School Daze

I called home to the family from work, because I couldn't wait until I arrived home to hear how the 1st day of school went. As this Blog is more about the exchange student and not my own kids; I will refrain from putting their experiences here.

Aya told me she thought that the first day was pretty good and in another sentence she said it was fun.

I was later told by my oldest that Aya was hunger after coming home from school, for she missed her lunch because she had a great deal of difficulty with the locker combinations. Apparently she's never seen a dial (numeric combination) before that we were all accustomed to - if so she's never used one.

We tried to explain to her that the numbers given were X-Y-Z and that for X you have to turn the dial Clockwise (which for some reason, there was no translation to) and for Y Counter-Clockwise and again Clockwise for Z.

She expressed great distress over this and said she was still uncertain on how to go about it. In between classes she needed to put things in her new locker, but there was no one around to help her on the floor where her locker resides - they were all in class at that time.

Gym class doesn't issue a uniform which seemed odd to her as I assume they get one back in Japan since ever time I've seen students they wore a uniform to school for normal class, that having an issued gym suit would be natural.

She though parenting class was fun and that the Math class was a little strict; translation the teach seemed to be a prude.

Another problem for Aya was that a lot of the work assigned or some items of discussion was written in cursive (handwritting) on the black or white board. Apparently Aya has not been taught in school what they characters are supposed to look like when linked. This will be yet another task which she will have to quickly master in order to continue, as I don't see that the teacher will print on the board to accomodate her.