Pictures...Finally!

Hmmm ok I know I have really neglected this blog and there is absolutely no excuse for it. I was just being lazy. But finally here are the pictures I promised ages ago.

These are the pictures from the Christmas party at the end of last term.

It was really fun. Every boy had two dates. The was this worked was that each boy picked two names out of a hat and on the night of the Christmas party all the girls went to the dayroom and each boy came in one by one and asked his dates to the prom and gave her a rose. Then we went down to the dining hall where our house had our Christmas party. It's a different venue for every house. Some houses had it in their dayrooms and some had it somewhere else.
After we ate and took so many pictures we went back to our house and sat in the dayroom. There one person started with guessing who their secret Santa was. Secret Santa is something we do every year, two weeks before the end of term. We all pick a name from a hat and then we do small things for them over the two weeks, like give them sweets or write nice notes. Some people made up treasure hunts or cleaned their corners for them. Many people were very creative. Mine was Maria from Bulgaria and I had been giving things to Zimin from China.
Now to the pictures:

Our dorm: me, Yi Hui, Emily, Mari and Ellen.

The Germans of Whitaker: me, Heike and Lena.

This is me and Alan with our Brazilian flag.
Many people took pictures in front of their flags
or even the UWC flag

These are most of the Lifeguards in our house.
But some can't be seen very well in this picture.

My date: me, Arif and Gwen.

First year girls of Whitaker. Starting from the row in the back:
Lena, me, Shatha, Mari, Maria, Sophie, Ola and Ellen
Middle row: Kesay, Yuni, Dieteke and Abby
The row on the floor: Kitty (Katherine), Eloise, Anjana and Zoe.

First year boys. Back row: Spencer, Leandro, Sebastian,
Robbie, Leonardo, Maurus and John.
Front row: Zahir, Jahn, Zimin (also called Alex) and Arash.

Second year girls. Right at the back: Sarah, Robbie even
though he's not a girl, he just decided to feature in this picture) and Heike.
Middle row: Ayah, Karen, Ellie, Alejandra, Yi Hui, Emily, Miya, Gwen
and Nataliya.
Bottom row: Buket, Sana, Guro and Kiera.

The blonds in Whitaker. Second row: Eloise, Jil, Kiera and Heike.
Front row: me, Zoe, Jahn, Kitty, Dieteke and Emily.

Whithaker Latinos: Leandro, me, Heike, Alejandra and Alan.


Our amazing Christmas tree in the dining hall.

Shatha, me and Dieteke.

This is quite a funny picture of me, Leandro from
Argentina and Dieteke from the Netherlands.

The Germans AND Maurus (he's from Switzerland).

Our second year boys. Yes there are actually only five of them!
Arif, Wilhelm, Patrick, Alan and Sam.

There is a lot more to follow in the next week. I will be posting things I wrote over the beginning of this term and I will also be posting things about our project week which was our Tour Choir trip to Poland. We only got back from that this morning at about 1am. I am still completely exhausted. But it was great.

Lots of love,

Miriam

End of term...

Ok here is just a very quick update.

Tomorrow, Wednesday after Castle, house and beach clean up (in my case) is end of term. Many people are leaving on the night bus at 11pm. I'll be leaving to Germany on Thursday. It's really weird to think that I have been here for almost three months. Time really flew by. But I am glad the term is over and I get a month to relax a little, although I will be working on quite a few things like staying fit and also on some dances for our musical and for a modern ballet piece me and another girl would like to perform next term.
This afternoon us, firstyears, finished our exams. They weren't too bad but they still made us all really tired. This whole week I haven't really been getting more than 4 to 5 hours of sleep every night and tonight probably won't be any different because all of those who are leaving tomorrow want to enjoy their last night at AC.

On Sunday I went to my dormate, Emily's, house. It was really nice to get out of the college especially while everyone was stressing over exams.

Tonight was the TBA (time based art) performance and the tour choir had it's first performance. I think we did quite well and I hope that Brian, our conductor, was pleased with our singing. Then there were also some people from Hungary which have been here this whole week. They performed a few hungarian dances and in the end they taught us an old hungarian folk dance. I think all of those who participated most certainly enjoyed it. I know that I most definitely did.

Alright I'll stop there for now.
Once I'm in Germany I'll have more time and a faster internet connection which means I'll be posting all the pictures which I have been wanting to post for ages.

Missing everyone,
Miriam

Two and a half more weeks to go...

I know I have completely ignored this blog for ages but today I decided to just sit down and tell you all what has been happening.


Two and a half more weeks and it’s end of term. This term went by so fast. It’s hard to believe that it’s almost over. It will definitely be weird to go to Germany and not have all these people constantly around me.

It suddenly got quite cold making Service quite unpleasant at times. The water is quite cold and so is the weather. Service is still fun, the cold is just something to get used to. So many people have been sick lately and sadly I am one of them but it’s not too bad. Just have a cold.

On the third of October we had something called Cinderfella. Basically what it’s like miss world or something like that but with boys instead of girls all dressed up. It was quite hilarious but a few things were really exaggerated and not necessary.

At the end of October we (German first years) cooked for the German second years and the German teacher, Christian. That was also the night of the African national evening and I was really just running around from one place to another. The meal was amazing and everything turned out really well except the national evening it self which was fun but I guess certain parts were a little disorganised. In the end the national evening was still quite fun.

We also had Halloween party at the end of October. Not everyone went but quite a few people found it really fun to get dressed up for it and the Americans came around to the houses trick or treating. In the end one of my dorm mates and I managed to get a lot of sweets from the party and also a bottle of coke. We then spend the night watching a movie.

Two weeks ago we, first years, had first aid week while our second years went to London to relax a little after all the work they have been doing. We had 3 days of first aid classes where we learned all sorts of things like how to perform CPR and so on. Quite a lot of the things we learned were common sense though. At first it was weird to be here without the second years. The whole campus was so empty with only half the amount of people here but it was still nice to just get to know the other first years better.

Tomorrow I have my lifeguards practical and theory exam. I’m guessing it’s not the final one but I should still pass it. We got folders for Lifeguards with around a 100 pages of information. Luckily we had first aid prior to this but I feel like I have forgotten quite a lot of it already.
Then next week Friday we first years start our end of term exams. Quite a few people are either excited or nervous about them. It’s weird to think that many people here have never had exams before and these will be their first.

Lat week Saturday it was on of the German second years’ birthday. So on Friday night just before midnight some of us Germans went over to Sunley (one of the houses) for her showering at midnight. After we showered her (which is a tradition here, you shower someone at midnight on their birthday) al the Germans who were there said we had a surprise for her but that it wasn’t in the house. So we took her, still dripping wet and without shoes, outside and started walking her in direction of the sea front. After a while she asked us where we were taking her and then she understood that we planned on throwing her into the pool and she tried to run. Luckily one of the boys managed to hold her and we carried her down. At first we had though of throwing her into the outdoor pool but we thought that it would be too cold so we opted for the indoor pool instead. It was quite a fun experience.
Then on Saturday morning we had our street theatre in Cardiff. At around 9:30 am we went to Cardiff. The street theatre was for Amnesty International and it was about the Monks in Burma. It was quite successful and we got about 4000 signatures from people in Cardiff which will be sent of to Burma in the hope that they will let the people in prison go.
I was surprised to see how many people didn’t care or know about what is happening and how they thought that it was actually really annoying and a waste of time. Some people in Cardiff were really happy that we were trying to do something about it and they really appreciated it while others told us off and to leave them alone.
After the street theatre I went to my Link Family which was really nice. It’s always good to get out of school for a day or two every once in a while.

This was just before we started the street theatre. We were dressed in red to represent the Monks.

On Sunday we started something called Secret Santa in our house. This means that everyone pulled a name out of a hat and the person’s name you pull out you need to give things to. You can give that person anything you like, for example notes wishing them a happy day, sweets, chocolate, stories pictures or even something like what my dorm mate’s secret Santa did: clean their corner of the room for them. I was very surprised when I saw my dorm mate’s secret Santa cleaning her corner for her. It was really impressive and a really nice thing to do. The person I am giving things to I haven’t really spoken much to, which makes it really hard because I don’t know what he likes but I still try by giving him little notes or sweet or chocolate everyday.
On Monday while I was in choir and I opened one of my choir booklets I notice that someone had stuck a note into it. The note turned out to be from my Secret Santa. I found it really nice of them to think of putting a note into my choir things, it made me really happy.

On the 4th of December there is a concert in which the tour choir will be singing. Bryan our instructor is quite keen on getting all our songs to be perfect. I wonder how it will end up. Then in March for project week we are definitely going to Poland. The tickets have been bought. I am really looking forward to it.

Well I’ll stop here for now and go study for my exam tomorrow.

I will add more pictures sometime later this week.

Miriam

School, Service and Long weekend

Hi everyone.

I know I haven't posted for ages and I am really sorry. I've been quite busy lately but definitely not as busy as all of our 2nd years who have deadlines after deadlines. It's scary to imagine that next year this will be us stressing.
The workload so far hasn't been too bad but still I am constantly busy because there is something happening almost every night.
Every week we have a different focus week. So far the ones we've had are Environmental, Sports, Middle eastern and Latino focus weeks. During Environmental focus week people were trying to raise the awarness of how to help the environment. Sports week was basically all houses competing against each other. In the end Powys won. During the Middle Eastern focus week we were told about different conflicts in the middle east like the Palestinian and Israeli conflict. It is very different to hear students debating about it than watching the news on tv. Here we have students from both places and they both have different views on the matter. It's interesting to hear what both sides have to say from people who grew up with the conflict.

Every Sunday we have different National evenings. So far we've had the British, Latino, Nordic and Middle Eastern National evenings and next week will be the African one which I will participate in. Altogether I will be in three national evenings. Hopefully I will be able to get some pictures from the African one and post them here.

Today our long weekend starts which means no school until Tuesday =)
Tomorrow I will be going into Cardiff again (I was there last week) with a friend. Then on Saturday I will be going to stay with my link family until Monday morning. A few weeks ago we were introduced to our link families here at school. Mine is really nice. I share the family with another girl from the College. Two weeks ago we went to their house for lunch. I really enjoyed it and they have a little daughter called Charlotte who is really sweet.

Last week Thursday I got to meet the Dutch Prince. He is an AC graduate from about 20 years ago and he comes here quite often along with the Dutch national committee. Along with other students I got to take them to lunch. It was really interesting to speak to them I really enjoyed it.

Now to my service. So far I have really been enjoying lifeguards. It's quite demanding and it gets you really tired but I still find it a great service. I have been told that very soon I will be wishing I had chose social service instead and that I will be envying those who did chose it because they get to drink tea and eat cake while we are freezing in the cold water. Well I guess it will get quite cold but our 2nd years survived so why shouldn't we?
We were all divided into 6 different groups which have two 2nd year group instructors each.
So far we've had three different types of service sessions. One is surfing which is my favorite at the moment and the others are kayaking and fitness. I find all of them quite challenging but manageable. For kayaking we go out into the sea just down at the sea front in the College and for Surfing we go to a nearby beach called Southerndown. Well fitness is done here at the college. It usually starts of with a running, pushups and sit ups session and then we go into swimming. We have to do different sprints and a timed swim which mean that we need to be able to swim 20 lengths in less than 7 and a half minutes. I haven't quite managed yet, I was 40 seconds too slow but hopefully next time (which will be next Tuesday) I will manage.
This morning at 6am we were supposed to have a morning swim but our group instructors couldn't find the key to the indoor pool so it got cancelled.

We all had to chose 6 activities and we got 3 of our choices. Mine are Tour Choir, Operation Smile and Kitchen Support. Tour Choir is twice a week for an hour and a half. At the end of this term we will be having our first performance. In late February/early march we will be going to Poland for a week during project week. I am already looking forward to it.
Operation smile is an international organization. What we do here is try to fundraise for operations on cleft lips and cleft pallid in developing countries. I thought it would be a good thing to join. The stories we saw about those children really touched me and I am glad that there is a way in which we can help them. If you would like to find out more this is the website: http://www.operationsmile.org/ This term we are organizing a show so that we can fundraise for some operations. One operation costs about £350.
Kitchen support is basically working in the kitchen for 2 hours a week. Here at AC we have to do a college service and kitchen support is one of them. Basically what I’ve been doing is unloading the dishwasher and putting things back where they belong.
I also joined some activities unofficially . These activities are School Musical, Music lessons (viola) and modern dance. Unofficially means that I wasn’t signed down for it but I can go anyways.

Last week a few guys got their heads shaved for human rights (Amnesty International). They managed to collect about £700.

There was also a masquerade ball around 2 weeks ago. It was really exciting to make the masks but the ball itself wasn't that great but luckily I found another party to go to which was a lot more fun.

This picture was taken last week for the school calendar. We went to many different places of the castle and had someone take the picture from the watch tower.

This is one of the beasts in our beast garden here at the college. It is said that no matter where you stand there will always be one of the beasts looking at you. There is however one square where none of the beasts look at you and supposedly if you stand there at midnight you will disappear or something like that. Personally I find that garden quite freaky at night.










Robert and Aaya both supporting Whitaker just after we lost (by one point) the basketball match against Powys.

Me and Leandro (from Argentina) supporting Whitaker during sports week.

This picture was taken in our day room just before the masquerade ball.

Well that's it for now. Missing everyone,



Miriam

First day of classes.

Hi =)

I got back from camp on Thursday night and we were all really excited about taking the first shower since we went to Camp on Monday.
Camp was really nice but I hardly doubt that I'll be going back as camp leader next year hahaha. I was nice there but I think once is enough. While at camp we had our lifeguard induction which was the only one missing. We had the other service inductions from Friday (14/09) until Monday (17/09) morning. The communtiy services offered here are Lifeguards, ILB (Inshore Lifeboat Service), CAVRA (Cardiff and Vale Rescue Association), CEP (Community Education Partnership), Social Centre, Arts Centre, EMC (Extramural Centre), Estate and Visual Rescue. My first choices were Social Service and Lifeguards and in the end I got Lifegurads. Lifeguards seems to be the service containing the largest amount of people, we are 46 firstyears in Lifeguards this year.
In camp we played a bunch of games, did some surfing, cosateering, some environmental work and a 7 hour walk. I enjoyed all of it and it was great to meet more people but I'm glad to be back and sleep in a proper bed and be able to shower.
On Saturday we got to go out to Llantwit Major for the first time. It's about half and hour to 40 minutes walking distance from AC. Saturday night we had the first year show which was organised by our second years. After the Show we went to Sosh to have some fun and dance. I really enjoyed that evening. Last night was the British national evening. The Brits put up a show which was really funny. Next week it's the Latino national evening and I'll probably be part of that.
This morning at 7:15 our German second years made some breakfast for us and we all got Schultüten. Which is something you get when you go to school for the first time in Germany. It was really sweet of them to organise the breakfast and the Schultüten with the sweets in them.
Classes started at 8am and my first class was French Higher Level.
I didn't go to my other two classes because I ended up not feeling well so I stayed at the medical centre until 6pm. I missed Environmental Systems and Europen History (Higher Level). Classes at AC are called codes because every class has it's own code. School goes until Lunch at around 12:30/13:00 and then we have service on certain days until 4pm and at 5pm on a Monday and on a Friday we have evening codes from 17:00 to 18:00. My evening codes are History and Spanish. Tomorrow I'll be going to the beach for my service. I'm not compltely sure what exactly we'll be doing but I'm really excited about it.
Last week Monday I auditioned for the Tour Choir and I was really happy to find out on Friday that I got accepted for it. Sadly because I was sick today I missed my first practise but there's another one on Wednesday evening.

I finally managed to get the pictures working. I hope you all enjoy them =)

This was on the day we arrived. Those are our second years banging pots to welcome us first years.

This picture was taking last Saturday just after the first year show. Lena (dressed up as super rain woman), Kesey (dressed up as a stuardess) and me (dressed up as super school girl). We all had to dress up as a made up super hero.

The girl between me and Kesey in Ellen. She is one of my co-year dorm mates and she was dressed up as autumn woman.

This is the Schultüte I was talking about which our German second years gave us this morning. We had to take them to assembly. It was quite funny having everyone ask what they were =)

This is my corner in my dorm. We all have a corner which we can decorate how we want.

Well I should probably get some sleep now.

Lots of love,

Miriam

Finally here...

Hello everyone...

Last week friday (the 7th) me and my parents travelled to London. We arrived at Heathrow airport sometime in the mornign and took a Taxi to our hotel. Sadly the Hotel turned out not to be what the website said it was. In other words in was quite bad. Luckily we managed to change to another Hotel quite fast.
I found London absolutely amazing! We spend Friday and Saturday in London. I was able to watch the change of guards at Buckingham palace which I found really interesting and we then took one of those Tour buses around London.

Sunday morning we took a train from Paddington station in London to Cardiff, the Capital of Wales. It took us about 2 and a half hours to get there.
I didn't see much of Cardiff on Sunday because we took a Taxi to Llantwit Major not long after we arrived.
On Monday we went to Cardiff by train. It's not too far from Llantwit Major.

On Tuesday at around 11 am a Taxi came to pick us up from the hotel. It didn't really take us very long to get to AC and as we drove through the front gate it finally started clicking in that this is where I'll be spending most of my time for the next two years. Around a week ago everything was still very dreamlike but it suddenly became so real.
Once we got out of the Taxi I felt very lost because I didn't really know where to go. I did know that my house is Whitaker but I didn't know where to find it. Luckily two girls aproached us and they said that I'm in their house. They helped me with my luggage and walked me back towards the front gate which is where Whitaker is. Once I got to the house I met people I had already met through facebook and I met one of my second year dormmates, Yi Hui from China.
In my dorm we are five girls. Most of the time it's four but there are a few exceptions. Two of my dormates are day students. Emily, from Wales one of my second years, is a day studennt and so is Ellen one of my co-years from the UK. My other co-year dormate is Mari from Norway.
The first bus with firstyears from Heathrow arrived around 4pm and was greeted by our secondyears banging pans and pots outside. As the firstyears got off they had to say their names and where they were from. The same thing happened with the other two buses which arrived later on that day.
At night we played games in our houses. One of the games was quite violent and I fell on my thumb which started swelling quite fast. The game was really fun though and I would definitely play it again.
On Wednesday we we shown around the Castle, which is amazing by the way, and the rest of the college. We had to do a little swimming test so they would know if we could swim once we go to camp. Some of the houses are already going to Camp tomorrow but we're not going until Monday. So far what I've heard about camp sounds really interesting and fun... but more about that later. We had our pictures taken so that they could put them in the breakfast room (we don't actually have breakfast there) for everyone to learn the names. The food here at AC hasn't been as bad as I expected it to be. So far it had actually been quite good.
In the evening I met up with the Germans at AC and we got to know each other a little then I went to the Latinos to meet them as well. I haven't been able to remember everyone's names though... but it's slowly getting better. With each day I can remember more names. It's just quite hard to learn all the names and figure out who is a first and who is a secondyear. I've started decorating my corner in our dorm but I haven't gotten very far yet.

Today we were told about the subjects we can choose and that has proven to be really confusing! I though I basically knew which subjects I will be taking but it turned out that so may other subjects were so interesting and I got really tempted to choose those instead. In the end I chose History Europe, Spanish B (foreign language) and French B as my Higher Level subjects and Environmental Systems, Mathematical Studies and English A1 as my Standard level subjects.
Surprisingly the weather here has been really good and sunny and a lot better than it was in Germany while I was there.
Today we were also told about Link families, Services, Activities and Camp. The services and the activities sound really interesting but we didn't speak much about them today.
Right now there are many people playing games in our dayroom and it sound like they're having loads of fun :)
If there's anything you would like to know more about let me know :)
Sadly I can't post any pictures now. I'm not sure why but it's not working so as soon as I figure out what's wrong I'll post some pictures.

That's all for now...

Lot of love

Miriam

UWC AC

Hello everyone!

The next two years of my life I'll be spending at Atlantic College the United World College in Wales. I'm guessing that in the next two years I'll be having quite a busy lifestyle, so instead of constantly writing emails to everyone with more or less the same things written in them or group emails I decided to start this blog. I think that this should be more convenient than mail or email but I can't promise that it won't fall behind sometimes. But I promise to do my best to keep it up to date!

Atlantic College is located on the Bristol Channel in a 12th century castle. The nearest town is called Llantwit Major. It's about 5 minutes away from the school.

There are about 330 students from over 80 different countries at AC. There are 7 houses on campus which which each accommodate around 48 students. I'll be sharing a room with 3 more people, two second years and one more first year. I guess for someone coming from WK that will be something to get used to since we had our own rooms (although they were small). But in the end I think it will be an excellent experience living with 3 people form different nationalities in one room.

For those of you who don't know much about the United World Colleges (and for those who may not find much interest in paying attention during assembly at WK :p), so far there are 12 United World Colleges around the world. UWC was founded in 1962 and originated in the ideas of German educationalist Kurt Hahn. The first UWC was Atlantic College in Wales. At the UWC schools there is a a strong emphasis on community service and they have a wide variety of cultural and outdoor activities.

The mission statement of UWC is:

"Through international education, shared experience and community service, United World Colleges enable young people to become responsible citizens, politically and environmentally aware, and committed to the ideals of peace and justice, understanding and cooperation through action and personal example."

It's basically July now and I have another two months to go and then a completely new phase of my life will begin with many new experiences and new friendships. In two weeks I'll be on my way to Germany from where I'll travel to Wales in September. Many hard goodbyes are still coming my way in this short time I've got left in a place I've called my home for the past eight years. Then it's off to Germany and a whole new adventure in September.

Stay tuned for more...

Miriam