First day in gimnazija. Kind of excited and kind of scared. By the law, high school is not mandatory, so you can get kicked out, and we all know some guys who didn't finish it. So this is a step into the more serious world of real life, responsibilities, grownups...
The building is rather old. Later I'll learn that we're 125th generation (or thereabouts... there may have been interruptions during wars, or counting was different). There's a catholic monastery in one corner of the building and it's inaccessible from the school. There's a terrace connecting the front and right wings on the first floor, and another door to enter the right wing at the ground floor (yes I'm deliberately counting the ground floor as zero, this is how we count them here). I never visited the right wing, perhaps once.
My classroom is down in the left wing, just below principal's (director's, that is) office; the next one is below the staff room. It's rather dark, the building is old and the walls are dark gray, from all the coal smoke over the decades. Or it was plastered that way so it doesn't turn ugly when the soot settles. The windows aren't too large. The floor is wood planks, oiled with something (petroleum was common) long ago so the dust would stick to it instead of flying off.
The seats are the classic skamija, probably some fifty years old. Two seats in the same frame as the desk, with the front of the desk being a solid piece of wood, to be the backrest for the couple in the next skamija in the front. The guys in the last row use the rear wall to lean on. It's oil painted to meter and a half height. They are heavy and probably impossible to move. For a while I thought they were nailed to the floor but then I saw one moved. By two guys, one is not enough.
Initially I thought they'd eat me; there was almost nobody I knew (except Sredljak). I wasn't a jock or anything like a hunk; was still relieved of PE. On other fronts I was trying to be a frajer, which worked quite fine in the 8th grade, but here nobody knew me. It turned out that except the two of us, everybody else was from surrounding villages, some of them almost an hour's ride (because the bus would have to take too many stops). So nobody there city-wise; few guys full of village tricks but nothing serious or dangerous. Actually, they were all just as scared as I was, and then pretty soon saw it's not bad at all.
Most of the girls were in the 1st division, which was a strictly female one... well, for this year only. IIRC, Dragana, Tejka, Miljka, Milica, Milica, Savka, Oli Boj, Bosa, Duca... the whole gang. That class was something, and only at times I got some stories of how it was.
Before the end of the week I figured I wouldn't have trouble adjusting to them; they may have to adjust to me, and if that's a problem, that's their problem.
Anyway, this is just first grade and we're all mixed up. Next year, the classes would be reshuffled according to the directions - there will be two classes of social studies, three of science and maths, and one hungarian (science and maths - the Hungarians who'd take social would switch to the 2nd gimnazija which worked in the same building, but in the other shift. The female class mostly went to the socials, which then had one division with just 5-6 guys. OTOH, the 3rd gimnazija had one class with just one girl.
Notes on professors:
- Troskok: cute, young and a serious case of stage fright, at least during the introductory speech. And later. Never stopped blinking. (never did, and the stage fright never vanished, she always seemed like someone's looking over her shoulder and checking her every move, with a whip ready)
- latin: the Granpa (Dedica is actually a diminutive of it) - gray, bald, combing the hair from one side to cover the piste. Mentions "you know" very often (nine times a minute, as per my count of a few months later). When he held the class in that female division, overstayed the bell by ten minutes.
- serbian: Sonja, this will be great, and fun; nice girl
- maths - seems similar to Ivka at least by the system of work, which means no trouble