It's so different from how I remember it - maybe it's because I was in a french immersion program, or maybe it's the new class size limitations - but there weren't 4 different classes for every single grade. We didn't need to wait for the first day to find out who we had for a teacher, or who was going to be in our class... I went to school from year to year, with the same group of kids. We knew who the teacher was for the next grade, and that was going to be your teacher the next year.

In this exploding area of Ottawa however, even with a new school opening up nearby to take a good chunk of the kids - it's still school-yard chaos on day 1. Papers posted on the walls for all the kids to see which class they're in, and for the older students - they had to wait to get into the gym to get their assigned teachers and classes... I can only imagine what kind of crazy the gym would have been for that. It's a brand new school, only a few years old - but they've put an addition on it now, and have 10 or 12 portables in the yard to hold all the kids. Of course they're still building a pile of homes in the area too - where the heck are they going to fit them all?!?! More great city planning Ottawa.

What's more amazing, is the names on the class lists... The ratio of boys to girls is at least 4:1 and the names, like the area, is so diverse. There's a ton of new canadians in the area, from Indian to Russian, Muslim and Chinese - the regular old 'canadians' are the minority here. Where I grew up, they used to have seperate areas in the class lists for Mc's and Mac's on top of the M's. Not quite the same problem here. Meghan said she had a few new boys in her class, one who's first name was Zhang, the other who's last name was Zhang ;-)

But the girls seem relatively happy with their classes and teachers, so here's to hoping for a good year for them!

bummer summer though...