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! :)