On Monday school finally starts. The teacher introduces me to the class and by third period the whole school knows there is a girl from Germany in the sophomore class. In drama class I meet a nice freshman guy named Aaron. He reminds me a lot of that weird guy on Parker Lewis. He is wearing jeans tugged in his boots and a dark army coat. Some junior guy Dan sits next to me. He has dark hair and blue eyes. He is cute, but he pretty much flirts with every girl in sight. Since he plays football I figure he is one of those narcissistic jocks (Again, too many US TV shows! Apologies to Dan for that)

TV, books and pen pals give the impression that the most important thing at American schools is how popular you are. Of course hanging out with the losers seems less desirable than being part of the cool crowd. Guys that play team sports usually are pretty popular. (BTW, God bless Germany for the non-American sports-free teenage social system).

At Hesperia Christian there are several groups of students. There are the jocks, the cheerleaders, the trend-setters, the smart kids, the artistically interested, the cowboys, the alternative people, the nice Christian girls - and the ones everyone will forget existed at the end of the day.   

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That first day in Chapel I become friends with Jessica who is somewhere in between groups. We get along fine and end up spending almost every single second of each day together for the entire month. I quickly meet lots of people. Everyone knows I am new and tries to make me feel comfortable. One reason for that most likely is that they have never met anyone from Germany (or Europe) before.

On my second day I meet Kelly, one of the Cheerleaders. She gives me the insights on all the mentionable HCS guys. As usual the best-known ones belong to the senior class and form some type of closed clique. The most popular of them is Matt who plays all three sports: Football, Basketball and Baseball. His girlfriend Heather is well known in the sophomore class. Next is Tim, who has broken the heart of almost every good looking girl at school. Over the first weeks several girls warn me of his irresistible charm. Tom shares the position as captain of the football team with Matt. Also, there is his best friend Paul, as well as Mark, Mike and Scott. And finally Jason, wo is the only one not playing Football or Baseball but he is the captain of the basketball team. Otherwise worth mentioning are loner Dustin Gallagher and the two juniors Dan and Quarterback/Cowboy Josh. The rest of the school I meet pretty fast as well.

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After a while the popular and unpopular concept does get to me. Why does anyone give a shit about the way you look and dress, or what kind of sports you play? It really freaks me out when one day at lunch Cheerleader Kelly strongly advises me not to hang out with Aaron. It would "harm my reputation" so she says. I try to forget about it, but it gets stuck in the back of my head.

I also realize that some things are quite different from the public high school. The football games are extremely boring (and at the time I did not even know about baseball!!!). While at Hesperia High the whole school shows up to cheer, the HCS audience mostly consists of parents, girlfriends and wanna-be girlfriends. The Cheerleaders are not exactly popular - maybe except for Kelly. Especially the head Cheerleader is really irritating. Anyone who thinks Cheerleaders are strikingly hot sure has not been to Hesperia Christian. Here you will have to go for the girl's volleyball or basketball team.

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As predicted Tim starts being all nice to me. I tell one of the girls that I am not interested. The next day the entire school talks about it. Now that was the fast way of finding out how much people at school gossip.

Only two weeks after my start at HCS, on October 28th, I get my first detention. Chad has put forward the clock in health class to make it seem like the 10-minute-bell which rings ten minutes before class ends, is the end of the period. We all leave class and get a detention for disobedience. My first detention is not quite so amusing. We have to go to the library 10 minutes after school ends and copy a list of random words from the bible (Matthew, Jeremiah, lake, boat, last supper. Gosh, so ridiculous!). Unfortunately I soon find out that the library is the place I am going to spend most of my afternoons at.

At the end of the week the principal announces the 'Sadie Hawkins Day Picnic'. Most American schools have a dance for Sadie Hawkins Day where the girls have to ask out the guys. But at HCS dancing has something to do with close and very evil contact between the sexes and to eliminate the chances of possibly unholy consequences, we have picnic on the football field after school on November 8th. I ask Dan to join me. In return Dan invites me to see a football game at Apple Valley together with his cowboy friends Josh and Eli. Luckily, the evening with Dan is much more of a date than the one with Cory - although we never quite spark. But I do get to know Eli, a exceptionally nice junior.

For the Sadie Hawkins Day picnic everyone has lunch with their dates. Afterwards teachers and cheerleaders make people play games no one really cares about. I end up spending little time with Dan but hang out with Eli for the most part. I also meet senior Scott who also plays on the football team. If the entire senior football team had not shaved their heads for the Football season he would wear his dark hair hidden under a San Diego Chargers hat. And he does have the bluest most amazing eyes (No wonder he got voted "greatest eyes" at the end of the year :-))

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