First Day of School

Today was my first day of school. It was... Well, I hate to use one word to sum up a whole day, but 'awful' is the one that's coming to mind. To be fair, it didn't start out well, and it didn't get much better from there.

I had decided that, in an effort to stay in shape while I'm here, I would bike to school every day, unless the weather was bad. Needless to say, today, the weather was bad. 

Last night, I'd tried to go bed early, since school starts earlier here and it would take me a lot longer to get there. At ten thirty, I shut out my light and went to sleep. At midnight, I woke up to flashes of lightning lighting up the sky outside my window and peals of thunder that shook the house. Resigning myself to the fact that I wasn't likely to be able to sleep until the storm passed, or at least settled down, I got up. I read some and stood out on the balcony outside my bedroom and watched the storm. It was 2:30 am before I got back to sleep.

When I woke up again at 6:30 am, it was still raining. Anya drove me to school. Since I had budgeted enough time to bike there, I was a half hour early, and, since I didn't speak the language, or know anyone else, I was not only bored but feeling very anxious. I couldn't decide if breakfast had been a good idea or a bad idea since I was feeling sick to my stomach as well. On top of that, I had no idea where my first class was.

I did find my first class, after being pointed in the right direction by a friendly classmate and when I got there, I was beckoned to sit next to a girl and her friends. I didn't know them but was glad to see friendly faces. Not that anyone was unfriendly per say, but I did attract quite a few stares. It didn't help that, having a short supply of clean clothing at the moment, I'd gone to school in a dress and quickly realized that Hungarian school is a strictly jeans affair.

A few people there spoke English, namely my teachers, but I found myself with very little to do and so I read most of the day. I didn't like appearing anti-social, but I wasn't sure what else to do. Before class had started, I already wanted to go home.

Not home home. Just back to my house. The girls I was sitting next to in class were nice and showed me how to get lunch at the end of the day but no matter how nice to me they were, and how helpful people tried to be, I felt very awkward and shy.

Oh yeah, and did I mention, their school day works entirely differently from anything I have ever seen before in my life. I'm supposed to be creating my own schedule based on the schedules of about five different classes but considering a large part of me doesn't want to go back to school, I'm having some trouble.

Ugh. And everything was going so well.

I've looked up culture shock online. I'd say I'm entering phase 2 and leaving the honeymoon phase. This phase wasn't supposed to come on for at least another month and who knows how long it will last.

I don't know what I'm doing and I don't think I've ever felt more alone. I'll keep pushing through, like I always do and I'll make sure to ask some more questions tomorrow. Things have suddenly gotten very difficult, though and I keep getting headaches because of it.  I don't like it. I don't like it one bit.

Moira