August 31, 2007

Today I sat through a slightly painfully long presentation on the social services of the college and social service in general. It was too long in a hot room in front of a projector...
Finally, I made my social service priority choices -

1. Band Service (playing music for elderly people etc.)
2. Working with disabled adults in Trieste
3. Environmental service (cleanup of areas/helping animals)
4. First Aid training

These are not for sure, but they were what I requested, the school decides.

After all the 4/5 hr.s of sitting around in the morning, I made up for it by being very efficient in the afternoon! I played viola duets with a music scholar Miga, from Mongolia - we are going to play something for a small event on Sunday. I also took my first Italian Bike ride! In full team FITaos kit! I hope to get some pics for the team of their overseas representation...

Anyway, then for dinner the entire school went to a bowling/pizzeria place, were we ate pizza (and didn't go bowling).

Then there was a dance party at the residence Pala that was pretty fun, and now it's 2:00 on the first day in September and I'm going to sleep!


(Trip to Trieste, Italy, tomorrow)

Reflections and Updates - August 30th, 2007

I'm sitting in my dayroom (at Fore) watching about 15 people from at leats 12 different countries very informally ballroom dancing, talking and laughing to something that sounds like jazz/Latin music.. I can't quite tell! This doesn't feel at all unusual to me, but it has definitely not yet happened since I've been here... at UWC it seems like there is always something fun, new, and interesting happening all the time!

I've come to find that the more I talk to people the more I like them, and the more people I meet the more I feel surrounded by a very big community of incredibly talented people in areas that I had no idea. There are at least 5 people I've heard play incredible piano out of nowhere... they hadn't mentioned it! There are at least three VERY good violinists, and one VERY good violist (Mongolia) and a good cello player. Almost everyone is more talented than almost anyone I had ever met before coming here, and I enjoy spending time with all of them.
It's incredible.

Lucy (2nd year - USA) said, one night when we were walking with probably 70% of the college to ajip ( a gas station nearby) that it was the most united she had ever seen the school! And that was in the first week! I think this is largely because we all seem to get along very well, the 2nd years are almost all great about interaction with the 1st years. Whatever it is, the school is wonderful, and I think feel like almost everyone is comfortable and close - something I thought impossible with 200 teenagers before!

Classes have been chosen now, after various introductions by teachers.
The IB has 6 subject blocks, that can be filled by classes in their respective categories.
You typically take 3 higher level (HL) classes and 3 standard level (SL) classes.
My schedule has been finalized, but it can be changed - it looks like this:

English (for native speakers) HL
Italian HL
Music HL
Economics HL
Math SL
Physics SL

I am taking 4 higher levels, which is unusual, but I don't think it will be nearly as hard as having 7 subjects - which almost all the non native English speakers do.

I don't have times for my classes yet (should be in my mailbox now) but we basically have classes in the mornings (until 1:15) Monday-Friday, with activities and service in the afternoons.
The CAS system stands for Creativity, Activity, and Service (both College Service and Community Service). You are required to take one of each of these while you're at the school. I haven't entirely decided what I'm doing yet, but possibilities I'm considering are:

ACTIVITIES - Sailing, soccer, capoeira
SERVICE - Fixing college bikes, ski instructing? - haven't heard about community service yet
CREATIVE - Photography, choir

It will all be done soon, classes start next Monday along with physical activities. We are still figuring out the exact CAS schedules though.

I've made lots of friends and feel free to hang out with just about anyone. I'm probably been hanging more with:

Diana (UK 1st yr.)
Urska (Slovenia 1st yr.)
Nicolas (Argentina 1st yr.)
Christina (Canada 1st yr.)
Juor (Norway 1st yr.)
Lucy (USA 2nd yr)
Julie (UK 2nd yr.)
Jay (Mongolia 1st yr.)

Here's a picture we took today:

(Left to right)
Remy, Urska (Slovenia), Bogo (Poland), Diana(UK), Nicolas(AR)









These are just the names that I thought of the fastest right now, but I have been spending time with SOOOO many amazing people!
Highlights in the last couple of days have been:
-Going swimming at night in the Adriatic with the Latinos (which we were reprimanded for and told we aren't supposed to do)

-Playing pick up soccer with a handful of fellow students.

-Playing Viola/violin duets with Micha (also Mongolia - not sure about the name spelling)

-Swimming from Porto (the local port and swimming area) to the Fore beach (half an hour swim) in windy, big waves with Diana and Bella (Spain). (This swim has never been done before as far as we know, and we got some good comments from fellow students!)

-Staying up until 3:30am with Diana, Lucy and Julie talking



***The number of dancers in the dayroom has hit more like 20 now (after a slight decline)***


There haven't been any significant lowlights!



Here's a bit of other info that I am randomly remembering at the moment:

My personal tutor's name is Stefano, from Italy. He is also the music teacher. He helps me with scheduling, classes, important documents like my permisso di siggiorno (permision to reside here) - which I got! - and other questions we have.
My residence tutors names is Reema. She is nice and helpful and I see her occasionally.
I haven't found somewhere to put my bike yet, so it's outside the Mensa door on a bike rack but not locked. I'm working on changing this as soon as I can!

To answer some other questions:

WEATHER: It has been very sunny and quite hot since I got here except yesterday and today. Yesterday (Friday, August 29 07) it was overcast and very nice out. Today it rained very hard for a few hours (before our epic swim) and it was very windy and overcast almost the entire rest of the day. I loved it! Something about the weather was exciting, sort of anticipating... not sure what.

I'm putting all the pictures I've taken here on facebook, you can see them at:

http://hs.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1047000043

Initial Traveling and First Days

My flight itinerary was basically as follows (Days August 24th - 25th):

6:15am ABQ to Houston, TX
Houston to Newark, NJ
Newark to Rome, Italy
Rome to Trieste, Italy 10:45

There were a couple of my 2nd years in the airport waiting to greet me when I arrived, along with a number of 1st years who had arrived the day before.
Everyone was really nice, Lucy (2nd year from Durango, CO) was there and was really helpful and welcoming - I have to say it was nice to see a fellow American and a little familiarity!

I came in on the same flight with Zoe (Japan) and Heidi (USA), and I didn't realize it!
Apparently I had been on the same flight with Heidi all the way from New Jersey!


Here's a few notes I jotted down while in the plane part of traveling:

"I'm on the plane from Newark to Rome, and I can, for the most art, tell who the Italias are. They are much more personal and shameles than the Americans. Very nice though, sort of that take-it-slow-and-savor-life attitude. I can already see it. I have just been loking at Italian books and listening to the Cd's, and I can understand if it's spoken slowly. I can feel like I'm catching on to the speaking part a little too even after just an hour of sort of studyng it. It's past midnight (2 or 3 o'clock) by Italy time now, and I'm not tired. I dn't think it has hit me yet that I'm going to UWC."

Anyway, got to the College by bus with two bags checked, a violin/viola case and a messenger bag with my computer and cameras (my bike arrived a few days later). I didn't see any adult who was in charge at the college for the first two days or so! The second years had things under control, checked me in with the office, showed me my room, I unpacked, had dinner, met people, and got a tour with Lucy, by night, of the 7 residences at the college.

My residence is foresteria which is perched (literally) on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Adriatic Sea. We are pretty much in the center of Duino (you can see the town center - the piazza), and are in the same building as the cafeteria for the college (called the Mensa) and our dayroom hosts most of any of the big meetings/presentations that are done (waiting for the inauguration of a school hall/auditorium soon). There are 54 students in fore, more boys than girls - boys on the first floor, girls on the second. We have internet access by plug-in ethernet in the dayroom. I love fore's beautiful view, central location, and the fact that we are about 12 seconds away from Mensa at any given time. We are also right next to a very pretty lawn and the art/music building with a practice room and piano (although it's usually occupied).

Anyway, we all just got settled in out rooms and the town for the first couple of days. We made a trip to Emisfero, a supermarket/mall in the closest town - Monfalcone, where we bought school supplies, our own cutlery and silverware for our dayroom, and anything else we needed.
My roomates are Nicolas (Argentina) and Jay (Mongolia) - both very cool guys, we get along great. I met what I thought was the whole school (of course I couldn't remember many names) and then at the first entire 1st year class gathering, I realized that I didn't recognize at least half of them! You kind of have to make an effort to meet people in other residences if you don't have any activities in common! But I think it gets easier when school actually starts.

Everyone says hello and "have I met you?" to everyone else, all the time. People couldn't be nicer.


Here are a few thoughts I jotted down on my second night here (August 26th):


"Yesterday and this morning I had this strange feeling like I wasn't excited about being where I was. this was pretty much temporary, but I felt that way ever once and a while. Now, I still have few thoughts of any kind about the future, but I am very glad to be here. I think my highlight today was meeting and speaking with people. Especially meeting Lilly (Holland), Ludavika (Italy) and Marta (Italy) -met them in the Duino Odyssey scavenger hunt around Duino set up by the second years- and talking to the N. Americans and ARgentinians/Latinos. Rodriguez (Chile) said he considered me a latino now because I speak spanish, play futbol, and like matte! I spoke spanish for a while! Lowlights - waking up at 11:00 and not playing any music all day. I feel like I ahven't been doing/accomplishing that much because I've bee considering time spent not talking to people wasted time. Funny how your priorities change!
I did need sleep though - even after 11 hrs. sleep or so, I was falling asleep sitting up durring the head master's welcome meeting - it was interesting too! Anyway, have to be somewhere at 8am domani. It's about 1:00am!"


Starting that first day (Monday, August 27th) we started to get schedules and everything for the week of trying out different physical activities. I started meeting people and getting to be very busy...

Intro

Hello Everyone!
This is my blog I have set up to tell everyone what I'm up to here at the United World College of the Adriatic!
Let's start with the basics:

There are currently 12 UWC schools open around the world.
The UWC Mission Statement is:

"UWC makes education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future."

UWCAD is located northeast of Venice, Italy, and is located on the coast of the Adriatic Sea very close to the border of neighboring Slovenia.

Here are my experiences so far. They are in diary/narrative format: