Leavers Dinner Speech

One of the most spectacular guys I know. Šarūnas Genys  from Lithuania's speech at our Leavers Dinner.



My dearly beloved co-years, teachers, staff and above all friends,

Firstly, I cannot be grateful enough for all of you who have had faith in me in delivering this speech and possibly my haircut was slightly unexpected I hope you understand that the flaming hair represents the never ending UWC movement.  

All the drama aside, before coming to AC I didn’t know what to expect, I know sounds cliché, but my parents never went to UWC, neither they have heard about it,I have never gone to an international school before, never had friends from abroad.

A perfect inexperienced student to be transformed by the international atmosphere of AC you would, sharing a dorm with people from 3 other countries. Should be completely transformational, shouldn’t it?

Well, it wasn’t. I never measured my time in AC by the number of times Norwegian flag was up in the flag tower because of a national celebration. And possibly I did not truly learn a whole new set of facts about countries besides the easily observable things of how fruity Quebecois might be, how diverse can personalities from Serbia and how party-animals Bengalis might be with all of the Diwali celebrations and the singing of the stage. I understand how important it is for college to increase its diversity, although it’s never  clear if we have 89 or 91 nationalities, for me AC was never measured by any numbers.

AC for me was finally coming to understand that people from around the world are largely the same, have same fears, same expectations, same hopes and same feelings.

Atlantic college will always remind me of the philosophical discussions at 4 a.m. in the dayroom whilst sharing the last piece of toast and ever more than that the silly moments that bring people together and make them laugh, for example throwing buckets of ice-cold water over the people enjoying their hot shower after a long day. I don’t know if it’s only me but I believe that the power of laughter is immeasurable.

Hey, I acknowledge AC is not a perfect place, there are conflicts, there are awkward moments in the canteen when you get your spicy Chicken Tikka slice, enter the dining hall and the only free space is next to Alice and then you have to endure a long awkward lunch without saying anything. And that’s OK, not everything in AC had to be meaningful.

And no matter where you heading off now, whether it volunteering in India, travelling in South America or simply moving down to the barracks for AOC summer – ARAF my friends as we say in Welsh, and enjoy the last few hours of the journey that does not have an ending.

#uwcexperienceneverends

Stay golden, my dear friends and let’s make this journey last forever.

Goodbye.

So I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to wrap this up.

I made it through the IB. The majority of the exams were good enough, I hope. It was strange to finish an exam in a couple of hours, or max no more than 5, which summed up dozens of hours in classrooms, homework manics and studying. But that's the same with any exam I suppose.
History was better than I expected. Geography was worse.
I lost many hours of sleep. I consumed more coffee in two weeks than I had ever in my life previously. I only had one major mental break down, before Geography.

But too be quite frank, I'm exhausted with talking about the IB. It's been two years. Always on my mind. Always nagging. It's over now, until July 6th anyways when we find out the results, I just really don't find it necessary to think about that part of AC for now.

It's probably the most surreal part of graduating. I've been asked several times now- what is it like to finally have graduated? Weird. Not only has it not truly hit me, but it won't for a long time. Saying good bye are being prolonged to it's the last possible moment. Travelling for 6 weeks has it's benefits.

Being in London for a week means we meet up. Last night meeting up at a London pub, there were about 40 ex-AC students, four generations. It was a realisation that AC can't actually end. As our ''leisure periphery' expands, the idea of not being connected is less and less. Which is consolation.

However, to a few US students... good bye was tough. For example, dear Joaco from Uruguay. He's going to Middlebury in August. He travelled all over Europe last summer. For people like Joaco who I lived with for 2 years and have seen nearly every day in that time- we can't say when we'll see each other again. It's as hard (possibly harder) than saying good bye to a few family members. We cried for a very long time.
Arriving in AC to pots and pans and cheering. Leaving AC with the same guys who looked so macho as Second Years with red puffy eyes is not something people say everywhere.

I could go on about every goodbye. I could go on about the celebrations in Cambodia [field], at the Watch Tower, watching the sunrise on our last morning. I could give all the details. But words are never sufficient. They give an image- but they won't give a memory. Those, well I keep those.


With all my Love,
Abi

PS- I'm still in debate whether to keep the blog going for the 6 weeks of travelling. I may continue until then. Simply to console dear Daddy.