My first 2 days in my American High School

Prior to my first day of school in the United States of America, I had an orientation during which I got the opportunity to see the campus in its entirety, to meet the teachers and also my counselor, who helped me choosing my classes and told me she was available to even change them later on if I had problems. My school was not that big and I knew I was not going to have difficulties getting from one class to another.

The Very First Day.

I turned off my alarm at 6. 50 in the morning, had breakfast and then headed to school where I had to be at 7. 35 am. The day started off with a brief assembly in the big gym where students sang the motto of the school and showed some school spirit. Right after the assembly, my first class of the year was Gender Roles and the teacher was one of the ones I liked best (but unfortunately a few months later he passed away). I liked the way he connected with students and would joke during his classes without being too serious. We started to talk about gender and he said something like "When it comes to filling up documents we usually find two sex little boxes we can mark, one is M and stands for male and one if F which stands for female, there should be a third one and that is When Possible", lol. Right after this class, I had advising which is a period of thirty minutes where students can talk to their advisor of their problems or can get any kind of help. I then had a free block in my schedule which is basically the absence of classes: I could do whatever I wanted to, go home or stay in the library. As it was my first day of school I did not want to go home already and then come back to school after lunch, so I stayed. I needed to go to the library but I cleverly asked a girl for help even though I did not need it. I thought it was a good way of getting to know people, and besides everyone seemed very nice and ready to help.

In the library I met another exchange student, he was from Cambodia, and we ended up having lunch together, and my American brother offered me lunch. It was time to go back to school (I was having lunch in the Deli in front of the campus) and have my American History class. When the teacher asked me to introduce myself I told everyone that I came from Milan, Italy and the teacher replied "Did you hear that, guys? He is from Milan and is now stuck here. I am sorry. " No one failed to make me laugh so far.

My last class of the day was American Government, and here everyone had to stand up one by one and say something they were afraid of or were disgusted by. I cannot really remember what I said, but I nailed it because the end of class came and I had to go home and change for tennis.

My Second Day in an American High school.

The second day instead of having advising everyone had to go to the middle school gym for an assembly. There was a game called "The Dating Game". There were three guys and a freshman girl. The girl had to choose, according to the given answers, a guy to dance with. I could see that she was embarrassed but whatever, it happened ahah. Right after this funny opening, I had Senior Math. I could not really understand my teacher, his voice was weird and he also spoke very quickly. He also made a joke about sex, I do not understand if it is something normal in that school, but he started imitating seventeen years old guys when they see a pretty girl. Right after lunch, which I had at a gas station instead of the Deli, I had Casablanca which was a fun class where we had to shoot videos. The first project we were assigned to do was a 30 seconds video without words or sounds. We had to show that we could communicate something without making any noise, basically. My last class of the day was Study of Cultures, which was interesting. It was the class that showed a little bit of open mind. To break the ice we had to "play" a little game. The teacher gave us a piece of paper titled "Find someone who" and then a list of things. I had to walk around in the class asking my classmates if they were the ones who could match the question. For example, if the first sentence was something like "Find someone who has a dog" I had to find the person who in the room had a dog. After school, I ran home, changed and then went to tennis practice, again.

When I came back home I had people already over for my "Welcome Party", they were preparing the food and were hanging out in the garage. I ran to take a shower, changed and then came upstairs so that my American parents could introduce me to everyone. The dinner was Southern Cajun Boil: potatoes, sausages, shrimps etc. It was cool because everything was thrown on the table which was covered with newspapers, a new thing to me.

I really enjoyed my first two days of school, basically my first week in the USA. And do you know what the weird thing is? I left Italy to go to America exactly three years ago today. I cannot believe that.

- Cristian, from Italy to Colorado.

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