The first day of school (followed, quite unexpectedly, by the second day)

Well, I lived through the first day of school! It was extremely difficult and quite exhausting - not just because everything was in French and my mind was overloading trying to comprehend even a sliver of it, but also because it is slightly discouraging when you are overwhelmed by tons of people who have their group of friends and are happy as they are, and you can't try to join their conversation because you don't know what they are saying.
So basically, I was drained, exhausted, and at least slightly discouraged.
But I forgot that it was the first day, and the first day is followed by the second day. At the end of the second day I am sitting here writing this feel not hardly discouraged or stress, only slightly drained and in an overall better mood. The classes were more comprehendable today, I felt like I actually made some progress with making friends - all sorts of positive things. And of course the free period I had first thing this morning certainly helped.
Classes here are not like those at Rio Rico High School - a classroomfull of students are each in what is called a class - mine is 5b - and they have a bunch of their subjects, what are called courses together - they see eachother a lot basically, sticking together through many of the courses. And each day has different courses - my first hour Monday is not the same as my first hour Tuesday or Wednesday.
There are 8 hours worth of classes each day plus a lunch period and two ten minute breaks during the day. Monday I started with Geographie, and we spent mot of the period on the basic introduction to the rules of the classroom, the basics of the course, the usual first day in most classes. It almost all went over my head, but I didn't sweat it because it was just the usually pretty common-sense rules.
Next was Complementaire de Francais - basically extra French classes. This class was the hardest I've had so far - we started writing in French basically immeadiately. I was confused and lost, and my poor neighbor was stuck with a partner (we wrote our stories in pairs) who was basically of no help. This class was a big part of why I felt so tired and discouraged at the end of the day.
However, after that hour, I had two hours of Spanish - i should remark that an hour is actually just a 50 minute class period. I understood the most in that class that I had all day because the professor spoke almost solely in Spanish. But more than that, because we were all not fluent in Spanish, I think it was the fact that she spoke slowly. Anyway, I was pleased with myself - I understood a lot and as this is a first level class, I'll be keeping Spanish in my mind without having to worry about getting lost trying to learn a hard level of Spanish in French. Lunch was followed by my second hour of Complementaire de Francais. Again discouraging and tiring, though I am determined to make it not that way next week. I next had my easiest class of all, English. This is more advanced English than the Spanish class - they read articles and have discussions basically trying to get the students to think, speak, read and write fluently. I just enjoy the break, breeze through the homework and am used as a prop by the teacher as needed, for example when no one else in the class can answer the question.
Two hours of religion followed but it was more of the basic intro that I didn't understand and didn't sweat.
Because this is so much longer than I'd hoped it would be, I'm just going to say that today my free period was great, my classes weren't quite as hard, and I had a couple Belgian students to hang out with during class. I'm feeling much more positive about the year than I was and am ready to tackle dreaded Gym tomorrow (especially since tomorrow, like every Wednesday, is a half day).