First Day of School

  Beijing, China
Monday, April 2, 2007

Today was our first day of school.
I was so nervous; what would they think of me?, would I be alone?, would I understand anything? We arrived quite early with Rebecca in tow. We were expected, the guards let us in straight away and let us in his secruity office while we waited for the principal, out of the cold The principla led us to a conference room where we were met by a teacher. We got books handed toward us, a gift from the school. The class was very welcoming, as Laura and I walked in, we were greeted with applause.
We were very popular, with the students eager to try out their English skills. The classes were structured quite differently to Australia; you ahd to stand up when you spoke, you only spoke when spoken to and there were 42 students in one class. In between each class, my desk became crowded with everybody running over, pulling my arms and body each way. "Come with me!" ,they would shout. At lunchtime we left for the pearl market. There wasn't much time for shopping, just eating. We then got in taxis and went straigh to back to school after having lunch and a quick shop. It suprising how quickly 2 hours goes. We were a few minutes late back and the class was in science. After being ushered into the science lab, we were again greeted with applause. The classmates were so nice, offering to buy me gifts and helping me do the right thing in assembly. There was one time where we went outside and did aerobics. The whole school did it together in unison and I copied, trying not to look to obviously wrong. After, there was an hour and a half of homework time, an unsupervised time of doing homework. That concluded the day. Dad, Nan and Pa were waiting in the security office. We got two taxis, went home, went out for dinner and went to bed