In Which M. Brochu Parle Longtemps (Orientation Day)

I woke up today at 8:30 in the morning, because we have orientation å l’école! Waking up was surprisingly easy, and I didn’t even feel tired most of the day. (I consider this a gift from The Gods Of Jet Lag Prevention and knock on wood whenever I think about the fact that I’m not tired yet. So far, it’s worked.) [...] At 9:15 and our orientation started! Exciting.

Orientation is kind of like the first day of school at Arcadia High, when all the teachers give you the class syllabus, read the rules, and tell you what to expect, except today we didn’t only talk about one class, we talked about SYA as a whole, and we talked about what to [expect] inside and outside the classroom.

The rules were definitely a big chunk of time (no drinking, no smoking, no drugs, no lying), as were our personal introductions (“Hi everyone, I’m _________, and I’m from ________________ and go to school at _________________. My host family is la famille de __________________. I like to do _______________ and __________________.”) A lot of the rest of the time though, the teachers and director, M. Brochu, talked about what we can except from SYA. We talked about classes (7 classes, each class four times a week), and our school building (remember the gate code?), cubbies, mailboxes, bus passes, lunch cards, Rennes (“It requires a certain amount of…euu…street smart. ‘Tis an urban environment!”)

The best part of the whole day though, was when the teachers were talking about where we can study during our free periods, and our art history teacher (in a very French accent) interjects “There is a couch also, downstairs. But it is not for lovers!” Hilarious.

Lunch was interesting, we all walked to lycée St. Vincent, a local public high school, where we can get lunch for free. (Whee!) The food was, well, very French. And their cafeteria is really pretty! Plus, all the plates and cups are glass, and the silverware is actual metal! Me and the other SYAers like slyly [or not so slyly] watching the French students. We were noticing their effortless fashion sense the most. Anyway, after awhile we kind of got shooed away by a teacher, explaining to us in rapid French that if we were finished we should put away our trays because it was getting crowded.) We even managed to walk back to school without getting lost!

Orientation continued until about 5:00, but I’ll spare you the details because it is quite dull (orientations often are.) In summary, we have placement tests for math and French on Monday and Tuesday, and classes start officially on Wednesday. I’m actually really excited for classes to start up, because I want to have some kind of routine to fall into. I like routines apparently.

The other SYAers seem like…really awesome. Most of them are very outgoing, but not overly so, which makes complete sense; I mean, they did sign up for a year abroad and everything. I think we’re all really excited to be here, which is awesome. I can tell a lot of us are going to get along.

P.S. Cheeking kissing is really not that hard. Seriously. I think we should adopt this custom in America.