9/9/13
First day of Polish High School. My summer is officially over and school now starts. I am not nervous or scared or excited to go today. I am more excited to talk to my parents or friends online.
My host mother drove me to Paderewski High School. In the parking lot I took my picture in front of the school because I want to remember my first day of school in Poland. Julia, the girl I met yesterday, was waiting for me outside by the front door. My host mom walked me to the front door and ended up giving Julia her name in order to keep tabs on me. When she left Julia showed me around the school, very quickly. It is a very small school with only 2 main hallways and only 150 kids total. Julia introduced me to other kids like Antonio (boy from Spain), Bohdan (boy from Ukraine), and Daniel (boy from Canada). They are each living in Poland now and speak fluent English.
My first class is Math lower level. I flipped through their textbook to see what lessons they would be learning and discovered this is all too easy for me. After the first break between classes, Sunny and I went to the exchange student counselor to choose our classes. In this school the lady said I can choose any classes I want to attend. It is like going to college because it is 2 house for each lesson but you can have hours of break in between your next class. My classes I chose is higher level Math, higher level Psychology, Spanish, English (mandatory), and Theory of Knowledge (mandatory).
In my new classes everyone is super nice. I met a girl who went to Minnesota on exchange last year named Ola. We have psychology together. (Yes, Ola is a very popular name in Poland if you haven’t caught on to that yet). I also met a girl named Inga who is pretty cool. We have higher level math together. Good thing I sat on the bench out in the hallway instead of sitting in the Wi-Fi room because Inga introduced me to all her friends. I met a boy named Michał who is 18 years old and is in the third class. He is super nice! I met another boy named Michał who is 16 years old and in my math higher level too. He is super into magic tricks and is very social. For a magic trick, he tried to get me and Inga to kiss but I absolutely refused. Inga and I ended up high fiving instead. I also met another boy named Michał who is also 16 years old and in my math higher level class. (As you can tell Michał is a very popular name in Poland for boys.)
In my math class, the curriculum was actually pretty challenging. Everything is more in depth here compared the honors calculus class I took in Atlantic City. I might actually learn something in this class. The teacher wears super skinny jeans, an over sized blue shirt, and crazy blowout hair…he might be a little distracting. He is very nice and welcoming but has a crazy style.
The kids in the school are so dressed up here! I noticed they each have a “hipster” style like dark colors, dark hair, big sweaters, studded boots, and dark make up. One girl wore 4 inch – 5 inch heels in school, a long dress, and nice make up. Other girls aren’t as fancy but definitely dress up to attend school. I need to go clothes shopping in order to keep up my appearance compared to their girls.
American high school is very different to polish high school. Paderewski is an elementary and high school. This would never happen in America because if their elementary kids saw half the things high school kids did…the kids wouldn’t turn out as angels. Also I can come or leave school whenever I want to because they don’t have attendance. Also this school has a Wi-Fi room for the kids who bring their computers and have a break time between classes. They don’t use notebooks in school either, they only use laptops or tablets. Boys just play games while the teachers talk and the girls’ text each other. It seems like this year will be pretty easy.
Stephanie Raquel
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