Crazy week.

Dear blog readers (do I even have any?),

I am soooo sorry for neglecting you this week. So as I eat my biscuit and drink my tea I will try to fill you in on as much as possible.

I finally moved into school on Monday night. I got here, dropped my suitcase in my room and was immediately rushed off to have tea. They really don't give you any time to think here. I went down and was greeted with a sea of new and equally frightened faces. An oddly comforting sight. Knowing I'm not the only one scared and completely lost is always a good thing. I got unpacked in my room and all that good stuff. Then, I finally looked around and said to myself, "Wow, I'm really here in my dorm room. In England. About to start school. Is this real?".

On Tuesday, I actually started classes. The system here is soooo weird. I am only taking 3 subjects. Maths, physics, and spanish. Usually you take 4 subjects as a Lower Sixth pupil, but my Maths is called Further Maths meaning its double the amount of maths than usual. Confused yet? Just wait. For each regular subject you have two different teachers. For example, in Physics I have two teachers- one to teach the mechanics part and one to teach everything else. In maths, I actually have 4 teachers- one for Statistics, one for Core, one for Further Pure, and one for Mechanics. For Spanish I actually only have one teacher, because there is only one Spanish teacher. I think if they could find another one they would have her, haha. So basically its like taking 4 math classes, and 2 physics classes. Utterly confusing.

But classes are the least of my worries at this point. If you have ever seen a movie about snobby english boarding schools, alot of the stereotypes are probably true. There is a sort of heirarchy system here in which you're position is determined by your year. I am in Sixth Form, which is the highest form. But there is two divisions of sixth form- Upper Sixth and Lower Sixth. I am in the Lower Sixth. Which means I sit at the middle lunch table and I get to sit in the second set of chairs in the Sixth Form center. If I did any differently I think heads would roll. But I don't mind it too much. The other students are all really nice and I seem to be fitting in quite well. I kind of float between the English students and the German students. I live with the German ones (my roommate is German) so I spend alot of time trying to understand the German flying around me.

My physics and maths classes are quite good because I've done most of the material, but sometimes I feel like I'm relearning English because of all the different terms they use. This is something that only math geeks would care about but I'll put it in here for my Dad's benefit. When we're solving equations instead of saying "negative two" they say "minus two". What do they say for subtraction you ask? "4 minus 2". Why did they shun the use of the word negative when it makes it much clearer whether you are refering to an action or the sign of the integer. Also, in upper math classes you usually begin to use a dot as a multiplication sign to differentiate between the variable x and the multiplication sign. Here they use the x sign still. Even in Further Maths. One of my teachers even said "I think England is the only country that still uses the cross for multiplication". Well, can we get on changing that? Cause it would make my life alot easier. Anyways, thats enough of my nerd rant.

As far as living on campus goes, I'm really enjoying it. I like living with a bunch of girls. Really. There's no sarcasm there. Its actually enjoyable. The discussions we have in the common room can get quite interesting.

Oh, and I finally found out what a prefect is. A power trip. Basically. Supposedly its a big honor and I'm sure it is. They basically just have to make sure everyone is following the rules. Tuck in your shirt, put your collar down, button the top button, you can't be here now, go to the library, etc etc. Can't say I wouldn't like to be one though.

I'm really tired after a long week so I'm going to bugger off and go watch a film. I will try to update again this weekend with more about school and everything.

Tah tah for now.