First Day of High School

Can you imagine? Ziyi was nervous AND Jason and I were nervous! In China, she gets to school at 7:30 am, goes home for lunch and then comes back to school until 10 pm. The 50 kids in her class stay in the same room and same seat all day long. Switching classes in a school with 2,000 kids is like finding your way out of an Amazon rainforest. She also has to contend with a locker and lock for the first time in her life and those things never work when your nervous. They break classes into A and B days so she has four classes a day. Today will be German, Algebra, Astronomy and Anatomy.

The excitement continued after school. She didn't know how to get home from the school bus so I told her I would meet her there. The website said it arrived at 4:45, but at 4:30 I saw it cruising down the street! The stop is WAY down from our house so I ran pell-mell to catch it. It had already dropped off about 8 kids when I got there. None of them were Ziyi. Chaos ensued, but I eventually got a call that Ziyi didn't even make it on the bus -- whoops! I jumped in the car and found her with her new friend who immigrated from China three years ago. She was out there introducing Ziyi to the other Chinese people she knew who walked by. She already got this girl's info and was invited to the Chinese club that meets tomorrow! I guess it would be good to find friends outside this safe group, but I'm just happy she made a connection with somebody on her first day of school.

As for the classes, they stunk. Algebra was too easy, astronomy was just awful and the worst of all was Anatomy. She said she felt like an alien and just sat there not understanding anything the teacher said for an hour and a half. She is not on the science and maths track in high school so it is ridiculous for her to take those classes this year. I wish I would have stood up for her more, but as far as I could tell the counselor who was setting up her classes assumed all Chinese exchange students were interested in those two subjects. Tomorrow is the last day to change classes so we will be there bright and early to make some changes!