Chapter Eight Beginning
We were all good students at first, thinking of becoming scientists, but later lost our way.
The sun was shining brightly, and today was Ouyang's first day of school. His mood was naturally extra good as he followed his mother to the commuter bus. Ouyang found that most of the people on the bus were familiar faces, mostly elementary school students, although some were not in the same class, but they looked like they were from the same grade. "Ouyang, here!" Ouyang heard Wang Lin's voice and followed the sound to find him, who had already saved a seat for himself. After sitting down, Ouyang looked around and saw that everyone's backpacks were full, with excited expressions on their faces. The bus slowly started moving, and Ouyang waved goodbye to his mother outside the window before starting a conversation with Wang Lin.
Before long, the car stopped outside the Le Fang residential area. Because the management of the community was quite strict, outside vehicles were not allowed to enter. So, the little friends got off together and walked towards the school. "Hey, why can't we see any students?" Wang Lin asked. Xu Xue Mei looked at her watch and said, "Let's hurry up, there are only five minutes left before the flag-raising ceremony." As soon as she said this, all the students rushed to school at their fastest speed. Five minutes was not enough time to put away their bags in class. Ouyang and Wang Lin entered the playground and saw that their classmates were already lined up. They let out a sigh of relief. If their classmates had all lined up on time, they would have been the ones who looked bad. Ouyang quickly found his own class and stood at the back with Wang Lin. Just as they got into position, their teacher Liu walked over and said, "What's going on with you guys? You almost arrived late on the first day of school! You're not following the rules at all." Before Ouyang could speak up, Xu Xue Mei said, "Sorry, teacher. We took the shuttle bus to school and it got stuck in traffic. You know that District D is quite far from here." Teacher Liu listened and then said, "Tell your parents to adjust the shuttle bus schedule a bit earlier when you get back home. It's not good to always be cutting it close like this." Ouyang and his friends nodded repeatedly. After teacher Liu finished speaking, she walked towards where the other teachers were gathered.
The layout of Fengmao Middle School is neither big nor small, as it is located within the outer gate of two schools, including Fengmao High School and a provincial key high school in District C. The playground is divided into two parts. Fengmao Middle School has one teaching building and one laboratory building. The laboratory building is mainly for experimental preparation for grades 7-8 and is relatively small with only two floors. In contrast, the teaching building is very large with six floors, housing not only classrooms but also offices for leaders and teachers.
"The flag-raising ceremony, also the welcoming ceremony for new first-year students, is now beginning." Along with a shout from a classmate on the flag-raising platform, the national anthem was broadcast from the broadcasting room inside the teaching building. At this moment, Wang Lin nudged Ouyang. "What's wrong?" Ouyang tilted his head and whispered.
"Who's that?" Ouyang followed Wang Lin's line of sight and looked over to the edge of the playground, where several late students were standing out in a particularly conspicuous location because they had to stand still when the national anthem was playing.
"Hey, isn't that Zhao Junyi?" Ouyang narrowed his eyes and suddenly found Zhao Junyi standing among the late-arriving classmates. "His home is in this neighborhood, how can he be late? It's really amazing." Ouyang suddenly remembered the day they set out for military training when their whole class waited on the bus for Zhao Junyi to rush down from Building 7, Unit 3 of Le Fang Xiaoqu.
"Who knows, just wait for a scolding." Wang Lin said with a sly smile at Ouyang.
The flag-raising ceremony ended, and the classes entered the teaching building one by one. Ouyang's class was the first to enter, as they were Class 1. The floors for the first and second years were arranged on the third and fourth floors, considering that the upperclassmen would find it more convenient to go downstairs, so the lower grades had to be a bit more modest. When they arrived at their classroom, the teacher said, "Everyone look at the blackboard, according to the data you provided about your height, the seats have been arranged." Ouyang looked at the blackboard and saw that he was sitting in the third row, while Wang Lin was in the second row. Ouyang liked the seat by the window because he could occasionally glance outside. Wang Lin's least favorite person, Zhao Junyi, was also there, but he was tall and had been arranged to sit in the second-to-last row. Just as Ouyang sat down, a female classmate came over and said, "Hello, my name is Chen Juan." This was Ouyang's deskmate. "Ah, hello," Ouyang replied, still a bit dazed. Chen Juan handed him a desk cloth and said, "This is our desk cloth, take it." Ouyang thought to himself that city schools were indeed different, as they even had to put on desk cloths, and every teacher had multimedia equipment, which was really luxurious. He estimated that his friends back home would have to watch their teachers draw on the blackboard every day. Ouyang put the desk cloth on his desk and thought about how his mother had brought a hook for him to hang his lunchbox on the left side of his desk. After he finished arranging his things, the first class was about to start. The first class was Liu teacher's math class, but the teacher didn't teach anything, just emphasized some words from the headmaster, which Ouyang didn't quite understand. He only knew that they had caught up with the first curriculum reform, so the teaching materials and exams were all different from before. Just looking at the textbooks would make you realize this. Before, when Ouyang looked at his friend's math book, it was black and white, just dry knowledge points, without any extra words. But Ouyang's math book was colorful, with pictures of fish and meat on it, making it look very fresh. However, no matter what, Ouyang still couldn't get interested in math. This was all because of a math exam in elementary school. At that time, Ouyang's grades were still good, basically always in the top ten of his class. But during one math exam, Ouyang had answered the questions with great enthusiasm, and when the results came out, the teacher said that only Ouyang's paper had been deducted points from the entire grade level. Ouyang thought it was something good, but it turned out that it was because his handwriting was too messy, and the teacher couldn't give him a score. From then on, Ouyang lost interest in math. On the other hand, Ouyang was very interested in history and liked to read romance, martial arts, and horror novels. Little Ouyang would often stay up late reading horror stories and then have dark circles under his eyes the next day, so his mother would scold him.
Here is the translation:
The 45-minute class passed quickly, and Ou Yang had to attend eight classes a day, with four in the morning and four in the afternoon. The schedule was handed out during recess, and Ou Yang thought it was reasonably arranged, without any duplicate classes on the same day. Instead, there was a self-study period every day, which was a new concept for Ou Yang. She asked her deskmate Chen Jia what self-study meant, and Chen Jia replied simply, "Do whatever you want to do." Ou Yang was delighted by this answer and asked if she could watch horror movies during self-study. Chen Jia laughed and said, "You're kidding, right? Self-study is supervised by teachers, aren't you afraid of getting your extracurricular books confiscated?" Ou Yang felt a bit disappointed but then Chen Jia offered to help her keep an eye out for the teacher in exchange for borrowing some of Ou Yang's books. Ou Yang was thrilled to discover that her deskmate shared her interest in reading extracurricular books.
The second class was Chinese, and Ou Yang had a good impression of the teacher, Pan. She heard from classmates that Pan was a recent university graduate, only in her early 20s, and was very approachable. Ou Yang enjoyed learning Chinese, and time passed quickly during this class.
Feng Mao Middle School had a habit of doing eye exercises during the second period of both morning and afternoon classes, which were supervised by student union members. Ou Yang didn't understand what the student union was until Chen Jia explained that it was an organization run by students to manage their peers. Ou Yang remembered having class monitors in elementary school, who wore a special badge as a symbol of their position.
Chen Jia seemed to know a lot about the school and its customs, which impressed Ou Yang. When asked why she wasn't attending middle school in Beijing, Chen Jia replied that it was because of her father but didn't elaborate further.
The third class was art, which Ou Yang struggled with due to her lack of talent. She found the 45 minutes to be a slow and painful experience.
After class, Ou Yang joined Wang Lin and Xu Xue Mei in delivering food to the water room. They discussed what they had brought for lunch, and Ou Yang offered to share her ribs with Wang Lin, who came from a less affluent family. Zhao Jun Yi, the tallest boy in the class and also the sports committee member, appeared at the door of the water room and reminded them that it was time for physical education.
Ou Yang enjoyed the 20-minute physical education period, which allowed her to see her classmates and take a break from the usual 10-minute recesses between classes. However, she found the broadcast gymnastics exercises to be dull and uninteresting.
The last class was English, and the first sentence the teacher said was, "Fengmao Junior High School is different from other junior high schools. The English listening comprehension in Fengmao Junior High School is listened out, while that of other schools is recited out." As soon as this was said, all the classmates were a bit intimidated by this teacher's aura. However, Ouyang liked this Teacher Zhang and even interacted with the teacher a lot during class, which had something to do with his mother forcing him to learn English since he was in third grade of primary school. When it was almost time for class to end, Teacher Zhang said to Ouyang, "You're not bad at all. How about being my class representative in the future?"
"Is that okay? Thank you so much, teacher." Ouyang gave the teacher a deep bow, and Teacher Zhang smiled and left. Ouyang followed Wang Lin and Xu Xue Mei to find Li Jun, and they all went downstairs together to get food. In Ouyang's impression, this half-day was not bad.
