My First Day of School

Oh la la...

I've heard horror stories about the first day of school on exchange. I've heard people say they couldn't ask for help or find their way or they simply just walked around and pretended like they had somewhere to be...But everyone's first day is different.

First of all, everyone looked ridiculously attractive. The girls looked straight out of a magazine and the boys looked like the lads from One Direction. It makes me think that American high school must look straight out a movie because this was like nothing I've ever seen before. All of the girls were very well put together and dressed very nicely and the boys had nice shoes and tops and were very clean-cut. Makes all the jockey boys at Tigard look like animals, if I'm blunt.

Today wasn't a complete disaster. School didn't start until 10:00 and it wasn't even really a school day because I didn't have class. It was more of an orientation. I was there for two hours and it was the most terrifying and confusing two hours I've ever experienced.

First, I looked for my name on a list which tells you which class you're in; science, literature, or economics. I was supposed to be placed in literature but when we looked at my name I was placed in economics. That wasn't a problem until I received my schedule...but I will discuss that later.

Everyone was waiting in the sort of atrium-like room and a professor (whom I'm almost positive is the school principal) called everyone's attention and we split up into our class groups. My host brother is in the science class so before we split, he explained to my teacher (who is somewhat like a homeroom teacher) that I'm an exchange student.

The teacher led us into her classroom and explained to us that she is our French teacher. She then went on to explain other things which I didn't understand. She went through the students one-by-one like roll call and confirmed their schedules. Of course, my name was called first, and I had no idea why she said my name so I replied with "oui" and she read off my classes. I confirmed them because I didn't exactly know what was going on and she continued this with the rest of the class. It wasn't until later I realised that something was wrong with my schedule but it was too late at that point.
Then she handed out a bunch of stuff: our class schedules, a username/password for what I assume is our online grades, a card which I think is for lunch, and a couple other pamphlets that I can't identify. Basically this entire day was me shaking with fear that she was going to call my name and ask me a question. I even took notes when everyone else was even though I had no idea what I was writing down and I'm not even sure what they were about.

After this was all over, we went into an auditorium like room and the principal spoke to all of the students. Again, I had no idea what he was saying or what was going on, but I think he was talking about how all of their classes applied to university and graduation, which don't apply to me anyway because I'm not graduating from that school.

At this point I was accompanied by another girl who I asked a question to before the presentation started. When the principal was done talking, we walked outside and were trying to figure out if the day was over or if it was lunch time because it was only 12:00. We waited around for our brothers for a little while and then asked another student what the heck was going on. He told us it was time to go home so we walked back to the exit. She asked me if I was taking the Tramway home, but I said no because I was only a short walk away. She said goodbye and I walked home alone with my music.

I got home and showed my schedule to my host sisters and they told me there must have been a mistake because I currently have four language classes; English, Spanish, French, and Italian. Even normal students are only supposed to have three. I also have more classes than my host brother. My schedule is too difficult for me right now and I'm really hoping we're able to change it because it's making me nervous that I have too many classes that are most likely too hard because they're in FRENCH.

*Sigh*. Hopefully tomorrow will be better with a better schedule and more confidence and maybe I'll try to make a couple friends. But for now, I'm just glad I got the first day out of the way.

I'll make a post tomorrow about the REAL first day. Maybe by then I'll be over the embaressment that was today.

A bientot!

~Effy