My First Day in High School.

My First Day in High School

I remember my first day in high school as if it was yesterday, even though, it was five years ago. It is all clear in my mind because that was probably the first time that my lacking of not speaking English became evident. It was also the first time that I had to overcome my fear of speaking for myself to other people in English instead of letting my brother or another relative do it for me.

I woke up that day at seven in the morning. It was a good day with a clear sky and a mild weather, but it looked like the end of the world to me. After I got ready, my brother took me to school in his car, he actually didn’t even go to work so that he could take me to school and cheer me up a little. If I am being honest, it didn’t work, it actually made me a lot more nervous for some reason. Now that I think about it, it appears that I didn’t want him to see the fear in my face.

My brother took me to the entrance of my first class, patted me on my shoulder and left. I know what you’re thinking he’s such a good brother and you’re right, he is, he’s always there for me to help me every time I need him. I stayed at the entrance of the classroom for a brief moment thinking whether going in or running back home and tell my brother that I just couldn’t do it. I knew my brother would have been disappointed if I had returned home, so after thinking about it for a few seconds I finally decided to go in.

My fears grew even bigger when I saw my teacher. She was a chubby, short, white lady with blond hair. I thought, “Oh man I’m screwed, what am I going to do if I don’t understand something that she asks me to do.” Fortunately, she only asked me and the other three students that were in the classroom to write a few words with the letter b and some other easy stuff, even for non-native English speakers. The other students were just like me they only knew a few words in English too, which in a way made feel kind of good knowing that I wasn’t the only one at school to not know English. When the class was over I didn’t wanted to leave because I didn’t know where my next class was. I had no other choice but to stand up and get out of the classroom when I saw everybody else leaving.

There were a lot of students in the hallway and I wanted to ask one of them to show me where my next class was, but I didn’t know how to say it, so I stayed quiet for a brief moment. I knew I had to hurry because my next class was going to start in less than ten minutes so what I did was to take my class schedule and show it to the first teacher I saw and point my next class on the paper. On the second day of school I learned that he was an ESL teacher because I had his class on the eight period. He looked at the schedule and made a gesture to follow him. I followed him through a couple of hallways then he opened an exit door and pointed at the portables and told me to look at the numbers on the doors until I find the one I was looking for. I thanked him and rushed into my classroom which I found in a few minutes.

My next class was Spanish so I was hoping that it was going to be a little bit easier than the last one; it wasn’t. The teacher kept on talking in English for most of the time even though he was from Peru and had a really bad accent. I was just waiting for the class to be over. When the bell run I went to the cafeteria to take lunch. After lunch I had to finally ask one of the students to show me where my Algebra class was. This guy gladly took me to the door of the classroom and after thanking him I went inside the classroom. The teacher was Asian. If somebody had told me that he was going to become my best math teacher, I wouldn’t had believed that person because he looked too serious and imposing. He spoke really fast; I didn’t understand a word he said during class but I was thankful that the math problems he gave us were not too hard.

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