Sheltered (WIP)

First Day of School

I believe it was exactly a week after orientation that I had my first day of school. I still had the anxiety when it started up but I still managed to eat lunch and I had a chocolate milk with it. I remember this vaguely but I do remember it. A lot of it was experiencing what they said was going to happen. It wasn't to horrible at first in my opinion however back when I shadowed the school my mother told my brother and I to be really nice. She essentially wanted me to be near perfect for them as they seemed perfect in her eyes. I took her more serious then I had taken anything else throughout my life. If you have ever talked to me you would know I say sorry a lot. Well this is where all of that came from. I wanted to be as polite as I could and to this day I still try to be perfect as she asked as far as manners are concerned. I was also trying to get better at learning cursive for that class I also remember for the last few months before so when I got there I had a pretty good knowledge of it. My schedule is hard to remember but some of the classes I had were religion, where we would have to memorize verses by heart to my memory verbatim. Bible history (or the name was something like that) where we would read a book that wasn't exactly the Bible but contained the stories of the Bible. Latin where we would study Latin (they took that very seriously and despite being a school of twenty kids many of the students had gotten very high scores on the National Latin Exam). History, for this I had the same teacher as Latin and it would be taught in the same classroom. Science, a bit hard for me to remember now but I do think I had science that first year. Music, I honestly wish I paid more attention in this class because I did get into music later on and they did teach some things I believe might've been useful in the future. Art, this class was a joke of an art class but far more professional then what was in the years to come at that school. Geography, we honestly would just color maps for this class which sounds fun but it just got boring over time. For the first part of the year we mainly did states in the United States and later on we did a world map of countries. There may have been a study hall too though it's hard to remember. There is a chance I left out some classes I had but I'll probably remember them later on. Another thing that sticks out is like on the day I shadowed I recall we would go into the chapel every morning (except Fridays where we would have mass that afternoon) to pray The Rosary. The teachers would sometimes criticize us rather harshly if our posture wasn't good enough which would get exhausting as it was every school day (except funerals because it was a church) that we would do this. I remember I had a few times served mass and I believe one of those times was that year. I believe it was a funeral (like most of the ones I served) and I would have to hold the candle in the procession walking in front and behind the coffin with the priest and other altar boys. That his a whole story in its own as they take their masses very seriously and you have to do everything perfectly or else someone's going to be really pissed off. Also you have the fear that what you're doing might be considered blasphemous or sacrilegious. Depending on the part you serve you may also need to learn a lot, and I mean a lot of latin prayers by memory. You also have to get the pronunciations right which I was ok at back when I was in the school. As the first few days passed it started getting rather strict however I was trying to be perfect for them and convinced myself whatever they say must be right and not to question it. I just let them say whatever they wanted to me and just took it. It in the long run did a number on my self esteem. That first day was now over. It wasn't long before that first week was over. Then month. Next was to be October. (Please note in the photo above I cropped out my brother because I didn't ask him for permission to post his photo on here)