I'm sitting in Biology class right now. Shush, of course I'm paying attention. I'm just very good at multitasking. I thought I'd tell you a bit about my school.
Rightio. So, I go to EG, which stands for Esbjerg Gymnasium. There are about 900 students here, I think. I'm in the second year - they always put exchange students in the second year, so that people actually notice there's someone new - in an Art/Music class, of which I take the Music line.
... And now I'm actually at home, because class finished unexpectedly. That happens a lot, teachers can just decide for themselves when to let students go/cancel/move classes. I've noticed the system here is very egalitarian. Teachers and students all say hi to each other in the halls, we call our teachers by their first names, the principal stands in the canteen greeting everyone as they walk in at 8 o'clock, stuff like that. Classes are left unlocked most of the time, because they really trust the students here. All the lost property is just left on a table under the stairs, for the same reason.
The structure of the school day goes like this:
08:15-09:45 - Module 1
09:45-10:05 - Break
10:05-11:40 - Module 2
11:40-12:05 - Break
12:05-13:40 - Module 3
13:40-13:45 - Break
13:45-15:15 - Module 4
The modules are all 90 minutes long, more or less, so often teachers give us breaks in the middle. During these breaks, some of us go down to the canteen (which is always open), while others go outside to smoke. Smoking is perfectly acceptable at school, provided it's done in the designated areas (i.e. anywhere outside, with the exception of a few balconies). No-one cares that most of the kids are underage.
There's pretty much no such thing as IDing here. Seriously, even if you're obviously about 15, you can just walk into the corner store and buy a packet of cigarettes. Alcohol is the same. You have to be 18 to drink in bars, but only 16 to buy it at the supermarket, and as the age is so low anyway, no-one bothers to check for ID.
The drinking culture here is interesting. Kinda like New Zealand... only it's less of a "you're not cool if you don't drink" and more of a "you're not a true Dane if you don't get absolutely pissed off your face". On Friday night, a girl in my class asked if I was drunk. I said no, and she promptly handed me a bottle and said "you need to drink this." It's not even that they drink a lot because they like drinking alcohol... some of my classmates drank something that they said was disgusting, just because it would get them drunk really quickly.
Okay, I think that about covers my school life... and the part of Danish life that should not be mixed with school. Next time: Patriotism! Look forward to it.
