until they decide amongst themselves that a prof won't actually show, and then decide to leave. a few days ago, i had a class (my first class at 9am), in which the teacher decided not to show up. there was no note in my 'pigeon hole' as they call our mailboxes, nor an e-mail or even a phone call, reminding me of this change in schedule. normally, i'll at least get some lame explanation, after the fact, of how they attempted to leave me a note (which for some reason, i never receive). the other day, however, when the teacher didn't arrive on time, or within the first ten minutes of class, i took it upon myself to try to unlock the classroom with one of my six keys (also, i have no idea which keys open which doors in the building, but that's another story, which i may or may not get to later). i turned on the lights & got settled and invited the students to join me. they at first looked puzzled, followed by fright, then concluded with a 'hell no'. i had six students who stayed with me; the others, seeing that our prof was not going to show at this point, and that i was going to hold class anyway, knew that they had no obligation to be present, so they quickly made themselves absent. i continued with the students who were present with an ever-so-exciting game of christmas taboo (where one tries to describe a word on a card without mentioning the common describing words given, and without gestures and les mots français). i ran into this absent teacher, a couple hours later in the teachers lounge, during which no explanation was given regarding her whereabouts. when another prof asked me how my classes were going later that day, and i replied with an explanation of 'decent, but i only had one, the other was canceled'... she tried to tell me that i must 'prevenir'... basically telling me that i have to possess fortune-telling powers in order to read the minds of my profs who feel like canceling their courses. also, this meant putting the blame on no one but myself, since i was unable to see clearly into the future. i mean, bien sûr, of course it's my fault i can't read palms or crystal balls... what the hell was i thinking?!