Monday, October 8, 2012

5th October


This is the post about the 5th October, not about today. The reason why I’m late is the fact that is too interesting here and we are doing too many things ;)

Friday the 5th October, was our first day at school with a real schedule so we didn’t only have orientation like we did the day before.
The first period we met again to organize: you know about our scavenger hunt on Thursday from Jelka’s post and we got our “prizes” – four different sorts of Oreo cookies!!



Besides, there was an article in the Charles City newspaper Friday morning about our scavenger hunt, too. A reporter of the newspaper found us in town and he asked us some questions and also took some photos of Jelka, Merle, Falk and me during the scavenger hunt.

-       

The High School in Charles City has a different system in using computers than we have in Walsrode: every student gets their own laptop for school – a MacBook. This sounds unbelievable to us Germans, but it is true :D

After our first homeroom period we all separated to go to our classes we chose in Germany.  My first two classes were American History and Psychology, where we watched a video showing how gossip in schools has changed or even stayed the same since the 50’s. My next class was creative writing and we read texts that some of the American students had written in the last time.
Lunch periods in America are only 25 minutes long, that means you have only 25 minutes to get your meal (4 to 5 minutes), find a place to sit (1 minute), eat, bring back your lunch tray (2 minutes) and run (!!!) back to your class. So there are only 16 minutes to eat your lunch. That is very different than in Germany because even if we sometimes have to wait a bit longer to get our lunch meal there is at least 40 minutes left to eat. So we had to hurry a lot on Friday…
Another difference is the fact, that everybody is scared to be late in class. Everybody knows the hallway of our school in Walsrode after the ring – there are still some pupils left in it after the ring and most of them are not hurrying too much…
Because I had some problems with my locker on Friday, I was still trying to open it when it was ringing. Fortunately I was able to open it in that moment, I threw my bag in it, closed my locker, went around and – nobody was left, I was nearly alone in the hallway. Fortunately my locker is very close to my classroom, so I wasn’t really late…
Later in the day I also had German class and we started our German class with asking each other questions about our countries. It was fun to hear that the American students thought that it is typical for us Germans to wear skinny jeans and scarfs... :)

In the evening we went to the bowling alley with 12 Americans and Germans :)


1 comment:

  1. Cassie W:
    I found it interesting that the Germans weren't used to eating lunch so quick. It has been the norm for us since we started school. It is true. We are scared to be late to class because we don't want to get marked as tardy. Unfortunately, a lot of people struggle with their lockers and are usually late to class, I've done it quite a few times myself. It seems like hurrying is something we are mastering.
    German won't be the same without you Luise!

    ReplyDelete