First week of school

My new school

I really enjoyed having 4 and a half months between my American High School graduation and the first day of school – I think that’s the longest I’ve went without being in school since before pre-school.

Since I’m on exchange with Rotary, it’s technically a “high school” exchange even though I’m doing it as a gap year. This means I’ll be spending the rest of the year at a high school, getting to have a second senior year. (Luckily, grades don’t matter since I’ve already graduated, but I’ll still study while I’m here.) It’s crazy for me to be going to high school in a third country, after spending 3 years in the US, 1 year in Denmark, and now a year in Turkey. I’m attending a private school called “Hisar Okullari” which actually is an Elementary School, Middle School, and a High school combined. The students of the elementary and middle school have to wear uniforms, but luckily I don’t have to.

To be honest, my first two days of school were a bit shocking to me.  The school was Hogwarts and I was Harry Potter, the chosen one! Under the invisibility cloak. Seriously, it was like my class couldn’t see me. Aside from the friends I already had made before school, basically nobody talked to me, looked at me, or acknowledged my existence. I was really caught off guard because Turkish people are usually extremely friendly people, and I expected people to at least ask my name or say hello. My exchange friends reassured me that this was normal and that it would get better with time. Luckily, since then it has gotten 10000x better, and now I’m making friends with some really great people in my class and grade! I now understand that these people have went to school with each other for 10 or more years, so it’s natural that they wouldn’t let me in right away. I really think this is going to be a great school year and I think there’s a potential for me to make some life-long friends.

As for my courses, I’m in the Turkish-Math track, which means I have a lot of math classes and Turkish literature. Half of my classes are in Turkish and the other half are in English (since many students plan on going to University in an English speaking country). In the classes I don’t understand, I spend time studying Turkish.  We have a different schedule for each weekday, consisting of 4-5 classes. I even get to go home early on Wednesdays and Fridays! For my electives I’m taking drawing and music (we’re learning Bohemian Rhapsody!) They also scheduled 70 minutes into my Tuesday schedule for me to just play piano in a practice room, which is wonderful since I don’t have a piano at home. I really like my schedule (apart from sports class of course) and I think it is a perfect fit for me!

I would have taken a picture before I ate half of it but I was hungry

Also school lunch is delicious…we get döner and other great turkish foods in the cafeteria. We even get ice cream sandwiches on Thursdays – Michelle Obama may not approve, but I certainly do!

I also tried out for the school musical, The Sound of Music and they want to give me the part of Rolf (!!) so I’ll have to see if it fits into my schedule.

Anyways, that’s my update on my first week of school. I’m really excited for everything coming up this year and I’ll make sure to keep updating my blog.

-Cameron