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I come from a sizzling pavement,

The steps hot on my bare feet – who cares for shoes?

I come from the emerald sea, the powdered sand

With the sun on my skin- all year round

There’s tourists. There’s locals. There’s Kirky.

There’s Seymour’s Jerk Chicken, Yoshi’s Sushi with friends and Brick House on Sunday’s with family

There’s Rum Point. There’s Camana Bay. There’s Pedro’s Cliff Jumping. 

I come from a place where chickens and iguanas roam free

And stingrays are forever available for seven years of luck

It’s island time, all of the time-

With plantain, rice and beans and curry chicken

With sunscreen, tanning oil and sunburn

I come from love,

Of a mother whose full of compassion and never stops

Of a father who understands and always laughs 

Of brothers for bickering and then needing desperately

I come from friendships only made after years of being inseparable,

Of laughter, of dancing

Where the rhythm is felt and the patwa is spoken

Ya kno wha mi fi mean bredrin?

I come from Grand Cayman, always.

Diploma Week

Human Interaction is the theme of our first Diploma week. I’ve heard that we have two per term, others coming up will be World Religions and Peace and Conflict etc... It’s part of the AC Diploma, that we’ve completed these weeks of workshops and discussions to understand ourselves better. It shares some of the same missions as the IB Diploma but also others as well.

I really enjoyed the last three days. I thought it was a perfect time to stop and take a break from codes and reflect over something so meaningful. It was also extremely useful in allowing me to introduce myself and have conversations with people that I’ve seen in the cafeteria and such but aren’t in my house and I have no service, activity or codes with so haven’t actually had the opportunity to talk to and get to know in some way. It gave me an opportunity to reflect on the last five weeks that I’ve been at the school and what I plan to do for the rest of my two years here.

On Monday and Tuesday morning we were woken up at 7:30 by one of our second years and walked down to breakfast at 8:00. For the next 45 minutes we sat in our house tables and our tutors joined us and had simple ‘early morning’ chat. We then all had a beginning session with a man named Alex Fradera from 8:55-10:30, sadly I didn’t think about bringing my notebook so I have no substantial notes of the lecture.

I then went to a workshop by a man named John White from 11:00-12:15 about leadership.

Some interesting quotes he read out were:

·         ‘Follow me. Lead me. Or get out of the way.’

·         ‘Good leadership rests with the leader, being themselves more of the time but with skill.’

·         ‘Leadership is using our personal power to win the hearts and minds of people to achieve a common purpose.’

To do anything we must be able to check off three things: Vision. Passion. Action. If we have two of the three that’s quite good, but we must have all three to complete anything.

Finally the last thing that we spoke about were the five stages of conversation

5. Ritualistic and Cliché – ‘How are you’ conversations that are really more of a social etiquette

4. Gossip and Fast – weather, sport, neighbours,

3. Ideas and Judgements

2. Emotions and Feelings

1. Peak

To summarise I found his lecture very interesting, one of those that you think about after you leave the room.

After lunch I had Alex Fradera, the man who did the initial lecture with the whole of the first year. We did more little activities and such where we had to interact with our peers. Splitting into partners where we had to invite them to a picnic and they had to keep denying, then another scenario where they kept agreeing to everything and you had to keep coming up with more things to do. Also there was certain activity where we had to talk about our Half Term breaks, which I was one of the three that did, and we had to talk but also try to keep everyone’s attention – keeping eye contact with everyone in the group was very dizzying but I think I did fairly well with giving everyone attention.

My last workshop for the day was called Culture and Consumerism and it was lead by Luke, a second year in my house. We spoke about the way in which human interaction is used in advertisement.

The example that we watched first was of coke in the 1970’s, how it tries to make you think that Coke is related to having happy moments, they try to make us feel that we have an emotional attachment with the brand. This was interesting for me since – though I would not say that I’m excessively into brands- there are some things that I do like and will buy with less hesitation because of the brand. Brands are less about the ‘ER’ (whiter, better, shinier) and more about how you belong to that brand nowadays- becoming more of a cult. (Though the things rarely fulfil your needs so you have to inevitably go back for more.)

It’s funny how we are manipulated so they get money off of us, usually with the prospect of human interaction but really we’re leading ourselves into a more ego-centric world.

The next morning after breakfast we the whole year again had a workshop with a man named Miles Harrison. He didn’t tell us much about his history but he was actually very inspiring, he was handicap in that his arms stopped just below his shoulder and he had hands there, but he was able to do everything (yes, sometimes differently) that we were doing. –I don’t feel I explained this in the best way; I’m trying to make the point that though he had a disability he didn’t at all treat it like one.

 The workshop was called open space. We were given a few minutes to talk with three or so people around us about something that we want to change in the world. After people came up and spoke about these things and we wrote them down and put them under letter A-Z. It was amazing to hear some of the problems that people want to combat. The list went from things such as:

·         Having News of the Day in our cafeteria to be more aware of world issues

·         The drinking culture in Britain and how to change it

·         Making sure 100% of the money that is given to charity goes to the correct places

·         Having cultural food in the cafeteria, prepared by different national groups

·         Kidnapping in Bangladesh

·         Is Internet a Human Right?

·         Is China capitalist or communist?

·         The VISA issue- should we really be prevented from travelling where we want?

We then split into a group that interested us and for the rest of the session spoke about the issue- the problems and ways to resolve it. I did mental illness in countries and the way society views the patients. Some of the people in my group spoke about how mental illnesses are dealt with in an amazing way, such as in Denmark they grow up with them in the same school, it’s common. Whereas, in Tibet and the Maldives they don’t acknowledge the people with mental illnesses and send them to live in different parts of the country, usually from lack of understanding of their problems. It was a really interesting discussion and I was glad to be a part of it. 

These descriptions are becoming too long so I’m going to breeze through the rest of the day. I did two other workshops – My teenage brain made me do it by a lady named Selena Sermeno and again with Miles Harrison I did a workshop on strategic planning. In strategic planning we spoke about how planning is an unnatural process, it is much more fun to simply do something à and failure then comes as a complete surprise.

When planning you have to have three ideals in mind:

Where are you now?

Where do you want to be?

How are you going to get there?

 It also has to be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Reasonable and Time.

The end of the day I did a workshop called Creative Lines with a script writer named Dan Anthony on how our conversations, emotions and ideas are used in interacting and connecting with others.

Wednesday morning we had a house breakfast! MMMM. I filled up on yogurt and granola, kiwi, banana, grapes and a small chocolate croissant.

I then had another session with Dan Anthony called Where do Ideas come from? Which to be honest I didn’t particularly enjoy. It didn’t seem structured or interactive enough for me to really appreciate it- for a big portion of it he read from the book Treasure Island.

Our final workshop was a very emotional one for me. I was in a group with 6 Morgannwg housemates and 7 Whittaker co-years.  After doing a few fun activities of telling stories of how we were given our names and if we were a tree what type we would be-more so to help us to get to know and remember something about one another in a unique way- we got down to the real reason we were there.

We had to write a poem titled ‘Where I am from’. We all go through homesickness in different ways, apparently after the initial month is when it starts to kick in. For me, it’s very sudden, very intense waves of it. I can go from being super happy and loving being here to wanting to be back at home under my bed covers knowing everything is how it used to be, why on earth would I want it any other way? I truly don’t regret coming, and know if I was to leave and go back home I’d be forever questioning it and wondering what these amazing people are getting up to without me- but at times I feel far too distant from home and miss the aspect of seeing people.* Anyways, my poem simply brought out a lot of those feelings. I’ll type it up and put it onto a blog entry soon- I wouldn’t say it’s an amazing poem, written in the space of five minutes and all; it is just very personal and brings back many memories of my beloved island.

-          Even so it was really nice to hear how others loved their homes just as much as I love mine, that they are going through similar situations. Some people read it in their own language which was quite neat too- I heard poems in Spanish, Finish, Portuguese and Norwegian as well as many in English.

*I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned there not being Wi-Fi on campus. The only reason really this upsets me is because I wish I could Skype with my parents and close friends.

*Other workshops that I didn't get to do but my friends said were really interesting and I wish I had were:
Body Language, China's Culture and Human Interaction and Interpersonal Relationships

And that was our first Conference! I’m finished my first day of First-Aid today and will take the test sometime tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow evening at about five I’m going on a various trains with a girl in my house named Proma to meet up with my best friend in Exeter for the weekend while she meets up with one of hers.   (I actually could have left earlier, but was told the First-Aid would take longer, darn!), so won’t get in till about 9:00/10:00 tomorrow evening. Incredibly excited!

-also can I just say these blogs probably have dozens of errors in them.  I type them extremely fast, simply how I'd tell a story in my head. I rarely proof read- my reason is with the time I have to do it I figure it's more about the quantity of things I can say! But I do apologise.







----I know this post has already become far too long. However a boy in my house wrote an article about the first conference for the school newspaper called INK and asked me to check over it. I thought it was really good in summing it up - probably far better than what's above:

The second diploma period of the year.  The first week free since the start of codes.  And yet, somehow, they managed to make our lesson-less days longer, more packed with a steady flow of information, and much more exhausting than most would deem appropriate.  In a Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday the visiting lecturers, second-year workshop leaders, and my peers taught me more about interaction than I’d learned in years of regular schooling.  But what else should one expect, coming to a college where interaction and communication are even more important than the rigorous and brutal IB?  No place other than a UWC would offer its own diploma based solely on your ability to interact with the world and learn, culturally and spiritually, from the expansive, diverse student body.  With workshops ranging from leadership qualities and the ethics of technology to nonverbal communication and looking at the intra-personal relationship, what would have been a boring and repetitive conference anywhere else creatively looked at nearly all aspects of interaction.

Interaction, maybe as much as food and shelter, is a necessary factor for human survival.  The ability to interact intelligently is the separating factor between us and the squirrels throwing conkers at your window.  In a modern, global culture, interaction occurs across continents at the click of a mouse and the tap of a keyboard.  Interaction is not merely about communicating with others, but about understanding how to communicate with yourself and knowing how you yourself communicate with others.  Why do teenagers interact in often reckless and volatile ways; what’s the biology behind these actions?  These are all issues we examined in unique and interesting ways, along with myriad other topics.  The Human Interaction Mission Initiative was not at all a bad way to start off two years of conferences and diploma periods.  And it was certainly not a bad reason to miss a week of codes.

Busy Days, phew

My week started off slowly but has gotten far busier as it went by! Yesterday it was non-stop! So I’ll talk about that J

I had four codes in the morning in the castle and an early lunch which was great. Then I had English where we brought in our laptops and worked on reflective statements under 400 words about the culture and context of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

At 2:15 I had bee-keeping. We were harvesting the honey! Though bringing the honey to the Coffee Lounge to extract we had some pretty angry (understandably) bees and I got my first bee sting. It got stuck in my hair and freaked out and it stung me on the back of my neck, one of the teachers who helps with the activity quickly got the sting so it could have been a lot worse. I then helped in cutting the layer of wax of the top of the honeycomb (not sure if that’s the right word) and then we put it into an extractor machine which you simply spin around and it hits the sides and drips to the bottom – I wasn’t so great at the spinning machine. After that we got to scrape out the crystallised honey from the honeycomb that wasn’t going to be able to be extracted –so sweet! We'll eventually put all of the honey into tins and sell it to the students, all the money will go back into bee-keeping.

At 4 I went back to the house and straight to our house parents. Helping with open house! I worked with Konan and Sam who had an ambitious idea of making six pies. Four of which were apple-raspberry and two were banana custard. For the first hour we made the pastry – first time I’d done that too, peeled and chopped apples and bananas and finally stirred the raspberries on the stove to make them thick and gooey (mmm). We then went around other houses to find extra pie tins. After dinner we had to create all of the pastry tops and crusts, made the custard and put them in the oven. It somehow took way longer than expected and in total we probably worked on the pies for four hours. Phew. Boy, they were good though.

So after Open House I studied for two hours creating cue cards and talking with other in my class for our first History test. It was on Europe, Austria-Hungary and France from 1870-1913. I just finished it, and though I think I messed up slightly on the last question (as you do), it went quite well! So I actually didn’t get to bed until 12:30 last night- which is early for some of the second years but super late for poor ole me!

Next week is a Diploma Week where we have no classes and are doing workshops instead, it's part of the AC diploma . When I get my schedule I’ll explain what I’m doing- not 100% sure myself yet!

*Now to lunch, every Friday lunch is Fish and Chips... I've noticed I've spoken a lot about food in this post XD

Family Time

Ahhhh what a lovely week-end! My mum and brother arrived at around 3 on Friday afternoon while I was still in codes so they met with my house mother for a cup of tea and checked into their castle room. Then on my way to my last code (E Systems), I walked into the Great Hall and there was my mum talking to Alun! It was so nice to see her after over a month apart. While I was in class she met and spoke with my History teacher Kate and then after class she met my Maths teacher Nasser. They didn’t have much to say on my progress in the class obviously after only a couple of weeks but it was just if they were available and she could meet with them she wanted to be able to put a face to the names.

Afterwards I took Ben and her around Morgannwg introducing them to far too many people. They said how they found everyone to be just so genuinely nice, I guess I’m used to it in the house but for people to come from the outside it may seem strange how every single person is simply so friendly and welcoming- at least this is what I think they meant. We then went for a lovely dinner at the Italian restaurant in Llantwit and for the a couple hours chilled in their bedroom where I was lucky to have my mum read over my English Essay! Good times.

In the morning I took my mum around the castle grounds. Ben had already gone exploring the day before while she met with my teachers, and that morning he went to try and see the sunrise as he was extremely jet-lagged and awake at 5am… Ah boy. We went to Cardiff for the rest of the day of shopping –bought my winter coat (yay!)- and had a really nice dinner and watched a chick flick movie with mum at night. I also got to skype with my dad for the first time since him leaving on the 21^st, that was really nice too. It was a perfect day with the fam. Sunday she dropped me home at around 1, but not before we had a chance to go to ASDA and get lots of yummy food!

Last night we had the Middle Easter National Evening. The best part was probably the Turkish girls belly dancing but there were also a lot of interesting poems and songs from Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Yemen and Dubai. They finished their evening with all of their flags and the song from John Lennon ‘Imagine’ which I thought was quite interesting from all of the conflicts that go on between the countries. It was really nice to see.

Baby-Sitting

Been quite overwhelmed this week! It’s all good though, may just have to stay up a bit later than normal tonight as I don’t want to have too many things do this weekend as – MY MUM AND BROTHER ARE GOING TO BE HERE! So excited for them to come. They’ll be arriving tomorrow while I’m still in codes so I think someone will be taking them for a tour around the castle and then my mum wants to meet my teachers and tutor. We’ll probably go to dinner in Llantwit Major and then they’re staying in one of the castle rooms that night. Saturday we’ll have a big shopping day in Cardiff for warm clothes for both Ben and I and stay in Cardiff that night. Sunday I’m not quite sure what time I’ll be coming back to the college but I don’t want to have too much work to do due the next day that night.

Last night I baby-sat for my house parents three kids with Anne-Sofie. Though I still can’t spell their names as they’re Norwegian spelling I’m really glad I got to know them better. We were there from 6:30-11:30, though bed time was at 8:30. We made nachos and ate strawberries with custard, if I baby-sit again the kids recommend I bring my laundry and use their machines- which is an amazing idea! Once they went to bed we were just relaxing on the sofa watching television- the first time I’ve done that since I’ve been here. Though you really don’t miss it. There are some shows that I’ll probably want to catch up on when I’m home but here there is so much going on that sitting down watching television seems extremely boring.

We have tug of war this afternoon. We just need one more point to get the house barbeque. Otherwise if PK wins they’ll get five more points and we’ll have to share the barbeque. Boo. I also have my beekeeping activity, service and open house tonight. Lots to do!

Third Weekend

This weekend has been very calm (rare, I know!) .

Friday night we played wresting game –only came out with a bruised elbow and a knee in the nose=successful- and then after SOSH we had MOSH. Morgannwg-SOSH was so much fun of us turning off the lights in our day room at check-in and blaring the music, watching the guys catch each other ballet-style and then doing the ‘classic’ fist pump. We even got Jon Morten and Synnove to join in briefly.

I had a slow Saturday of doing bits of homework, bits of chilling in our day room and tidying up my corner of the bedroom. I also watched the football games on Saturday evening on our Sports Field for sports week.  My room was duty dorm on Saturday night. Every night there is a different duty dorm (so every twelfth day we’re the duty dorm). Our job is to take out the recycling that’s collected over the course of the day and tidy and wash the plates in the kitchen (though we’re supposed to all do this individually, mysteriously with a house of 46 there seems to always end up being dirty dishes by the end of the night). Anne-Sofie and I made a great team in the dish-duty, I must say.

Sunday was much of the same, with rugby instead of football. Half of Atlantic College rugby team is our Second Year guys… so basically Morgannwg needs one more point to win the BBQ and we have basketball and tug of war left. Very exciting! Also every Sunday night at 9:00 we have house meetings in the day room with the house parents. Takes about an hour and we just catch up on various appointments and announcements and then house clean up. *I sometimes feel as though I’m repeating myself, sorry if I am.

*I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before but every night the cafeteria gives each house three loaves of bread, tub of butter and a litre of milk. It’s really convenient if you’re not too late in deciding you want some! J

…Yesterday was the completion of my third week. Is that possible?!

Activities & Service

Besides classes this week I started both my activities and service J

Aerobic Kickboxing- it’s an hour of jumping, kicking, punching! I never really considered when signing up for the activity how co-ordinated I would have to be, so on Tuesday night I kept punching/kicking at the same time or just losing my place and having to join in. Though it was mixed activity there’s about fifteen girls, we do it in the SOSH room from 7:45-9:00 and then stretches at the end. I hadn’t done that long of stretching since I stopped swimming- back to not being able to touch my toes! It was good fun and I know I’ll feel glad I did some exercise after going to it, possibly even becoming more co-ordinated (wishful thinking?).

Beekeeping- Though we haven’t done much for beekeeping yet I know I’m going to learn a lot from this activity. I’ve never even seen a hive before. We kitted up and they showed us all the hives that they have at the moment, I think there’s about six by the Romeo and Juliet tower and another six in the Valley where Estate Service work. Next week I think we’ll be harvesting the honey which I’m looking forward to doing! MMMM

AOC- I’m not sure how much I’ve said about AOC yet. It stands for Atlantic Outdoor Centre. It’s the only service at the college that actually makes money for the school, about £300,000 per year they said. It’s different groups of kids (some from local schools, some with disabilities) that come to the college to do various activities (I think AOC offer 18 different things in total, we get general understanding in everything). This year, until April at least when the second years start their IB, I’ll just be doing the training to learn how to run all of the activities. This term in my afternoon session on Wednesday I’ll be doing canoeing in the pool for five weeks and then climbing for five weeks. On the night session on Thursday nights we’ll be learning first-aid and various other activities that we can do the majority of learning in the classroom. Last night we learnt about Orienteering with a map, using it to find different spots on campus. The campus is huge, that activity for kids would be extremely physical- but quite fun!

*Open House last night was welsh cakes with strawberry jam!

Tonight is the first in a series of Friday lectures in the Bradenstoke Hall at 1830. It is by Chris Johnes, the Director of Oxfam Wales, who will be representing Oxfam and their GROW Campaign. It’s about poverty alleviation and what we can do about it. It sounds interesting and something I may never get the opportunity to do again, so I’ll be going tonight.

-Weddings, last weekend there were two weddings on the campus and this weekend there is one. Apparently in summer they have them weekly, just a reminder of how beautiful a campus and castle we’re living in.

-Thought I’d mention it briefly that almost every day to get to my History classroom I have to go up a long spiral staircase. I find it really cool that to simply get to the class we’re going through this castle that has so much history of its own.  

Pizza Party B-)

Last night I had a Pizza Party with the Development Department at our school so that they could meet and get to know the First Years who are on scholarship from the school. Though I was selected by my national committee I’m on half scholarship via the school. I found out last night I’m sponsored by the past students, a few hundred of them give between 10 to 20 pounds a month for students to attend the school. One of the girls in my house is sponsored by the teachers who give part of their salary to allow one student to come (her name is Sara from Jordan, she is also from a national committee and didn’t realize this). There should be about 25 of us I think in the group but last night there were only eleven at the meeting, quite a few students haven’t yet arrived because of VISA issues.

It was really nice to meet part of the Development Department, they all seem very kind and have told us at any point we are welcome to come and visit their office. They also mentioned that when big events happen they usually ask us first if we’d like to be apart of them. I don’t want to type the wrong royal family out but they mentioned that for the 50^th anniversary a royal family may be coming to the College and we’d be the first people that they’d ask to do tours of the grounds etc. Which would be awesome.

Sports Week

So there are two sports weeks every year and Morgannwg has won the last three sports weeks in a row! There are a bunch of team activities such as: Rugby, Ultimate Frisbee, Dodge ball, Basketball… and something else. Anyways our team has amazing team spirit with all of us showing up to every event if possible, the majority showed up to watch/cheer/play the dodge ball that was the first event today. There must have been about 12 of our guys ready to play for the five spots available (one girl for each game). We’ll see if I can muster up the courage to play against competitive eighteen+ second-year guys for one of the sports.

*Drum Roll Please*

From an e-mail:

Morgannwg is 1^st  with 5 points

Powys is 2^nd with 3 points

PK & Sunley in 3^rd place with 1 point

Tice, Whitaker & Gwynedd with no points

TOMORROW FRISBEE!!

Exciting week ahead!  (Besides from extreme bragging rights the Sports Week winners get to have a big house barbeque-more couscous ;) )
:D

This week I also have a Thursday night Caribbean bonding session (there’s about six of us) and a Sunday night Afro-Caribbean bonding session. Yummy.

First Camp Photos!

 Canoeing Games

 Freezing water, but I loved it :)

 First Group Camp!

 The Nature Walk

 Where we went coasteering

They're a bit out of order, but just an idea of what a beautiful place it was!

First 'Official' Weekend

Friday Night

One Friday we had a house barbeque where we all were in our house parent backyard for a few hours of eating yummy burgers and our house mum made some delicious couscous. I helped with the daunting task of cutting every burger and hot dog bun and chopping the lettuce, where the barbeque would have been without me is a scary thing to think of.

We then had our first SOSH at about 9:30 that night. There’s SOSH every Friday and Saturday night in a room with funky lights and a different DJ each week. The first one I’m told is the biggest where everyone goes, after that you’ll get the majority of people going for the last fifteen minutes at 11. It was fun to dance and be teenagers but WOW did that room get hot, too many people with no windows open. Even so it was fun!

Saturday

Quite a chill day as none of my codes had given me homework. I woke up did bits of laundry including my sheets with Anne-Sofie. The school provides duvet covers that get washed every Thursday and you have a new set in the afternoon. They’re various patterns and fabrics. I have my own set: cosier and makes my corner look far more personal J -though this means I have to wash them personally.

At night we had the First Year Show. All of our second-years had been remembering their first impressions of the people they had in their house or random funny things.  Some houses were quite crude and mean but Morgannwg second-years for the most part were sweet and it was fine. We get back at them at the end of the year for a Second Year Show.

Sunday

Another simple day. I helped my German first year, Paula, make an apple cake in the morning which was interesting… the amount of apples I ended up dropping on the floor while chopping probably wasn’t worth me helping but Paula (kind, sweet Paula) didn’t seem to mind.

I also went swimming with two of the second-year guys in our house: Christian from Albania and Vincent from Kenya and Madi, a first year girl from Florida. To go swimming there must be at least three people for safety reason. It felt good to be back in the water for about forty minutes.

Every Sunday evening for most of the year (I think) is a national evening. The first official weekend of school it’s the Brit National Evening. Though I will always call myself first and foremost a Caymanian – having so much family from England and a British passport, being a British Overseas Territory etc… I took part in the national evening. They have traditional things to do such as the English first year boys are given interesting costumes to wear and have to dance a Spice Girls song. Other things that happened was a girl sang an Amy Winehouse song, explanations of slang words and a Welsh poem. My personal role was a little skit of being Kate Middleton. Short but sweet. At the end all Brits got onto stage to sing the National Song but it became a bit of a rivalry between the English speakers and the Welsh speakers into who could sing theirs louder. I think the national evenings are a great thing to do at AC and a bit joking but interesting to learn a few more things about others cultures. Of course I’ll take part in the African-Caribbean Evening as well that’s in February.

***I got my activities! This term I’ll be doing Bee Keeping and Aerobic Kickboxing. I may go to the Amnesty International Meetings on Monday if I’m not busy because that really interests me as well and just do it unofficially. One thing they do in Amnesty is head shaving. They raise money and awareness for their cause and give the hair to a charity that makes them into wigs for cancer patients. This morning in Assembly a girl did just that and shaved her shoulder-length blonde hair in front of everyone. I don’t think I’d have the courage to do such a thing, but I plan to support the people who do! I think the big ‘head-shaving party’ is in October.

Open House

Every Thursday night at 9 our houseparent’s invite all of Morgannwg (all 46 of us at the moment) into their house for a few hours of socialising and eating. There’s a rota in who makes what food, last night Christian from Malta made fried ice cream. In reality Sam (from Devon) and I decided that it was basically corn-flake-ice cream, not necessarily a bad thing. It was a great few hours where everyone was just sitting on the sofas and around the dining room table and having really interesting conversations. I stopped for a moment and looked around and realized how close the first and second years had gotten already after about 11 days.

I was talking with Ameed from Palestine and Sara from Jordan about how you would spell my name in Arabic. They were writing it out on a piece of paper and I asked for ‘Abigail’ but the strong A in Gail doesn’t actually exist so they were bickering in Arabic about which would be the best alternative. I was fascinated and bewildered. I think they agreed in the end, not sure who was right but I have the piece of paper with my name!

Our houseparent’s also having three great kids who were wondering around as well speaking some things in Norwegian and others in English. They kept making me laugh they were so cute following one another around.

Our open houses are supposedly the best (said by a true and faithful Morgannwg-er). We did have other students from different houses coming in at the end as well!

Activities

If you could make any sense of my timetable you will see that from Monday to Thursday the latest my classes go on till is about 1:30. So after that we do our service or activities. I’ll make a better post about my service when I’ve started it which is next week.

For the AC Diploma you have to do seven strands. Some you do in your service and others you do as activities. You do two ‘official’ activities a term and as many as you feel like doing unofficially. So by the end of the two years we’ll have done eight activities.

The strands are:

1.       Face to face community service

2.       Action based and outdoor pursuits

3.       Environmental and Sustainable Future Awareness

4.       Global and Intercultural Awareness

5.       Approaches to Learning

6.       Artistic Creativity

7.       Physical health and well being

It seems like a lot to cover but with so many activities to choose from and your service usually does one or two already it’s not that hard. The service that I’m doing (AOC) should cover Face to face community service and Action based and outdoor pursuits. So today I chose from a booklet of over thirty activities I’d say four that I’d like to do this term and depending on spaces and such I’ll get two of them. What I picked for this term was Bee Keeping (environ), Aerobic Kickboxing (phys), Amnesty International (global) and Ceramics and Sculptures (arts). So we’ll see which two I get and I look forward to writing about them!

As you can see today I’ve had a lot of free time to type up three posts. I doubt I’ll have a day like this when my classes officially start which is tomorrow. So glad to get some done!

Codes – SL

As I said before I have the same teacher for Environmental Systems and Societies as I do for Geography. It’s my group four subject as a science but I think it’ll tie in the best with my Geography as it can be considered Group 3 humanity also. I struggled and never really enjoyed science previously so am glad I’m taking this as a Science. I have History in the top of the castle and Geo/ E Systems in the same room on about the second floor of the castle, not to far from Bradenstoke Hall (used for Assembly). A few years ago there used to be a house that lived in the castle and the room that we’re taught in is actually the house parents’ old bedroom, it has amazing detail on the wall, a huge (sadly unused) fire place and a chandelier. Nough said.

My French wasn’t good enough to take it as a standard subject as they read novels and have 20 minute and plus oral presentations to do in class so, though I did it for GCSE, I am very lucky to take it as French Ab Initio. There are a few people like me in the class, so it’s not just a beginner’s one. We start from scratch and build our way up quickly. My French teacher is a man named Nicolas Janvier. He mentioned something that I found very interesting. The IB recommends that for a minimum the SL subjects should be taught for 150 hours, where at AC we do almost 110. There’s a big difference in our learning time since AC has priorities of service and activities so I’m glad I have some background in French if we’ll be going at such a fast pace. (About 12 people in the class…I forgot to count)

Maths! Oh the joy of Maths… Though I didn’t actually find out what my Maths test recommended me to do my time schedule worked for me to do Maths Studies which is one of the SL Maths. It’s the more practical version of Maths. I’m hoping it’ll still have some challenge in it, I loved the feeling previously of struggling with a section or question in Maths and then finally getting it. I’ll still be using a Graphical Design Calculator, so that will take some learning. Since Maths is a compulsory subject there are four full time Maths teachers and three or four part-time. I have a man named Nasser, who seems to be from many places being born in Iran, studying in England and teaching in France. He’s a very calm man who speaks slowly, which may be great in future if I’m confused! There are only seven students in this class right now but Nasser said that by November the room we’re in (that can hold 16) will probably be too small as people change from Standard to Studies.

**I just realized while typing this that four out of my six subjects I have a male teaching me! I don’t think I’ve ever had more male teachers than female! Just a revelation.

Codes- HL

Codes

I’ve been in all of my HL classes now. At the school we’re supposed to call all of the teachers by their first names, which at the moment seems strange to me going from my entire school life of ‘Mr’ and ‘Ms’ to just ‘Hello Sam!’. Though I think it’s nice, it’s a more friendly and informal way since we see these teachers more than just in the classroom.

 I have Geography with a man named Alun Wood (also Environmental Systems with him). He’s been teaching at the school for fifteen years and is the only Geography teacher. Our class is about double the size of the one I had for the last two years with nineteen people at the moment- with the IB people change around for the first few weeks if they think they’ve chosen the wrong subject so it has the possibility to change.

English Literature is with the head of faculty for Language A, Group 1. Ruth Pickvance has been here for twelve years and worked at the UWC in Singapore for five years before that. This class has eight students at the moment which I think is a great number. For our first term we’ll be studying World Lit, novels and plays that are in translation to English.

·         One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Solzhenitsyn (Russia, novella)

·         Blood Wedding – Lorca (Spanish, play)

·         Medea – Euripides (Greek, novel)

Bring it on!

History European is with a lady named Kate Vincze who has been teaching at the school  for thirteen years. She moved here from Hungary with her husband who is one of the Physics teachers and her son (Balazs) who is actually in my house. He’s grown up at the school and is now attending it as one of the students, just moving from his parents’ house to the dorm room (though I’m pretty sure he stills brings Kate his laundry). The class is at about eighteen right now, which is a good number with so many nationalities of people from the places that we’ll be studying.

So from what I know right now all of my teachers seem very experienced with the IB and the school and I’m looking forward to getting started! :)