Ohmygosh-theytalkfast.

First day of school today. Oh my gosh. Possibly the most frightening day of my life. There are so many students and the school is confusing and of course- everything's in Turkish. We had two assemblies this morning. I think they may have been on rules and dress codes, but I've no idea. My class is relitively small- I'd say about 20 kids. And they're all 17 and 18. Apparently 11th year Canada and 11th year Turkey don't line up age-wise.

So my first period teacher talked through all but five minutes of class. Then for some reason he started talking to me and I didn't know what he was saying so some girl behind me who the VP introduced me to before school says something and the teacher switches to English and asks me how I expect to learn math if I don't know what he's saying. (My first though in response- this is math class?) I wanted to cry. Then another teacher who I think might have been teaching history or geography called on me to answer a question, which of course I did not know the answer to. I said "Türkçe bilmiyorum" which means I don't know Turkish. She repeats it and says something else and the class laughs and then she asks me some sentence with a word that sounds like Rotary in it and so I nod. Then she continues to speak in Turkish and people are saying stuff and laughing and although they probably weren't laughing at me, I wanted to cry again.

Lunch was okay. After the history teacher apparently told the class that I was an exchange student (thank goodness) people introduced themselves and one girl took me down to the caffeteria where I ate some rice and potatoes and bread and meat of some sort and some pudding-like substance for dessert. There was another class after lunch in which I had no idea what was being said and then I had English! And the teacher was very nice and when she found out I was from Canada and that my first language is English she asked me a whole bunch of questions and afterwards told me that I could ask her anything and that I was very brave to be on exchange. She also told me the name of one of the other English teachers at the school who apparently moved to Turkey from Canada about 10 years ago.

Because today was the first day we got out early, which made this my last class of the day, so the teacher also had another student help me find my bus. I am the last stop on the bus route, apparently, and obviously I made it home. The bell at my school is Für Elise, which is kind of interesting, but it makes me miss my piano. So that was my scary first day at school.

-Maeghan