Chapter 3: The Problem of Social Groups

  Anyway, Catherine's middle school life has begun, and she also moved into Lily's dormitory.

  At first, Catherine thought she could skip grades continuously like in elementary school, but at this time she truly felt the difference of American education.

  In the first history class, the teacher asked them to write a report. The content of the report was to imagine themselves as a dictator and describe how they would rule the entire country and set the final outcome.

  Are you sure this isn't an outline of the starting point?!

  But it's cruel, that's just the fact.

  A report of at least 8 pages is required!

  What a pity, this is really true and can't be any truer.

  It's completely different from elementary school classes and Chinese classes when attending class.

  In class, 7 or 8 students sit around a table, and the teacher sits in the middle to teach. Classes start at 8:30 every day and end at 2:30 in the afternoon.

  Damn it, homework is not just this much.

  The second problem Catherine encountered was: writing out a family tree within seven generations in one week.

  Katherine's grandparents and great-grandparents had all passed away before World War II, so how was she supposed to find them? And to make matters worse, the teacher didn't care about any of this - if Katherine wanted an A, she would have to go searching for these ancestors, and if her grade dropped to a C, she would have to accept extra tutoring.

  But anyway, Catherine made a phone call back, and Bruce and Emma were mobilized. Although the parents had passed away, there were still other relatives in the family. After making several long-distance calls to Europe, they sent back some materials and finally settled this matter.

  Just in the first two weeks of school, Catherine encountered a "baptism by fire", but fortunately, the troublesome homework was only these two times. After SAB started, the homework became ordinary.

  Catherine had heard that American homework was weird, elementary school was exceptionally easy, with almost no homework, but now she has experienced the "divergent thinking" of Americans.

  Although this matter has ended, there is still one thing that makes her a bit of a headache.

  That's joining a club.

  "Join the gymnastics club? I thought you'd want me to join the photography club instead?" Catherine looked at Lily with a puzzled expression, holding the flyer that Lily had handed her with a smile.

  "Don't you want to capture your beautiful moments in photos? And as for other clubs, I don't really understand them. The Go club, the Astronomy club, the Literature club... to be honest, just hearing about them gives me a headache. But my relationship with the Gymnastics club is the best."

  It seems that the school clubs in Europe, America and Japan are all well-organized. In Catherine's mind, Japanese high school clubs seem to be the best, while American university clubs should be the best, with things like sororities even being made into movies. However, it appears that American middle school students are also very enthusiastic about club activities.

  Catherine had seen movies depicting the lives of American high school students before, but in this "key middle school", the plot of the movie was almost invisible. Catherine didn't know if it was because of the short time or the school's reason or the movie's exaggeration.

  But one thing is indeed similar to the movie, that is, American middle school is really a troublesome place.

  "I can do ballet, but I'm not familiar with gymnastics."

  "But I think you will like it."

  Catherine rolled her eyes: "You don't look like a traditional American at all."

  "There isn't really such a thing as a traditional American and my parents were British immigrants." Lily replied nonchalantly.

  "You really don't look like an Englishman."

  "This is the reason why my parents immigrated."

  Forget it... Let's just consider it as playing around.

  Unable to withstand Lily's repeated persuasions, Catherine finally chose the gymnastics club. Lily suddenly became excited and pulled Catherine to visit the gymnastics club.

  "By the way, Lily, why do you like photography so much?"

  On the way, Catherine suddenly asked.

  "Although my father was a photographer, I had no interest in photography at first. However, after falling in love with Elvis Presley, I wanted to become a photographer and get close to Mr. Presley, even becoming his exclusive photographer. But somehow later on, I started enjoying capturing all the beautiful things I could see with my camera, and suddenly realized that photography was such a wonderful thing."

  The two of them walked for about ten minutes before they arrived at the training grounds of the gymnastics club from their dormitory. The venue looked quite good and was very large, but there were only seven girls practicing here, and it seemed that the instructor was not present either, as if it was a self-organized practice session.

  "Hey! Bonnie!" Lily excitedly waved her hand at a girl who seemed to be the leader.

  "Lily!" The girl walked over.

  This girl named Bonnie may not be considered pretty, but her body seems to be in good shape, and the tight-fitting clothes and tights completely outline her curves.

  "This is Catherine I was telling you about. Kate, she's called Bonnie, is the president of the gymnastics club."

  "Hello, Catherine."

  "Hello, just call me Kate."

  The number of people in the gymnastics club is very small, which is probably also related to the fact that there are not many students in the school. After all, this school has only a little over 300 people, but now there are more than a dozen clubs, and not everyone is interested in clubs either. In fact, if it weren't for Lily's encouragement, Catherine wouldn't have joined this club either.

  But then again, Catherine had seen various clubs on TV countless times and was very interested in this seemingly popular thing abroad, so trying it out a bit wouldn't be a big deal, right?

  Although Lily was excited to bring Catherine over for a visit, because the instructor wasn't there, they would have to wait a bit before joining in. So Catherine sat off to the side and watched them practice while Lily picked up her camera and snapped away with the flash until she had used up an entire roll of film.

  Catherine looked at them, to be honest, this gymnastics seems to have some differences from ballet, but the difficulty doesn't seem too great either. These few people seem to have some basic skills, but they don't seem too professional either.

  In the United States, it is common for people to learn dance from a young age, but they go on to attend college, work and live like ordinary middle school students. They do not let their study of dance affect their acquisition of cultural knowledge; on the contrary, because they have a special skill, they become preferred candidates for admission to top universities. Many principal performers in top troupes such as the New York City Ballet are trained this way. Among them, many also hold degrees from other departments of famous American universities. Therefore, even when these performers end their dance careers, they can choose another career based on their specialty, such as architect, lawyer or doctor.

  ……

  Warning: Please approach certain content in this book with a calm and ordinary mindset. If you feel uncomfortable, please study it with a pure and research-oriented mindset.