Penelope’s first day of school in the FFC

Penelope is an anonymous satirical reflection loosely based on thoughts and opinions of the typical UA girl and has been a Bear Facts tradition for over 10 years.

I was on an adventure. Having left my class in the French Family Science, Math and Technology Center (a.k.a the new building), I was on the hunt to find the new and hopefully improved bathrooms. Before this, my idea of going to the bathroom at Ursuline involved doors with questionable locks and sinks that either spewed out water everywhere or produced no water at all.

So where were these new bathrooms and what would they be like?

Let’s get this out of the way—the bathroom was straight up confusing. I was expecting pre-cal to be one of the most confusing aspects of my Ursuline life, not the bathrooms. The flusher was my first issue; apparently there is some new method of flushing? Due to the drawings on the flusher I didn’t know whether to pull up or push down. I struggled with what to do, not wanting to hurt the environment, and settled on just pushing down. I figured that after that ordeal, washing my hands would be a breeze.

I was wrong. The sudden spurt of soap jumping into my hand and little stream of water coming out of the faucet made me rethink the whole process. I pressed down on the faucet four times before I felt that I had enough water to successfully wash my hand. FOUR TIMES. Wasn’t one supposed to do it?

Then came the gargantuan task of drying my hands. This dryer was made by Dyson, a vacuum company, an indication that this was going to get messy. I was freaked out. I mean, what do you do with your hands? Up or down? Do I keep them in place? Or do I keep moving them around? I tried every process before settling to move my hands up and down because it was the most fun.

The bathrooms were not the only thing that was confusing that fateful first day of senior year. With a new building comes new sights, new classrooms, and a new mysterious staircase to the third floor which serves to amuse you during biology as you watch half a dozen people go up them only to come back down a minute later. They discovered that this stairway dead-ends to the roof.

I thought I left the heating and air-conditioning problems in the portables behind upon my entrance into our new structure. But I was wrong. Apparently diverse temperatures in the classroom is one Ursuline tradition that will never die.

So as I reflect on my last first day of high school, which is both depressing and exciting at the same time, I realize that the reason I love Ursuline Academy so much is that is not perfect. If everything had gone smoothly that fateful, first day I would have lost a little faith in the mystique of our school.