Lessons I Learned As A Child - Part 2

Today my school caught on fire.

This morning started off like any other Tuesday morning in France - I was at school at 8am for four hours of French learning.

About an hour into class I was starting to get a little tired. Suddenly, my teacher just stopped talking and started staring at the back of the room. I thought perhaps she had noticed us falling asleep, but then other people started turning around as well.  I turned around, but didn't see anything -- I mean, it wasn't even snowing or foggy -- so I quietly sat in my chair like a good student.

But then my teacher left to find out what was going on and the other students in the room started to sound nervous. So I looked out the window and saw this:

It was a few windows around the corner from us.

Being the good student that I am, though, I continued to wait for my teacher. She had told me to wait while she figured out what was going on, so I waited.

I thought back to being in elementary school and the countless fire drills I had been put through, seemingly for no reason. I know that in a fire you are supposed to leave all of your stuff behind and get out, but I didn't have a lot of stuff. I had to grab my coat, because it was cold outside, plus, it's cute, so it's not like I'm leaving that behind. And while I'm grabbing stuff, it would be silly not to grab my backpack. At this point all that was left was my French notebook, so I might as well take that, too.

Yep, after years of being told to leave everything behind I took the time to individually rationalize all of my possessions.

I'm pretty sure that it was around this time that my teacher returned and told us we should get out of the building (I think -- I was still trying to decide whether or not to grab the French notebook) and then the fire alarm went off.

I'm ashamed to admit how exciting I found the whole thing. My school is on fire and all I can think is, "Wow, I really want a picture with the smoke."

I wasn't the only one.

Eventually my fire drilling practice kicked it and I remembered that I should not be standing in the middle of a courtyard of a building that is on fire, but I ignored it in order to continue watching what was happening.

I also wondered if I should try and find my teacher so she could mark that I had safely made it out of the building and hold up the green card to signify that all of her students were safe, but I couldn't find her.

My friends and I decided to get some pain au chocolat and briochette before returning to school in order to see how the story ended.

There were a lot of ambulances and pompiers. (It was very convenient that we were learning about occupations today.)

An hour later they reopened the school. My school caught on fire and I still had to go back to French class. For another two hours.

...

And as it turns out, it was all just a simulation. The school wasn't really on fire, they just had fake smoke and people pretending to be hurt.

I feel a little cheated, so I'm going to pretend like the fire was real even if it wasn't.