by Yonah Tenenbaum
Standing outside, on the first day, I was feeling very anxious. I didn’t feel like I belonged; I felt small, insignificant; an outsider in an alien, strange new world, where rules are twisted, and views are distorted. I was practically waiting for someone to call me out, yelling “Hey! What are you doing here?!”. I was almost wishing that someone would call out. Then at least I would know how things work around here. The fact that no one called out, that everyone accepted me like I’ve been there all my life – I think that that’s even creepier; Like calm before a storm.
And then, in I went. All of a sudden, Or Chaim didn’t seem quite so foreign. The claustrophobia of the noisy, bustling halls actually reminded me of my previous school – just with less people. Once I recognized my friends, I wasn’t feeling like the school was a mousetrap, and that I was the mouse. Seeing them was helping me settle in; This is just school – I’ve been attending school for the past 8 years with these friends! The next four years won’t be any different.
My next discovery were the locker rooms. In the past, I’ve had my locker at the side of the hallway, easily accessible, all the time. Staring into the locker room, which was already jam packed with people, that feeling of claustrophobia was coming back. I was feeling very sceptical about me squeezing into the writhing mass of people. But I couldn’t stand there forever – so in I went. To my surprise, the room emptied fairly quickly, so I cleared that obstacle with not so much as a scratch, just a couple of nervous brain hiccups.
And that’s how I went, throughout the day. Reaching a new challenge, and then realizing that the end was just a hop, skip and a jump away. I gained confidence, and, by the time 5:30 rolled around, I was feeling like I actually might survive the year!
