Chapter 1 – first day of school
"Oh my goodness, this is actually happening. After months of waiting, hours of agonizing packing, worrying, fits of joy, and more waiting, it is finally happening. I'm leaving for Europe. I AM LEAVING FOR EUROPE!"
Or at least that's what I will say when I finally do leave for Europe. But as of right now there is still two whole weeks left and I think I'm going out of my mind.
This all started last year: grade 9 at Jacob Hespler Secondary School. I've gone to a Christian elementary school my whole life. It was horribly different from a public school. For one, the collective population of the school at the time was a little over 250. At the school I'd not really had a best friend, just a lot of acquaintances. Anyway I was convinced to be "cool" in high school. Sadly in hindsight I may have tried to hard. I took music, all the compulsories, and some other electives. I'd been playing piano since I was in grade one or two so I figured music would be a cinch. On Monday night I laid out the clothes I would be wearing the next day taking care to pick out the very best of my new clothes. Tuesday morning I made my mom drop me off a good half hour earlier than I needed to be there. As I entered through the front doors I was suddenly overcome with excitement followed very quickly by confusion and worry. Some genius decided to put the master list with of every kid's last name with a dotted line leading to the room number of your first class directly in front of the doors. I guess it was to help out new students like me figure it out without much hassle. They were mistaken. Kids were piled everywhere and being a grade nine and thus the scum of the earth, it took me a good ten minutes to get to see the list that was roughly five feet away. My first class was room number 232. My next instinct was to find some friends and see if they were in my homeroom. After another few minutes I found my small clan milling around the left side of the doors. I learned that apparently room 232 is music and I breathed a sigh of relief. Most unfortunately, none of my friends were in my class. I headed up to the room and waited outside.
Apparently not all grade ten and up think we suck. When I asked if this was the music room, a grade 12 with two or three large instrument cases politely said yes. The teacher came to open the door and he dropped off his instruments. Apparently you can take instruments for the summer for extra practice and the like. The class filed in and sat down and the teacher introduced herself. As per usual with first days, we filled out one of those sheets that "help teachers get to know you". They seem really stalkerish to me but whatever. Afterwards we got a piece of paper listing the rest of our classes for the day, what room number they were in, and who the teacher is. The rest of the day wasn't really all that exciting. It was filled with more panic and confusion when I couldn't find the next room, followed by relief when I inevitably did, and more frustration when I filled out not one, not two, but three more of the sheets. By the end of the day I knew very well my name (first and last), hobbies, place of work, parent's names, parent's contact numbers, address, home phone, cell number, my goals for the class and class expectations.
Being the incredibly sheltered kid I am I had never ridden a bus before. Since the school was about 8 minutes away by car I couldn't walk. My dad worked till around 4:30 and my mom around 7. Since school ends at 3:30 waiting for a ride was out of the question. Most conveniently, the school buses didn't go anywhere near my house. How excellent. I now had to ride the bus alone with nothing to go on but a few printed papers my dad had gotten the night before on the Cambridge, Ontario bus routes, and 2.25 for fare. I step outside and see two bus stops in front of the school. One was on this side of the street one on the other. But just to make it better several buses stopped at the one stop. I successfully locate the number 53 on both bus stops. Now what? I decide to stay at the one on this side of the street because more kids were waiting at it. Big mistake.
Ten minutes later I'm sitting on the 53 and realize it's going the opposite way that I need to go. I freak out for a good ten minutes but only in my head because I didn't need the whole bus thinking I was a wierdy on top of being lost. I hesitate to call a parent knowing they'd go all "I told you so!" on me, so I just wait. Thankfully a full half hour later the bus gets to a terminal where I get onto the right bus home. I get home and nonchalantly call my dad. "Hey, I'm home."
"That's good, how was it?"
"Oh, uhm, it was fine."
"…What does that mean?"
"I kind of got on the wrong bus."
He starts laughing. Thanks dad, incredibly encouraging.