Hello! Emeraude here, and today I want to tell you all about how my first couple months of highschool has been going.
To begin, everything is different because of Covid-19 measures to keep teachers and students safe. It has taken a lot of getting used to, but I've adjusted pretty well. I'm lucky to live in a small town and go to a small school which allows me to socialize with students from grade 9 and 10 (we still have to wear our masks and stay 6 feet apart of course) since we are under 20 students, that means that I get to spend time with Angel (her, Alyssa and I used to be the tightest knit group since grade five) during lunch. Wearing our masks is really important, and I've gotten used to it enough for it to be comfortable all day. I am loving scented hand sanitizer right now, my fave at the moment is pumpkin cupcake and I really enjoy the bath and body works one since it is moisturizing instead of drying.
Perhaps one of the most unusual aspects of the Covid measures is quadmesters. As the transition between quadmester one and two draws closer, it becomes more evident each day how bezar the structure is. Basically, in Ontario how most schools worked was on a schedule of 5-7 periods a day of at least 90 minutes each, with each being with seperate teachers, and one being a lunch period for some students. This allowed you to take upwards of 4-5 classes per semester. In a year there were 2 semesters, one from September to December then one from January to June. However, for the purpose of reducing contacts and facilitating effective contact tracing, schools across Ontario have needed to restructure, basically everything.
Now, we have nifty quadmesters... they are not great. In theory they sounded decent, that was before I had lived with it for a week. The way this works now is that we have 4 sections to the year (hens QUADmesters) each 2 months in length. This means everything has to be condensed. Now, courses are two hours each (with a break in the middle, more on that later) and we have and independent study period for thirty - ish minutes after each of our two classes. Perhaps the most perplexing part for me to comprehend is that now we have a dedicated lunch period that only lasts 40 minutes. This. Is. Nuts. Before, lunch was the same length as the periods, meaning it allowed enough time to return home for lunch or get ahead on homework. Now, it is the most rushed fourty minutes. Because of this whole restructure, along with a host of other COVID protection measures, the teachers have way less time for everything, including grading. That makes the wait time for feedback on projects and assignments pretty long. It's new for everyone, but we're adjusting together.
I'm loving my classes so far! I only get to take two at a time, and I had one choice, ha. I had the choice of tacking visual art or exploring technologies (shop class, more on that later) and everyone has to take English. School starts at 8:50am with shop class and then at 10:50am we transition to the library for study hall. Shop class is really fun because it's mostly hands on. The first project we made was a C02 race car and now we are making clocks, which I'd rather do than paper work first thing in the morning. Because most of what we do is in the shop, we don't really have much to do in study hall, since I have extra time usually I'll either read a book or use our career cruising software and safe college and university programs, and take career quizzes until lunch.
I stay at school for lunch most days because it's too short to go home without being really rushed. We have to stay six feet apart, but Angel (Alyssa and I's other best friend) is in my cohort we get to eat together. We have to stay in the library (where we spend study hall) so we eat at our desks socially distanced but we're within talking distance. Not a lot of people stay for lunch, which is nice for us. It's nice to relax and hang out for a little while.
Right after lunch is english. I really enjoy writing, and our teacher is good at making things fun. So far we've had a few quizzes and one unit test, and they aren't too tough. I think my tests in the past were more confusing. I'm really looking forward to studying shakespeare, although we won't have much time to before the end of this quadmester. I can't wait for science and math in a few weeks. I love both subjects and from what Angel has mentioned grade 9 science is pretty fun.
I mentioned study hall a few times. The way it works is that we have a teacher as a supervisor for the half hour we're there (in both the morning and afternoon) and we get to basically use the time however we'd like as long as we are quiet and working. The way they have the library set up is with rows of desks all six feet apart and we each have one that we keep the whole year. I enjoy having the more layed back structure to get ahead on homework and relax between periods, especially since people are almost always nice and quiet. At the begging of the year I found it a little bit boring if I was already done my homework, but I've gotten used to it now. I have a little more homework than the begging of the year and I spend the free time organizing or using that career and post-secondary education software I was talking about.
At the begging of the year we didn't have lockers while they figured out how to make sure it was all safe. One of the big perks to having a large school building and small student numbers is that it is easier to keep us all safely distanced. I'd hate to live in a city through all this. Now we have our lockers and they are all distanced. I got on that is pretty much close to everything. It's close to all my main floor classes (except shop) and to the stairwell which will come in handy next quadmester. I decorated it just a little bit. My mom got me a magnetic mirror and these nifty polaroid holding magnets to put fun pictures of Alyssa, Angel and I on my door I also put a shelf in it for my backpack because I don't trust having it on the bottom of a locker other people have had in the past. We are lucky to have full length lockers, and that we have quite a bit of room in them. I'm happy to not have to be dragging around my backpack and coat all day.
I hope everyone is having a good school year weither it's virtual or not. I'll put a list of products I've been loving for school lately at the end of the post as per usual. Have a great rest of your day!
Stuff I like for school so far (nothing sponsored, just love these products):
🏫 I love these picture holders for my locker.
🏫 Having a mirror to check your reflection in your locker is very handy.
🏫 This shelf is helpful for adding storage space to your locker
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