School again

Second day back: done.  I was afraid to start school this year because I had a lot of holiday homework to be complited, but because I didn't see it being a priority I didn't really end up doing anything.  You can say that that's pretty lazy, but to be honest the reason I'm here is not to study hard. The goal is to get to know a lot people, travel and see Australia and the most important of all, have good time. 

This year the timetables are really full and we are meant to be busy all the time.  Last year of school and soon time for the big exams, makes sense.  But is it my last year; no, is this what is in my syllabus back home; no, am I getting advantages of these studies back home; probably no.  So getting almost the same amount of work as everyone else in my year was in my consideration a bit unfair.  Now my host families, Rotary and even the principal of my school agree with me, so this half shouldn't be too bad.  :) 

There are a lot of changes in my school this year, so even though I've already been here for six months there's still something new to get used to.  The biggest change, which affects to pretty much everything, is that before the students were on different sides of the road; kindergarden and primary school on the other one and we here, but now everyone is on this side.  900 people, others in age of five, others 18.  For me it seems to be a really weird solution because back home this is exactly what they try to avoid; huge schools with hundreds of people in different ages.  Kindergarden, primary school, secondary school and high school all in the same; I personally can't see many advantages in that. 

And because we are all in the same area, there are different bells going for people in different ages.  Luckily the youngest ones are having their breaks mainly on different times so it's not as crazy as it could be.  But to make that possible, instead of our seven 45 minute periods we're now having six 52 minute ones.  52 minutes is quite random length, so due to that our day starts at 8.58 and because we're not having a roll call in the mornings we have to be on time in the mornings to avoid the trouble of going to the office and getting it all explained.  So starting at two to nine means that our day goes like this:

Period 1:  8.58 - 9.50

Period 2:  9.50 - 10.42

Recess:  10.42 - 11.02

Roll call:  11.02 - 11.12

Period 3:  11.12 - 12.04

Period 4:  12.04 - 12.56

Lunch:  12.56 - 1.36
Period 5:  1.36 - 2.28
Period 6:  2.28 - 3.20

Quite a few random times to remember!  At least we get to eat a bit earlier... :D

Getting ready to go to the lesson starting 28 past,

Liisa