Story Time: Adjusting to Public School - Freshman year

  Welcome back to my blog page! I have not done a Story time in a while so this week I will be focusing on my transfer out of private school into public. As some of you may know already I was in a couple of private Christian schools from infancy until October of my Freshman year in High School. This Private school had closed, my mother gave us a choice, either join Heart To Home, which is an amazing Christian Home School group run by a few of my favorite people, or be enrolled into the Public School we were zoned for. No surprise here, we all chose to experience what Public school has to offer. Even though the very beginning was rocky for me, I am very glad that I made the choice to attend Public School. I experienced things I never would have in a Private one, for example… PROM! A huge graduation, and more friends than I could count!

  Hephzibah High School, I started in the middle of a semester and was extremely nervous on the inside, but on the outside you would have thought I was ready for anything. The day we went to register for classes, my sister was able to join her class directly, as for my Brother and I, we had to wait until the following day to begin. Which calmed my nerves a little and had my 14 year old self excited that I did not have to got to school that day!

  Tuesday morning I began my Public School venture! My first two periods were Gym so I was stuck in that huge smelly metal building for two hours straight! Although students flocked to the new girl, so I had a lot people talking to me from the beginning. You would think because these people were so welcoming that I would feel better, but inside my stomach was churning! The funny thing is that my third period is Health and guess where we spend twenty minutes of that class… if you guessed the gym… you would be correct! In this class I met two people that would become very close friends to me over the next couple of years. I sat in the first row next to the last desk. The girl who sat in front of me was very kind and she would be one of the people that I would lean on this year. A few minutes later I get a note passed to me from a guy two rows over. This note read something like,

  Hey I am … if you need any help getting a round or a friend I am at your service. Here is my number if you take me up on the offer. (Ironically this guys name was Brandon)

  Then there was an extremely tall guy that sat next to me and he would be the other close friend that I would be leaning on.

(I AM GOING TO BE RELUCTANT ON GIVING OUT NAMES BECAUSE I WANT TO KEEP THEIR IDENTITIES PRIVATE. THIS IS MY STORY NOT THEIRS, THEREFORE I DO NOT FEEL COMFORTABLE PUTTING THEM OUT THERE. ESPECIALLY SINCE I KNOW LONGER AM IN CONTACT WITH MOST OF THEM. IF YOU ARE ONE OF THESE PEOPLE, WELL YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! LASTLY, IF I GET SOME OF THE DETAILS WRONG, I AM SORRY. THIS WAS PRETTY MUCH 7 YEARS AGO, IT IS HARD TO KEEP EVERYTHING STARIGHT! ALTHOUGH IF YOU ARE APART OF THIS STORY AND REMEMBER A DETAIL THAT I DON’T YOU ARE FREE TO SHARE IN THE COMMENTS!)

    Fourth period was Computer this is where I met a young lady that would become my BFF pretty much off and on over the next 4 years. I say off and on because we didn't necessarily have a fall out, but we started hanging out with different people and our friend groups kind of separated, but we always came back. I believe 5th was Math and 6th. was literature. This was my favorite class! I was the only person in my class that could diagram an entire sentence. The teacher was just then showing how to put a Direct Object into the diagram. The private school that I was in was ahead in the Grammar department because we focused more on Grammar than literature. I guess this is why I loved public school English because I got to read a whole lot more than I had to spell!  Then 7th period came and the same really tall guy was back! He was a Junior and I was the only freshman in this Physical Science class. In Public School this is an upper classmen subject, but this was the Science I was taking in Private School.  

  After I got home from this looonngg first day, I was about ready to bust into tears! At the moment I had know idea why because I had apparently met a lot of people that liked me. I later learned that I was beyond overwhelmed! The differences that popped up and just being bombarded with so many new faces was nerve racking. On top of learning a whole new curriculum that I knew absolutely nothing about.

  All in all as the year began to drag on, I felt myself getting more comfortable and emerge myself in the people and information around me. This first year I was called names behind my back because I always wore a knitted cross necklace around my neck and even went as far as debating how I practically never cussed in my life and how there are ways around it. I do not remember how the subject got brought up, but it did. This was my Science class. I started to get the Goody-two-shoes label as well as a Jesus freak and was even told that I have Jesus stuck up my a-DOUBLE-ss. Of course most of this stuff was not said to my face and I actually did not figure out how badly some people did not like me until my Junior year, but by this time I learned that those same people who apparently hated me actually began to like me… you know why… they got to know me, or just got to know the people that I actually hung out with… all of a sudden “Shayna isn’t so bad.”

  Getting thrown into a Public School directly out of Private School is hard! I did not know what I was getting myself into and there are people who do not care about the things that I care about. I went from a school of 50 kids (If that) to a school with 500! I had to learn an entirely different curriculum! Although in Lit. I had an advantage, in Math I was behind! (AND I ALREADY SUCK AT MATH!) It was definitely a hard adjustment at the beginning, but the more I got to know the people I was hanging out with, the more I opened up! I will always remember certain details of my Freshman year! Some people did not necessarily like me, but they also did not know me or where I came from. I went from one environment, to an entirely different one. Of course my views were not going to line up with yours! For the most part they still don’t, I just know how to handle and talk to people easier and better. I am definitely not the Christian I used to be when I was submersed in the God Fearing lifestyle, but just because I don’t exactly live a completely devout Christian lifestyle, does not make me any less of one.

  Freshman Year was a learning experience. It was about figuring out where I fit in and understanding the new way of teaching. I guess you can compare this to jumping into a new career path quickly or becoming a first time parent. It is not just about High School, but anyone can relate if they change it into their context. I hope this gave you a little more insight about me and who I was and who I am now.

  Stay tuned for Sophomore year where I relay how I get more involved as well as more comfortable in my own skin. Not to mention this is when the real drama begins lol!