School Days

Walking home from school today, I could see my breath under the glow of the street lamp. I think this is the moment I realized that Belgian school days  (in my opinion) are far too long. I believe there is a sort of melancholy that comes along with leaving your house in the morning and it’s dark, then returning and it’s dark. I would have expected this revelation would come slowly, but no. It crept up on me and I only realized this last week when the sounds of the street lamps turning on startled me from my daily walk home. Now I realize that part of this darkness is that Belgium is rather far north, but the school day is much longer too.
My school starts at 8:30 and finishes at 4:10. It has the same amount of periods during the day, for more or less the same amount of classtime. SO how is the day so long you might ask? Because we get an hour for lunch, a fifteen minute recess in the morning, and everyone has at least one study hall per day. It may just be me, but it puts a bit of a damper on your day. I seem to be stuck doing nothing until the next course.

As for the schedule, every day is different, which I actually really enjoy. You have different classes, during different periods during of the week. Some days I will have two periods of the same class, but then go without it for 2 days. At the same, this can be bad because it’s really confusing to keep track of what books you will need that day. I have fixed this by checking my schedule every day before going to school.
And this brings me to my favorite part of the Belgian school system schedule. Wednesdays. Every Wednesday for the whole academic year is a half day. I'm not really sure why, but I think it is the time that Belgians kids partake in their extracurricular. It adds a nice break in the middle of the week for homework, a nap, or seeing friends. School is certainly different here, not better nor worse, just... different.