The End of the First Third

The first educational third—that is, the time until Christmas—is the hardest period of the school term, especially for newcomers. For four full months, the most desperate work under the most impossible conditions. It felt something like a small children’s hard labor… At least, personally, it seemed to me that I would never see my native Visim again, nor the native green mountains, nor the dear people I loved… Time definitely stopped, and the last, fourth month was the hardest of all. The days were so short that we left for school while it was still dark, and returned to our apartment when it began to get dusky. We barely managed to have lunch before it got dark. Add to this the Christmas six-week fast, when our diet was reduced to something like formal starvation.