A Running Start

Today I had my first day of high school. You could say I had a “running start”. I didn’t know what room number my Italian class was in; it wasn’t marked anywhere, and no one told us anything about it. I should say, my high school is the biggest in France, and it is quite a big place with about a thousand high schoolers and even more middle schoolers from all over the world all in one place.  First, my British classmate and I were told to go to the administration office, where there was no one, then we spent a frantic half-hour sprinting all over the school, up and down five flights of stairs looking for any adult and asking them where the class was. One said, just ask your teacher where the class is, but we didn’t know the teacher and she was in the class, wherever that was.

At last, my American Section principal appeared from around a corner and I dashed up to him and breathlessly told him the situation. He rushed to a French office and found out what classroom it was, saving the day. We ran to the class, still the wrong one, but the teacher in it directed us to the right place, which was next door. We missed the first 40 out of 50 minutes of class, but now at least we know where it is. Such are the trials and tribulations of this multinational life. Not to mention that I have Italian after Spanish twice a week and will probably get the languages mixed up—adios-arrivederci, or was it arrivederci-adios?


Pierre