FIRST WEEK IN INDIANA

Hi everyone,

This week has been a crazy adventure! On Monday I had my first volleyball try out and I was really nervous. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go, but my Dutch flag gave me the courage to at least give it a try. “In the end we only regret the chances we didn’t take”. What is the worst that could happen, right? Well, I went to the try out and met the other volleyball girls. They were really nice to me and I felt home immediately. After the volleyball practice we go to the weight room and work out. My muscles still hurt haha.

The second try out was less fun, because I wasn’t allowed to participate. Every school athlete must have done a physical before participating in any sport. I wasn’t able to get my physical before the second try out so I had to watch the team practice. I was sad I couldn’t participate, but it was really fun to watch though. All the girls made it to one of the two teams, I am a right side hitter in the JV team (Junior Varsity). The other (better) team is called Varsity. We have two teams, but we always practice together and go the same city for games.

MY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

In America I have all my classes every day at the same order and time.
My schedule is:
1 Algebra II
2 Intro Dimensional Art
3 Chemistry
lunch from 10:30 to 11.00
4 US History
5 Psychology
6 English
7 Math Lab (time to do your math homework and ask questions)

I can’t really tell if I like all my classes, because I’ve only had them for three days. I will come back to it some other time.

There are quite some differences when I compare my American school with my Dutch school. First of all the classrooms. In every classroom there is an American flag present. Every morning during first period we stand up, put our right hand on our hart and say the pledge of allegiance. Our desk consists of a table with a chair connected to it. Everyone sits apart, so there’s a table, an aisle, a table, an aisle, etc. The doors are also different, now you’re probably like, how can doors be different? Well, they are. Here the doors have a lock which makes it impossible for people to enter our class. The door can only be opened from the inside or with a key. The doors also have a small window. The locked door and small window prevent strangers or people with wrong intentions to enter our classroom or to see if there’s someone in there. This is all for safety purposes. You’ve probably heard of the things that have happened in America a while ago. A shooter entered a school and randomly started shooting at the kids and teachers.
Next is the WIFI, In the Netherlands my school has free WIFI, which makes it possible for me to go on the internet. Here I don’t have WIFI at school so I can’t really use my phone. Besides that we aren’t allowed to use our phone in class. They are very strict about that. Talking about the phone, we aren’t allowed to take any pictures in school due to privacy/safety rules. I have a locker in the Junior hallway and guess what, it’s a typical American locker haha. They gave me a locker at the Freshmen hallway at first but since I am a Junior they changed it for me. On my second day of school I struggled a lot with my locker, because it just wouldn’t open. During my lunch break I had to find someone who could open my locker, because I had to put my backpack in there and I had to take my lunch out. When I finally found someone with a key (I don’t have a key, but a combination), I only had ten minutes left. That wasn’t enough to eat my lunch, find someone to open my locker again and go to class. So instead I went to see my guidance counselor and ask for a new locker (the one in the Junior hallway). It isn’t allowed to eat in the hallway so I had to wait until after my 7^th period to eat. I was so hungry!

My day consists of 7 periods, 2 hour volleyball practice and one hour in the weight room. Almost every day I go home at 6 pm. This is also a difference, because the latest I would go home in the Netherlands is around 4.15 pm.

.........................................

I don't have the time to finish this story so I'll update it later :)
I am really busy, so I do the best I can in writing a story every now and then.

Love,

Tasha