yesterday marked the fifth day of country-wide protests over the CPE, talk about indomitable spirit... sorta participated for a short 15 mins as an onlooker on the 3rd day of protests abt 3-4 weeks ago; and i tot it was quite fun and happening at first, since the people had balloons and colourful hats. they had their faces painted, and with music playing and them marching along while singing a catchy chant, it could almost pass off as a carnival. things, however, turned ugly that nite, with cars overturned and set on fire, and clashes with the police force. i guess i could never understand why the french feel so strongly about this new employment contract, nor wld i ever grasp the significance of going on strike. nonetheless, its a shame that the fifth biggest economy in the world has lost imagination to instill hope in its youth. this new bill, the CPE, has triggered social unrest thru'out the country. this law allows employers to fire young workers (people under 26) anytime within two years without having to state a reason, and its all in a bid to lower the umemployment rate of youths which currently stands at 23%. without going into lengthy detail of both sides of the argument, suffice to say that the earlier the general assembly reaches an agreement with the unions, the better. however, one stark fact stands out: the mindset of the french, and particularly the youths, needs to be radically changed in order for reforms to be easily made by the govt. in all a herculean task lies ahead esp in e face of tough competition from rising economies like tt of china and india...
more grouses about philo. its just like a mental cold shower. all the blood seems to stop flowing to my brain and it goes on screen-saver mode. thankfully spring break is up next week, which signals a gd time to take a breather and chill out on novels, movies and gg out. and yea, thank god my elect paper wasnt such a fiasco afterall, phew..
e london ppl came over last week to visit, and they were 'timely enough' to get affected by the strike haha. a grp cld only see the castles of versailles from the outside as they were closed that day, and another had their transfer train to another city canceled (which indirectly led to fortunate me having to walk 45 mins at 1am in e morn to go pick them up at the station, before trudging back for slightly more than an hr, in all sleeping at 4 am and not having my revision done for e mecanics test e next day, not tt i really cared tho lol). but i do hope that they enjoyed themselves immensely, since they ate very very well when they were here, went to disneyland, did some shopping, and managed to cover most of the essential touristy sites. on my part, i burned a large hole in entertaining them, and picked up a man jiang hong as well, but i think its worth it since i had lotsa lotsa fun hehe..
haiz, its late, ought to hit the books now, or should i hit the sack instead?
Raunchy!!! I like!! haha :)
