*Beep Beep Beep*

I roll over and push the button on my phone to shut off the alarm. Rubbing my eyes, I slowly push the covers back and roll off the air mattress I’ve been using as a bed for the last few months. I walk over to my tub of clothes and grab some out before walking into the hallway to grab my shower supplies. I turn on the shower and make sure it gets nice and hot. I stand under the shower head for a good 10 minutes before actually doing anything. When I get out, I quickly get dressed before making my way to the kitchen for some food. Living in a house with my uncle means I have to eat some food before I’m allowed to walk out the door. After eating I look at the clock and see I have about 20 minutes until I have to leave, so I make my way to my brother’s room to shake him awake. He glares at me for waking him before he says he’s up. I quickly do my final check to make sure everything is in my backpack before walking into the living room to wait for my brother. I look at the clock periodically and see we are supposed to be walking out the door and he’s still not ready. I bang on the door and tell him he needs to hurry up before we’re late. I make my way back over to the couch as he opens the door. He looks at me unenthused and walks past me and into the kitchen. My mom bursts into the room and yells something about us needing to take a picture for our first day. I grumble a little before reluctantly getting up to pose by my cousins and brother for our picture. After the picture is taken, my brother and I head to the door and leave for Grand Haven High School.

When we near the school, my hands begin to feel sweaty and I get nervous about how this day will go. I look at my watch and see we have 10 minutes to get to class. I realize I have no schedule yet and begin to make my way through the sea of students and into the office. There is a line a mile long in the small office and I realize it’s going to be a long time before I get my schedule. I sit in one of the chairs as I wait for the line to go down. I pull out my phone and begin to play a random game until it’s my turn to go up. I make my way to the desk and put my hands on the cold counter as I tell the lady I’m new and I need my schedule and login info for the chrome books. She nods and tells me to wait just a minute and she will get my stuff printed.

When she finishes printing my info I walk out of the office to look for my class and I hear the bell ring. I quickly realize I’m not going to make it to class anytime soon as my class is in the opposite side of the school and I have no idea how to get there. I begin to walk towards the pod my History class is in and I make it there about five minutes after the bell rang. I slowly open the door and all heads turn to look at me. I tuck my head down and walk over to the teacher. He grabs my schedule and tells me how nice it is that I decided to finally show up to class. I shrink even further as he hands my schedule back and tells me to find an empty seat. I quietly shuffle to the back of the class and I slide into the chair while everyone else slowly turns their attention back to the teacher.

When the bell rings, I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and I try to squeeze out of the class as fast as I can. I look at my schedule and realize my next class is at the bottom of the stairs just outside the pod my first class is in. I fight my way through the sea of students as I try to get down the stairs and across the hall. I bump into about 6 people on my way, apologizing every time I do. I finally make it to the classroom and I sit next to some people who look fairly nice. I give a half smile before tucking my stuff under the desk so it doesn’t get in the way. This is Art class, so we have long tables that can sit 4 people to a section. The girl next to me introduces herself and I do the same quickly before the bell rings and the art teacher bounces in with an extra pep to her step. She introduces herself and goes over all the art basics. She covers the color wheel and different line techniques and such. She has us fill in a painted color wheel and we add colors together to make oranges, greens, and purples. The class seems to breeze by and before I know it, the class is over.

I quickly sneak out of class and back up the stairs to make it to my English class. When I walk into the class, it is fairly full, so I sneak into a spot into the last open seat in the back. After I sit down a guy comes over to me and asks who I am and if I am a freshman, since he’s never seen me before. I then explain to him that I’m new and this is my first day. He looks puzzled before he gets excited and introduces himself before shaking my hand and telling me that I can now say I have a friend at the school. When the teacher walks into class and the bell rings, he quickly goes to his seat across the room. The teacher goes over the expectations and such before she tells us what she plans to do for the semester. She said we would be reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I had already read the book, so I knew it would be an easy class for this semester. She sets the class off on a small introduction assignment and comes to sit at her desk in the back of the class by me. She looks at me and asks if she’s had me before in a class and I begin to explain that I am new so she couldn’t have. She suddenly gets excited and decides to introduce me to the class. She brings me to the front and tells everyone to stop working before she makes me introduce myself and tell people a bit about myself. Being nervous, my voice began to shake and she had to tell me to be louder a few times. As soon as she finishes questioning me, I sit in my seat and put my nose into the assignment.

Time couldn’t have moved any slower in that class, the class seemed to drag on forever. After making my way out of the class, I quickly push myself through the school to make it to my chemistry class in the middle of the school. I walk into the class and there’s only a few other people in there, so I just take a seat in the middle of the class. I pull out my stuff as more students file in and the teacher begins class. This class was the same as others, the teacher introduces herself and the material we would cover before setting us off on an assignment. The class goes by quickly and everyone pretty much keeps to themselves before the bell rings. Now it’s time for lunch.

I feel butterflies in my stomach when I realize I have no friends and I have nobody to sit with at lunch. I try to walk as slow as possible, but it seems the sea of people is pushing me towards the cafeteria. When I get there, I find an empty table to sit at and I pull out my food. After a minute or two, a girl comes over to me and says that her and her friends sit at this table and I needed to move. I look at her shocked that she would just tell me to leave, but instead of doing anything about it, I move to sit on the floor in the hallway, not wanting to cause any problems with anyone else. I quietly pull out my lunch and my phone which keeps me occupied while I wait for the bell to ring.

When the bell rings and lunch is over, I push myself up quickly and almost run to my next class, Spanish. By the time I get to class, I only have a minute left because it was so far away. I sit down in one of the empty seats before pulling my stuff out and setting it on my desk. The teacher walks in with another person and he begins to introduce himself and he explains that the man with him is a student teacher who is studying to be a Spanish teacher. The student teacher passes out our syllabus as the teacher begins to explain the class and what will be happening this semester. When he finishes with that he does a little Spanish activity where we have to describe ourselves in Spanish and read it to the class. When it’s my turn, I begin to panic. My hands shake as I go to the front of the class to read off my five sentences that I wrote. After finishing the class claps like they did for everyone else and I slowly head back to my seat. The class dragged on forever and when it finally rang, I got out of there as soon as I could.

Finally, I headed to my last class, Algebra 2. When I get to the class it is set up in three sections and I sit to the right side in the back. The teacher was about five minutes late and we all sat waiting for him to show up. When he does show up, he apologizes saying he needed to get coffee before coming to class. He begins to describe himself and the expectation for the class. He says we will do notes at the beginning of class and then he will give us time for homework. He jumped right into our first lesson, which was a review of geometry. When he finished, there was still about twenty minutes left and he let us play on our phones and chrome books. When the final bell rang, I was ready to go home, so I met my brother by his car. We headed back to my uncle’s house, neither of us wanting to talk about how our day had gone.

As soon as we got to my uncle’s house, we went into our separate rooms. I sat on the bed and began to cry thinking about how bad the day had gone and how tiring being at a new school was. I laid down and took a nap feeling emotionally and physically exhausted. I began to hope being at a new school will get better.