The First Day of School *for me*

Even though the first day of school for me was actually on the 1st, I haven’t gotten into writing about how it went and all the things that happened until now, which is the 4th. So, this post is about my first day of high school and how it went.

Now, before the first day of high school, within the 2nd half of August, emails containing websites to sign up for a pre-Bowness High School tour were sent to the inboxes of grade 9 students who were looking to do a pre-first day of school tour. The optional event was hosted on the 31st of August. I was one of the students who signed up for the Bowness High School Tour. The tours were spread out in 20-30 minute time spaces over the course of the day so that many people could participate in the school tour at any time of day based off of their preferences. I signed up for the 10:20 am tour, which would mean a rough 20-30 bike ride from home to the school to get there by 10:10 -10:15ish.

So, on August 31st, I headed out at 9:45 am on my Kona Fire Mountain (my mountain/commuter bike) and rode from home to Bowness High School to take part in the tour. I did make a few mishaps while biking to the school, mainly just taking wrong turns and such. I managed to arrive at the school by 10:10, which left me with 10 minutes of leisure time before the 10:20 am tour would be conducted. so, I just hung around, and simply waited for the 10 minutes to roll around. After the 10 minutes, the tour started, and I, along with plenty more students, entered the building to tour around the school for the first time.

As we walked around the school, being guided by grade 11 students, I saw several amenities in the school, such as a cafeteria which was connected to the kitchen where culinary arts class is held, a fitness centre, a learning commons which really reminded me of the Calgary Public Library in Crowfoot, the usual gym and auxiliary gym, washrooms, classrooms, vending machines scattered across the school, stairwells with elevators, study halls, and the main office. This school packed a lot of stuff in it, and with the seemingly endless hallways with twists and turns, I felt like I was stuck in a rat maze. Even though the school is a bit confusing to walk around as I just pointed out, but the school does seem like a pleasure to be in.

The tour lasted as long as anticipated, so 20-30 minutes, and then it was time to return home going only uphill on a heavy mountain bike. It was tiring. 😫

So now, we get to the first day of school. I woke up at 6:30 in the morning to my morning alarm, had breakfast, and left home by 8:05 to walk down to the nearby bus stop to embark on a bus ride through Tuscany to ultimately arrive at Bowness High School.

The bus arrived at the school at 8:46 am, which was right on schedule. For the first day of school, all grade 10 students would have a full school day to get all the introduction stuff out of the way, and the grade 11s and 12s would start their day at 12:30 pm, mid day.

After getting off the bus, all grade 10 students who knew what their homeroom teacher was were sent to the main gym to be given their first day of school speeches by the principal, assistant principal, and teachers representing core classes such as robotics, marketing, multimedia, and more. I was able to get a photo of the main gym:

The introduction speeches started at 9:00 and finished by 9:30. After that, students would assigned to follow their homeroom teachers to their homeroom for a briefing. following that was a homeroom teacher led tour for the homeroom class around the school, which I already did the day before which I clearly already wrote about. The tour seemed to last a bit longer, but it may have been because the contents of the tour weren’t new to me by then. The day was going by rather fast, because by the time the tour was finished, it was pretty much lunch time, which was scheduled from 12:05-12:45 in the afternoon. I had my lunch and enjoyed it.

After lunch break, every grade 10 homeroom class went out back to the football fields to hangout and do activities such as football, soccer, frisbee, and more. I got to play frisbee with some students I didn’t know. That section of the day lasted for about an hour and a half. following that, students would go to their classes scheduled for the semester to meet their teachers, and get a briefing about what their class for the semester would be going to look like. I got to meet my math teacher, who is a very calm person, my English teacher, who is extroverted and open to students, my French teacher, who is less extroverted but still open to the students, and my multimedia teacher, who in fact is my homeroom teacher as well and is a nice person and calm like my math teacher. With all of that done, the school day came to an end.

School ended at about 3:30 in the afternoon, and it was time to catch the bus to embark on the return trip back home. There was a lot of traffic in Bowness by then. 😕 My bus arrived at my bus station at around 4:00 in the afternoon. I walked the extra 5 minutes back home, and relaxed on the couch, as well as talking to mum and dad about how the day went when I got there.

BONUS: Here are some extra photos I took: