Sunday, September 14, Day 3, Entry 1

My excitement had been gathering up through the weekend exploring the many new things America had to offer, so I couldn’t wait to get to my first school day here.

Stepping into the school I felt like I was part of an American high school movie. My host brother Alex had ASC (Academic Skills Center) during first period, so he could do his homework instead of attending classes. Alex had already finished everything and his teacher allowed him to show us around the school.

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The school was a maze, it felt like we were running around in circles but every time we took a right turn, there was a new hallway. We got to see the auditorium, the changing rooms, the gym which impressed me a lot by the size of it, and many other smaller areas.

Lunch was the next point that impressed me on this first day. Lunch definitely looked exactly like what we think of as the stereotypical American school lunch, but the taste wasn’t that bad, actually.

After lunch, we probably had my favorite class of the day, which was cooking class. We had the chance to cook and taste some delicious cookies and the teacher was also really nice to us.

On the way home everything still felt surreal as if that whole day had just been a dream.

Entry 2

Today was the day we finally got to go to Wakefield Memorial High School. The students have to be at school half an hour earlier than we do. When we entered the building, I felt like I was in an American high school movie in the 2000s. The lockers, the hallways, the classrooms, everything. First block was math, and my friend and I, for the first time in our life felt smart during a math class as we already knew the subject quite well. 

 

Next was Spanish and the teacher called her students nuggets, which I thought was funny. The students were playing games  and did some exercises. The teacher had a different Spanish accent from what we're used to. We had a really good time in that class. The rest of the school day went smoothly. Lunch was definitely different from what we buy at our cafeteria. The teachers were very nice, welcoming, interested in us, the Swiss visitors, and understanding. We could tell that some students needed extra support and we got the feeling that that was provided.

After school we played games and I really liked them because they were quite creative. These „ice breakers“ worked well. 

After school, we got picked up by our host mom, who took us directly to McDonald's. Their sizes were very big. The bag of French fries was almost the size of my head.

Later that day, we went on a walk to 7/11 and on the way back, we saw some of our friends at the soccer field, watching their hosts play. We joined them and I enjoyed it, specifically because it was unplanned. I had an amazing day at Wakefield Memorial High School. It was very interesting to see the differences between the American and the Swiss school system.