First Day of School

Excited.

That is the only word I would use to describe the way I was feeling on that first day of school. Not nervous or scared. That’s not me. I don’t do nervous and I am not scared for new things.

We had to be at Village Inn for breakfast 5.30 am, a tradition the Doran family has had since forever. I do have my questions by that tradition. For example: who on earth enjoys getting up that early?! No worries, I absolutely love the Doran family!

We met up with Lexa, who is my host mom’s granddaughter, and Emma, who has been Lexa’s friend for years and also goes to Kickapoo high school! Such a lovely girl. I am glad I got to meet her because now I already knew two students of the nineteen-hundred that go to Kickapoo.

Because our food was served very late, Lexa, Emma and I had to eat extremely quick and for me, being an extremely slow eater compared to the others, had a hard time doing that!

I drove with Emma to school with Lexa behind us in her car. When we got out, the first thing I noticed were bagpacks: they were everywhere! And lunch-boxes, again: everywhere! And purses, on the girls: everywhere! And here I was standing with my leather shoulder-bag, no special lunchbox and my personal belongings just in my bag with all of my other stuff. I was different. O Lord...

Although I was given a tour of the school when I signed up for my classes, I was completely lost. Thankfully Lexa and Emma walked me to my first class: Creative Writing. The teacher of the class is mrs. Fraser, a cute little blond woman who is obviously very creative. I was the first at the table but soon enough a boy and a girl came to sit with me: Trevor and Shay.  I am absolutely sure I am going to love this class! Mrs. Fraser just lets us do our own thing but with her assigned directions. She is so supportive of us and keeps telling us we’re all doing so well. (of course I didn’t know this at the first day but I do know and I felt like it needed to be said)

For those of you who haven't seen Twilight: Bella is the newbie of the school and walks around using a map to find the rest of her classes, looking like an extreme loser. Yes, the loser using the map, that was me in the process of trying to find my next class.

This school is freaking huge so please forgive me but after walking all over the second floor, I finally found it: Math Functions with miss Nance. The class was so extremely loud, I was just hoping it would not be like that the entire time. Nobody talked to me, nobody looked at me and I felt like shit. It is weird that being ignored, intentionally or not can hurt you so much within minutes. Luckily, Miss Nance is very nice and I am sure it will be a lovely having her as my teacher although it will be very hard as all the different terms are so confusing .

This time I actually got so lost in the school that I had to ask a teacher to please show me where my classroom was. Because I was so confused I walked up to the first person I saw in the room and asked him: ‘Excuse me, is this Journalism 1?’ The boy had a very bored expression on his face when he answered me: ‘Yeah..’ Me, still trying to stay optimistic and friendly: ‘Okay, so what do I do? Just take a seat wherever?’ and the boy, named Mason as I read from his ID badge, looked at me like I was retarded when he said: ‘Yeah, like it says on the board...’ bitch... I could just hear him thinking the word but he didn’t say it out loud. Great...

I just took a seat at his table and there was another boy there. Zayn Malik 2.0. Seriously he looks like Zayn (from One Direction) did at the age of sixteen. But his name was Aymen, would have been cool if he had the same name. He just laughed with Mason and then went quiet. Their reaction made me feel insecure, what have I done to make them act that way? I expected the two guys to be open and nice, not act like I was some stupid *c-word* who was too stupid to be in their presence. I am not stupid, actually far from actually...

The teacher went to stand in front of the classroom and the first words she said were: ‘Welcome to Journalism 1 everybody, I am very happy to see you. This will be the best class you have ever had. Why? Because I am the one teaching it.’ Miss Orman, everybody! Honestly, I was blown away by her. Amazing. She was beautiful and definitely knew how to keep the attention to herself. She was so sure of what she was doing, I loved it. And I hoped she had the right to be.

When it was time to go to lunch, it took all my courage to ask the two guys who had just been so unwelcoming to help me. ‘Hey guys, can I ask you something? I was wondering if you could help me with lunch? I don’t know anyone and I don’t know how it all works.’ I honestly said to them. Even though they knew by that time I was a foreign exchange student, as it was announced in class, Aymen just looked at me but didn’t say anything and it was Mason who answered me: ‘Yeah... Probably... You might want to find some girls to eat lunch with though.’ and then they both walked away. Once again I was blown away, but this time not in a good way. How unwelcoming can you be?!

I know you all are probably wondering why on earth I asked those two to help me and the answer is simple: I literally don’t know anyone and they are the only people who had said something to me in that class, although it was a bit rude.

I was not planning on giving up that easily and I just followed Rude and Ruder (I thought that fit them better than Tweedledum and Tweedledee as they are rather good looking boys) to the cafeteria and when they split up I decided to walk after Aymen to ask him what I was supposed to do. He reacted very kindly, walked me to where I needed be and then after a short explanation on what I needed to do he disappeared again. I was surprised about how nice he was to me in that brief moment that I needed him and I appreciated it so much.

Back in class there was more that needed to be explained and what not before the bell rang again and it was time for my fourth and last class of the day. We have classes of 90 minutes, that is why we only have four on a day.

Interior Design, a class my mommy definitely would have chosen if she had had the opportunity. She would have chosen Creative Writing and Journalism 1 too but I needed a new introduction to this class....

There already were a few other students in the room and I just took a seat at an empty table. Then a girl with long brown hair turned around and said to me: ‘Hey you are the exchange student, right? You are in my first block class? Do you want to come sit with us?’ It was like the sun broke through the clouds and angles were singing to me. Yes! Yes, I wanted to come sit with her!

It was the nicest thing anyone had said to me the entire day. I grabbed my stuff and moved it all to her table. I thanked her for inviting me and introduced myself. Her name was Allison, a pretty name for a very pretty and very nice girl! I can honestly say I will never forget that she was the one who invited me to sit with her. It might sound like I am being melodramatic but after feeling so unwelcome, so ignored and feeling like your dream fall apart it really was the most amazing thing that could have happened to me at the time.

A few minutes later the other girl came and also introduced herself to me: Erin. She was so so nice and boy, she is extremely pretty! Just like Allison she was very welcoming and to be fair she really made me laugh.

Mrs. Cox, our teacher (duh) just told us a bit about her background (nothing too exciting), and also she told is she just got married in the summer and is pregnant (very much exciting)! Congrats!

Not the way I expected my high school career to start off but oh well.

Quite the first day, I believe so.

What do you all think of my school and the students?

Much love,

Naomi