We're back in Santiago and everything is starting to be normal again. You could say "Oh! You must be happy to see your family and friends again! You were outside for a long time!" and yes, I am happy to see everyone again, but I had such a great time in Maine and in the rest of the trip, that's kind of difficult to be extremely happy.
I would like to write about my first day in Waynflete, because it can resume my whole experience in that amazing school.
I had an excellent relation with Necal, my host sister; the things she liked were very similar than the ones I do like. So the first school day we went walking to Renata's house, Julio's host sister, so Necal could show both of us the whole school. I can remember clearly how confusing was that day. The campus is formed by six buildings, three really big and three of the size of a big house. Classes are all in different buildings and with different people. The students are the ones that change classrooms, not the teachers, so the teachers decorated and put the desks of their classrooms as they wanted.
When my sister tried to show Julio and me where were our classrooms, I thought that my head was going to explode. I had Algebra II and Spanish III in the third floor of Emery Building (the biggest), less Tuesday's when I had Algebra in the second floor of the same building. Chemistry was in the first floor, English 10 in the second floor of Morril's House, Drawing and Painting in the second floor of the Art Building, and Lower School 2nd and 3rd grade in the underground of the Lower School Building. Sounds easy to find but it's not like that, each building is like a maze, or at least they were mazes for the poor and confused chileans.
Before the meeting/breakfast that we had with the headmaster, Necal and me went to a teacher's classroom that was going to lend us clothes for Mainer Day, because we were in the Spirit Week. Everyday of the week you had to dress following a topic. Tuesday was Mainer day, Wednesday was Twin day, Thursday was Preppy or Granola day and Friday was Neon day.
Then all the chileans (Cristóbal, Julia, Julio, Miss Marcela, and me) and their host sisters or brothers (Jack Cutler, Katy Nelligan, Renata Levine, Peter Stein and Necal Phillips) had the meeting with the headmaster, that was pretty short. After that I had Lower School class, where we helped the spanish teacher with his class. I promise I forgot how to speak spanish for a second, I had to read the numbers the teacher showed to me so the kids could repeat them after me. I forgot how to say "diecinueve" so after thinking a lot, I managed to say "decinueve". Near at least!
Then I had Spanish III, and I knew in which Building was the class, but I forgot how to arrive in the classroom. I was lucky because a guy after looking at my extremely worried face probably thought that I was kind of lost, so he offered me to guide me to my class. Thanks God! The Spanish class was like and English class here. Breda, the teacher, was really nice and all the students were like that too.
Spanish class finished, and we had to go to an Assembly on the Art Building. I met with the other chileans there, because the head master was going to present us to the school. He just said our names so it was short, not enough time to be nervous. After some time, the lunch time arrived, so we went to a place called the atrium to have lunch. Then I had English 10 with Julia, and Katy (Julia's sister) took us to the class. We said hi to Jim, the teacher, we told him our names and a little about us and then we sitted down in two free sits and just waited. Everyone that entered to the room just say "Hi Jim!" and went to take a sit. The relation between teacher-student in Waynflete was really informal, we liked it because you feel nearer to the teacher, there was more confidence. But the students were very respectful, they never started complaining when the techer gave them homework, and they have way more homework than we have, but their classes are more relaxed. So going back to the main topic, the teacher presented us to the rest of the students, said us to talk a little about ourselves and then the class continued. All the homeworks he gave the class were about talking about ourselves. English class finished, Algebra II was coming! Julia and me waited for Katy, so she could guide us to our next classes. She arrived and we went to Emery Building. She was a little confused because the number of the classroom where I was supposed to have Algebra II, was a History classroom, but then we discovered that only Tuesday's I had Algebra there, and the other days I had it in other classroom. Fortunately it was Tuesday, so I arrived in the correct classroom. The teacher, Jerry, was very nice with me, and the students too. He didn't present me the first day, he just started his class. He was very motivating and the class was always paying attention because the way he taught made things funnier. Algebra II finished and time for Performing Arts or Sports came, but that week only some people had things to do, so everyone was having fun on the schoolyard with activities for Spirit Week.
That was my first day, that could resume all the month I was in there, but only the school part, because I could continue talking about the amazing people I met, my relation with everyone and more stuff, but I think that what I wrote is long enough. Only one more thing to say: I loved Waynflete.
Javiera Bao
