Still functioning well:)

Greetings!

Started writing this post right after the previous one, so yet have no clue how will it end. I guess it would be better each day to write a bit, then after having all the things written just make a post.
Yesterday was a cafe day, we performed and it was horrible as I had lost my voice. I went back earlier and my roomie mad me a tea we talked a bit. Then one of my friends came and we decided to take a walk. Some philosophical conversations which I very much enjoy. Last day of the PBL week and now all of us are concerned about homework. I have quite a lot to do as well.

Got two postcards, one from Atlantic college one from home, very nice, packages, one from the US, 2 from home. My friends and parents are spoiling me :D. Sometimes it seems like you do a lot but at the same time you see how much you procrastinate.

New things:

• diving. I started learning diving, which is quite incredible.
• coming up sexuality week and we have a lot of activities planned, in the end cafe, with this interesting thing " ask a gay", I might take part in
• new camera(the package thing)
• room organisation, weird for me at least
• philosophy, enjoying deeply
• Global concerns, let's just say that this is a big topic and a lot has to be done, but about this later maybe.
• Halloween, all enjoyed it, lots of games and activities, I was sickish, so unfortunately didn't take part on it.
• northern lights again!
• Diwali celebration with candles and mini-fireworks.
• Russian speakers gathering, a nice time with tea and chocolate from home.
• Host family, nicest thing ever. Host mom from Spain and dad from Denmark. This is a program in our school, if you are getting in this host family program, you are getting a host family and spending few weekends during the year there. Nice food, nice atmosphere, new people. We went to the cinema and then to the pub, great time!

And as usual few pictures.

Northern lights. (photo credits to Klara Eriksson)

 Russian speakers' gathering.

College.

Hough, party place.

 Host family.

Bianca, host sister (Romania)

 Host mom, Teresa (Spain)

Host dad, Esben (Denmark).

 Cookies, disappearing one after another

With a great tea...

 Nice walk.

 Before performance.

 Northern lights again

 View from the college.

In general time spent here is the most interesting and enjoyable one.

Many thanks for reading.

Helen

Life is getting intense!

Hello folks,

So a bit late then I planed, but though few updates about the RCN life. This time I guess I am more organized (at least I tried to be so), as I tried to pick stuff which seemed the most interesting to me.
       At first
stuff that happened (in my favorite points)

• Letters to politicians. In school we are taking Extracurricular activities and one of mine is Amnesty international, where we discuss a lot of issues regarding human rights, mainly about those who were sentenced by mistake, treated badly by government and try to raise awareness and help with the way we can. So last time we had a gathering we wrote letters expressing our discontent regarding some cases, where innocent people were suffering because of confusion or in some other cases in purpose were wrongly judged. The more you write the more you get into it and understand how much you actually care. And I consider this really important as some day it might happen to us, so I would love to learn that there are people out there who don't even know me, but still care for justice.
• Peace one day. This was a kind of 2 day thing, first day we were having a ceremony in auditorium, listening to beautiful music, some inspirational quotes regarding peace (students were saying them, which made it even more special), then we said word "peace" in all our languages (we are from more then 95 countries), wrote what we thing should be changed, our opinion, and stuff we wanted then we had a peace march to silent house where people started meditating till the end of the next day. In the way back from march, we had a bonfire, where we burned all those papers with our thoughts, so that it will "spread, reach everyone" and become true.
• Hidden conflict. I signed for this workshop, thinking that it will be about international conflicts and some political stuff, but it turned out to be about our inside world, the way we feel in here and communicate, the unsolved problems that bother us. Our super-wiser was philosophy teacher, one of the bests that I know. All of us are having tough periods time to time and in here everything is new, but mainly when we look from the side it seems that all are settled and happy. Making this trust circle and sharing all with each other made us to realize that all of us have this time, that we are confused, our ideas and ideals are floating around and we are still looking for a lot of stuff. This in a way brought us closer.
• House karaoke. We had some performances in the Hough(the place where we usually have parties), had a lot of fun.
• Armenian independence day. Usually when we have birthdays we hit a spoon with a cup in cantina, which means "attention" and we say that today is this persons birthday and all of us stop doing our stuff and sing happy birthday song. Same works for important events, so this time in 21st of September it was Armenian independence day, the funny part was that people started singing Happy birthday song for Armenia. :D
• Traditional costume dinner and house pictures. This showed me again how diverse we are, was beautiful.

• Eventually I organised my corner, now it's not decorated, but still looks so nice and clean!
• Got my package form home and a new credit card, finally!
• Whether out here acts so weirdly. We already had a hail... in the middle of a sunny day!
• Never have I ever! one of my favorite games, learned so much stuff about people.
• Been sick for few days and missed some lessons, which was soo not nice.
• Sent some postcards to friends from all over the world.
• Wrote EAC reflections(wow,  feel productive).
• This week we had our PBL week( project based learning). Mine was Guitar for beginners and I did not expect, but it turned out to be incredibly good and I learned so much, today we have a cafe and we are performing. I am also singing some of the songs. (: This PBL inspired me so much that I started re-learning piano and writing some more songs. Although it was quite weird to see campus half empty for a week, no 200 crazy people running around and shouting (some of us had out of campus PBL).
  
• We made a bonfire in the night nearby the college, which was very nice. Then we noticed a helicopter the way too close to us and for few minutes we suspected that it might land and we might get some troubles (according to Norwegian law we were not allowed to do that).
• Recently we started playing mafia, the bad thing about it is, that I am too passionate about it and both times I lost my voice after a game (and today I have to sing with no voice :/).
• Today majority of our 2nd years were taking SATs and everyone was going crazy and were so stressed about it. Now it's much better, they feel so free.
• Harry potter marathon is running on campus!
• Nice walks and talks with people.

Near the boathouse

• Movie almost every day during this week.
• Kon Tiki boat. Some of our students decided to make it and today they will give a try to sail on it!

• I signed for Pa Flukt, but I guess would be better if I reflect on this after actually making it. Have been told that it can be challenging, we'll see.
• Been to the pool.
• Studding together with friends.
  

Things that I learned

• DO NOT leave your stuff unattended, you might never find it again.
• Drinking LOTS OF TEA! With no sugar! AT all!

Some traditions

• Birthdays. Except of the cantina thing that I previously have mentioned, people for some reason "torture" a Birthday person, and usually through them on a fjord (as long as it's not too cold).
• A plate dance. This is a basically second year show thing, but this year we did not have it as some people felt uncomfortable with it, whatsoever iIn the middle of the night we had a plate run. It's about a bunch of guys dancing or running completely naked covering themselves with plates. Feel so sorry to miss it.
• Happy first year tradition. Not sure if I mentioned about it before or not. When a first year hooks up or starts dating with a second year they start singing this Happy birthday song, with a bit changed lyrics. "Happy first year to you.."

Things made me sad

• lack of UWC values in some people
• not managing time as much as I would like to
• people sometimes are so linked to land... I find it so weird, especially in here where we shoul realize that we are actually world citizens, limited mind... sad
• dropping literature because of my subject changes, it was one of the most interesting subjects :(

Things that surprised me

• as always I test some theories, and few of them turned out to be true again, so interesting, ahd a nice talk with one of my friends, who I thought might have changed... didn't.
• Humanitarianism is increasing in myself indescribably much sometimes, in this place I regretted for having stuff that other people do not have.
• People's effect on others.
• Craziness is becoming a norm so easily.
• SOAD, Cher, Sharl Aznavoor, people don't know them, and if they do, they have no clue that they are Armenians.

Ok, now a bit about academics.

Subjects I am taking:

• SL English Langlit 
• Spanish AB initio
• HL Philosophy
• HL Mathematics
• HL Chemistry
• HL Physics
• Further Maths
• Norwegian communications 
• and no free blocks :(

EACs:

• Amnesty international
• Archery
• Haugland cozy evenings
• Gender and Sexuality group
• DROP (Do Remember Other People)
• Computer and Programming

I will go through all this stuff in later posts maybe and for now I guess that's it. 

Enjoy your weekend!

Helen

Summery of this cazy time

Hey people,

Was going to make this post for a very very long time and hopefully this time will work out. Many interesting things happened since my last post, I'll try to put them here in order.

At first every day of short course seemed to be full and we couldn't notice how the time flies.
The most mention-able events that happened and some pics:

• Adventure hunt! I really liked as I am obsessed with competitions, here a little confusion happened, our team won, but as in a finish line there was only a part of our team they decided to share a price between us and the team that took second place. Though I don't like chocolate-butter, taking price was enjoyable.

the prize

• We went to museum. Let's say it was a little different from what I used to call a museum. It was... well instead of me explaining better just to have a look at pics. We had fun time.

• Next one was my first hiking at RCN. I was really sick and the weather was not budding, but I did not want to go down after a half way (or quarter, doesn't really matter) so I kept on walking. the nature in here looks like so so much Armenian nature. The next day my cough got even worse but I feel like it worth doing. It was on my birthday by the way, and in half way we found a name box and putted our names and wrote some other stuff which I don't remember now unfortunately.In the evening one people made a cake for me, sang a song, and we had a kind of mini-party....

• Almost in the end of short course we had a bonfire and lovely marshmallows. First time in my life I actually "baked" them. Reaally liked it.

• My first jump in a fjord happened in the short course. Actually it was not planned, my foot slipped and I fell, then went out and jumped and then crossed the fjord. The water is freezing cold, no matter what weather it is.
• Eventually in the very end of the course we had a party and kind of a show thing. I was singing with one of my co-years. Went very well.

After a short course as no first year was supposed to be on campus before second years we went for a trip.

When we came back the craziest part began. First day we arrived everyone was going around screaming and shouting, all of them very overexcited and superhappy to meet us. Most of all my roommates, it was overwhelming. They made tea and waffles for us. There are 5 people in each room. I am sharing mine with Naty(Costa Rica), Liri(Israel), Amalie (Norway) and Jasmine (Singapore). So far we already had 2 roomie dinners which was very nice and few tea gatherings.So much stuff happening and I can't even remember. Would be better I guess if since this week I try to write more often. Today we have one more event, the fiirst year show! Which follows second year show happened last week. And right afterit we have this Peace one day thing, which is celebrated all over UWC-s. Looking forward for it!

The list of stuff that I learned in here so far:

• drinking tea without a sugar(back home I used to use 7-8 spoons per cup)
• secret friend tradition about UWC
• Happy first year tradition
• about Second year show
• some lows in different countries, and found out that actually in mine they are the best, or at least the best for me (but a lot of people told me that they make sense more)
• walking in flipflops when it's 13-18 degrees outside and its raining
• that people around the world have so much similarities(I thought so before too)
• if your opinion is offensive for anyone, do not say it out laud, it won't make anything better
• secret that knows more then one person is not a secret anymore (here people gossip a loooot)

List of stuff that I will try to do for next week

• keep on being vegan (as now I became one, we'll see how long it will last)
• Workout 
• go to the pool
• have 2 tea gatherings
• get to known to one more person (people are beautiful! and I am so afraid that I will not manage to get known to all of them during this time)
• have a cake baking (if my credit card arrives of course, I lost mine in here)
• plan my trip for November break
• do more homework
• one crazy thing, that I wouldn't normally do (I will do my best to find one)
• help to organize DROP (Do Remember other People) cafe 
• read 1 book
• vocal wormings

I guess this is enough for now. Hope all of you, people, are enjoying your life!