First Day of School

Today was my first day of Turkish school! Going into today was very scary for me, and I was worried about not being able to communicate or getting lost, probably the same things the average person would be worried about.  On the bright side, I had no problem communicating and I didn't get lost.  My host dad and I went into school at 10am, which was 2 hours after school started, I'm not quite sure why I was allowed to go in later, but I wasn't going to complain.  After I got to school we found one of the English teachers who gave me a tour of the school and my host dad left.  The structure of the school itself wasn't very complicated, especially because all of my classes are in the same room, so I only need to know where the one classroom, the cafeteria and bathrooms are.  I then went into class at the beginning of either third or fourth period (I don't know the class schedule yet) and had an English grammar class. There are only four other students in my class, so the whole period the teacher just talked with me, asking me questions about America and then the other students told me about Turkey.  After that we had a Turkish literature lesson, which wasn't necessarily boring, but I just sat there the whole time listening to the other students read and the teacher talk about Turkish literature.  One of the girls in the class knows English really well, so she tried to explain some of the things the teacher was saying.  After that we went to lunch.  I think all of the students in the high school portion of the school went to lunch at the same time, but we quickly ate our food then had free time for the rest of the period.  One of the students who knows English really well and I walked around the school then hung out in the classroom during the free period. Later, we had a German lesson, and the teacher just drew pictures on the board and gave us the words for them.  I was really glad there were pictures and I didn't have to understand the translations, some of the pictures she even wrote the Turkish word as well so I could learn both.  After German we had two more periods of English vocabulary, which is nice because it's in English, but I already know all of the vocabulary they are learning so it was really easy.  The school day was finally over at 4:45!   It was a pretty long day, but it went fairly quickly.  Throughout the whole school day the students were looking at me funny in the hallway because they all knew there was a new American girl at school. I felt very on display, it was a little bit uncomfortable, but I know this will all stop pretty quickly.  It was a pretty easy day, but I am now home and resisting the urge to take a nice long nap because I am exhausted and I have a cold.  I hope I have another good day tomorrow!