In short, Catherine's life in high school had officially begun, and she moved into Lily's dorm room.
At first, Catherine thought she might be able to skip grades like she had in elementary school, but she quickly experienced firsthand just how different American education was.
In her very first history class, the teacher assigned them a paper: imagine yourself as a dictator, describe how you would govern the country, and predict the final outcome.
Wasn't this basically a novel outline?
But cruelly, it was reality.
A paper of at least eight pages.
Unfortunately, it was real—undeniably real.
Classes were completely different from elementary school and from those in China.
In class, seven or eight students sat around a table, with the teacher in the center. Classes started at 8:30 a.m. and ended at 2:30 p.m. And the dreaded homework didn't stop there.
Catherine's second challenge was to write a family tree spanning up to seven generations—in just one week.
Catherine's grandparents had died during World War II, so how was she supposed to track them down? To make matters worse, the teachers didn't care. To earn an A, she had to find them; if her grades dropped to a C, she would be required to take extra tutoring classes. Catherine already had far too much on her plate—she didn't have time for this.
Fortunately, Catherine called home, and Bruce and Emma sprang into action. Although her grandparents were gone, there were still other relatives. They made several phone calls to Europe and sent over a batch of documents, and in the end, everything was resolved.
The first two weeks of school were a rough start for Catherine, but luckily, the truly troublesome assignments only appeared a couple of times. Once the semester settled in, the workload became much more manageable.
Catherine had already heard that schoolwork in the United States was unusually difficult, while elementary school was exceptionally easy, with almost no homework at all. Now, she was witnessing firsthand the American style of "divergent thinking."
Even though that ordeal was over, something else was giving her a headache:
joining a club.
"Joining the gymnastics club? I thought you were going to ask me to join the photography club," Catherine said, confused, as she looked at the brochure Lily handed her with a smile.
"Don't you want to capture your most beautiful moments in photos? Besides, I don't really know much about the other clubs. Chess club, astronomy club, literature club… honestly, they sound a bit overwhelming. But my favorite is the gymnastics club."
It seemed that school clubs in the U.S., Europe, and Japan were all quite impressive. To Catherine, Japanese high school clubs were probably the best, followed closely by American college clubs—fraternities and things like that even made it into movies. But it appeared that American high school students were just as enthusiastic about club activities.
Catherine had seen plenty of movies about American high school life, but in this "elite high school," the scenes from those films were almost nonexistent. She didn't know whether it was because of a lack of time, the school environment, or simply because movies exaggerated reality.
Still, there was one thing that matched the movies perfectly: American high schools were, without a doubt, complicated places.
"I know ballet, but I'm not familiar with gymnastics."
"But I think you'd like it."
Catherine rolled her eyes. "You really don't seem like a stereotypical American at all."
"There's no such thing as a 'typical' American. My parents are British immigrants," Lily replied casually.
"Then you really don't seem British either."
"That's why my parents emigrated."
Anyway… let's treat it like a game.
Unable to resist Lily's persistence, Catherine eventually chose the gymnastics club. Lily immediately lit up with excitement and grabbed Catherine, ready to take her to visit the club.
"By the way, Lily, why do you like photography so much?" Catherine suddenly asked halfway there.
"Even though my dad is a photographer, I wasn't interested at all at first. But then I fell in love with Elvis Presley, and I wanted to become a photographer so I could get close to Mr. Presley—maybe even become his personal photographer. Later on, though, I somehow fell in love with using a camera to capture all the beautiful things I see. That's when I realized photography is something truly wonderful!"
The two walked for about ten minutes from the dormitory to the gymnastics training area. The place looked quite nice and spacious, but only seven girls were practicing there. The instructor didn't seem to be present either; it all looked rather informal.
"Hi! Bonnie!" Lily greeted the girl who seemed to be the leader.
"Lily!" the girl replied, walking over.
This girl named Bonnie wasn't particularly pretty, but she had an excellent figure. Her fitted clothes and tights perfectly outlined her curves.
"This is the Catherine I told you about. Kate, this is Bonnie—she's the president of the gymnastics club."
"Hi, Catherine."
"Hi—call me Kate."
The gymnastics club had very few members, probably because of the school's small student population. After all, the school only had a little over 300 students, yet more than a dozen clubs. And not everyone was interested in joining one. In fact, if it weren't for Lily's encouragement, Catherine wouldn't have joined this club at all.
But who could say for sure? Having seen countless clubs on television, Catherine was quite curious about this activity that seemed so popular abroad. Trying it out probably wouldn't hurt, right?
Although Lily enthusiastically brought Catherine along to visit, since the instructor wasn't there, officially joining would likely have to wait. So Catherine sat off to the side and watched them practice, while Lily took out her camera and kept firing the flash until she finished an entire roll of film.
Catherine observed them carefully. To be honest, although gymnastics was different from ballet, it didn't seem particularly difficult. The girls clearly had basic skills, but they weren't professionals.
In the United States, it's common for people to learn dance from a young age, yet still attend college, work, and live like ordinary elementary and high school students. Their dance training doesn't interfere with their academics; on the contrary, having such skills often makes them more competitive applicants for top universities. Many principal dancers in famous companies like the New York City Ballet were trained this way. Quite a few of them also hold degrees in other fields from top American universities.
As a result, even after their dance careers end, these dancers can choose entirely different professions based on their education—such as architectural engineers, lawyers, or even doctors.