#miator

...or, well, two so far. But here's a running list of the nuns on campus, anyway. (It's also implied that, unlike in the animé, nuns teach all the classes in the light novels' version of Astraea Hill.)

Sister Sakaue is a brooding, strict nun who works at the church. The church is usually closed, so you have to appeal to her if you want to enter it for anything except a pre-planned event.

I'm having to piece these together from snippets of trivia here and there, but here's a rough class schedule for students on Astraea Hill. When something is just mentioned as being an aspect of one school's routine instead of another's, I've noted that, but I'm assuming everything else is universal.

8-8:15 am: students proceed to homeroom. Not everyone is a boarder at the Strawberry Dorms: some people take the train from their homes. Boarders, however, walk through Maiden Park with no chance for contact with the outside world.

8:15 am: First bell, which rings out from the old church in the back of Maiden Park. Since this bell is explicitly tied to the church and not one of the schools, I'm assuming this timing applies to all three schools - and it's telling the girls to hurry up and get to class.

I'm guessing morning homeroom starts at 8:30, since Japanese schools usually provide more than one bell before students are marked as "tardy". Miator girls begin the day with a hymn.

I'm not sure how many periods there are in a day. There are definitely over five. And from the timing we see, periods look to be about an hour long, so - I'm guessing maybe there are six hour-long periods (not including lunch) in a Miator day, with morning homeroom from 8:30-9 and afternoon homeroom from 4-4:30.

One of the two-page spreads about campus activities shows off a swim class meeting at 10:00 am in the summer, featuring students from all 3 schools.

Lunch is presumably from noon to 1:00 pm - there's a reference to one of the events in the Étoile competition starting at 1, with all afternoon classes cancelled for it.

Another two-page spread shows girls from all 3 schools "taking a break" and playing basketball in the gym at 2 pm, but it's unclear whether they're in gym class or if they actually get a break. I lean towards thinking it's a class because they're in gym uniforms.

The only other class I've seen explicitly mentioned is science, which Miator girls have in a lab. No timing is associated with this, but that makes sense - every class would have different subjects at different times.

Afternoon homeroom is the last period of the day, during which Miator girls sing another hymn.

After afternoon homeroom, students clean up the classroom together. In Miator, it's everyone's job; Lulim assigns different students to look after the classroom each day.

Lulim might get out earlier than the other schools; there's a mention on a two-page color spread of "after school" clubs meeting at 3:30 pm. I've yet to run into Spica timing, but Miator....

Miator has three different dismissal times! The first dismissal bell rings at 4:30 pm, at which point students proceed to their clubs. This bell's timing never changes.

Many students apparently skip out before this, however, as we're told of quite a few tea parties taking place in the Miator lounge at 3:30 pm.

The second dismissal bell (signaling the end of clubs) rings at 5:30, and the third bell is only used for special events like the cultural festival. This rings at 6.

These latter two bells' timing can change up to 15 minutes either way, daylight & other circumstances permitting.

After school, Miator girls take one of two paths. They either head directly down the path to the train station or they walk alongside the school buildings, in front of Lulim, around the outer edge of Maiden Park, heading for the Strawberry Dorms in the back of campus. This path is lined with flowers. (Just like everywhere else, let's be real.)

This walk takes about 20 minutes! So, on average, Miator students are arriving back at the Strawberry Dorms around 6 pm each night (assuming there isn't a festival or anything).

All schools' dorms have nuns patrolling the corridors at night. I haven't run into a set time for curfew yet, but we do hear of a patrol making the rounds at 10:45 pm.

Remember how I said the convent & church used to have a different entrance? One of the reasons Nagisa got lost on her first day at Miator is that she came in this way - ie, through what's now technically the "back" of campus. More information follows:

Also known as the "true main gate", the "old approach" is now seldom used.

It's a large bronze gate, overgrown with the wilderness.

Being a student on Astraea Hill comes with its own set of rules and regulations. Here's some things that are frowned upon, or interpreted differently than in the "outside world".

Despite the presence of the Étoile competition and position, upperclassman-underclassman relationships are technically discouraged due to "strict rules" both at the schools and dorms.

Pointing at someone is the sign of a challenge. It's to be avoided unless you really, really mean it.

No one is allowed to go from one school's section of the Strawberry Dorms to another's without permission from the dorm mothers or "dorm manager"/"dorm leader" (a student position in charge of mentoring/looking after the boarders).

Miator girls are forbidden to sigh. The reasons are unclear - maybe just politeness, maybe a superstition to avoid bad luck.

Though many landmarks and customs at the three schools are shrouded in mystery (often in a tongue-and-cheek way), the light novels do provide a brief history of the campus. Here's a summary:

Once upon a time the only things on Astraea Hill were a convent and a church. Then, in the Meiji era (1868-1912, a period of Japanese history known for modernization & cultural shifts), Miator was built.

As a result, Miator has particularly strong ties to the convent - it's called Miator's "mother institution". This same convent provides the nuns who teach classes at all three schools.

Other convents of the same order support the schools in their own ways, too (such as providing special pastries, which are apparently such a big deal they'll get their own entry later).

For a long time, only the most elite girls could attend Miator. Just haven't money wasn't enough to get in; you had to be super distinguished and classy.

Having a daughter attend Miator, or marrying a Miator girl, therefore became a huge status symbol.

Eventually, to accommodate the overflow from Miator's waiting list, Spica and Lulim were built.

Because Miator came first and has such a long legacy/reputation, there's a lot of tension between it and the other schools, Spica in particular.

As an additional side-effect of being the oldest school, many of the best facilities on campus are also associated with Miator, even if all three schools are free to use them.