Just fyi,
Today all throughout France lycéens (high school students) took the streets in protests against the proposal to raise the retirement age to 67. There was one at my school, too, one that would make UC Berkeley very proud...
On another note, I went to a capoeira class tonight. God, it is incredible how just being back in that environment can bring such a sense of calm and relief so quickly. It felt wonderful to be back in my element...although I miss my Boston roda and the class wasn't super dynamic. One of my students was there, though, kinda cool.
The capoeira class was located as most capoeira schools are: in a run-down building, far from the town center. It was a bit of an adventure to find it, as the building is not labeled and is not in the best part of Brive. I remember telling some of my students I was going there to take capoeira classes and they were dismissive because it wasn't a good neighborhood supposedly. It's fine, really. It's just less wealthy than the areas my students probably come from. There were several HLMs (low-income housing units) around it and everything just looked more run-down. We practiced inside of what looked like a school gym. But hey, that's life, and when capoeira is done right, it doesn't matter where you are. After all, capoeira was born on plantations and transferred to the streets...it wouldn't be quite right to practice in a fancy space.
Anyway, Brive is lovely, my readers.
