October Newsletter

As soon as I published the previous post, the October Newsletter was released :D 

So here it is:

http://issuu.com/uwcmahindracollege/docs/october_2013_newsletter

Do read the previous post aswell (: 

XOXO,

Pauline

Time Flies

Hi everyone,

Here I am again. Since the last post I have had Diwali break. It was a one week break in which we could travel to celebrate Diwali. I went to Goa with Pema (Tibet), Tenzin (Tibet), Thulani (South-Africa) and Aishwarya (Bangalore-India). It was a lot of fun and it gave me the opportunity to relax and detach from MUWCI a bit. I would LOVE to post the pictures, but Pema still has them, so as soon as I get them I will post them (:

Furthermore, I have some exciting news: 

TWO NEW UWC'S WILL BE OPENED. One in Germany and one in Armenia. Here is an overview of all the UWC's now. It is nice to see that the UWC-movement keeps improving and expanding.

Also, I would like to give you more resources where you can see what is happening in MUWCI. I realize I should have done this earlier, but I never really thought of it...

I would like to share with you the September Newsletter (I know, a little late :D). It is interesting and full of pictures:

http://issuu.com/uwcmahindracollege/docs/september_2013_newsletter 

For  people who use facebook, this is the official facebook page of Mahindra United World College of India which is updated very frequently. https://www.facebook.com/uwcmahindracollege?fref=ts

Here is a flickr account (you don't need to be a member of flickr to be able to see the pictures) where pictures of most MUWCI events are posted: http://www.flickr.com/photos/uwcmahindracollege/sets/

Finally, here is a video one of my second years made with images of both his second years and our batch. I come in it a little bit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCBYNTnSM7o.

So yeah, currently I have a little less work and I feel like the peek has passed, so Im a little more chilled. It is incredible how fast this term went by. 

In about 3 weeks I will be leaving India knowing that it is the last time in a very long time that I am leaving India knowing that I will be coming back. It is hard to imagine that already 3/4 of my MUWCI-experience is over. It is true what they say: time flies. 

I am coming back to Belgium in Winter Breack for 10 days and then my family and I are going to visit India (mostly Rajastan). This is very exciting, but also sad as I will not be home much this year. 

I hope all the pictures and newsletters etc that I gave you give you new things to discover MUWCI through and good luck to everyone that will start to apply soon!

XOXO,

Pauline

Update... Finally

Hey everyone,

I am so sorry I did not write for this long... Basically, the EE, TOK, SAT, college apps, IA's,... deadlines were too much to combine with my blog. However, I hope you checked out my firstyear's (Louise) blog. It is really good and I think she kept it going while I was dieing of work (;
So we just had Project Week. I was planning on going to Sangama (a NGO for sexual minorities), but due to the work overload I decided to stay on campus. This gave me the opportunity to finish most of my work and get some rest. I have new energy now and I'm ready to face the next assignments. We did do a little bit of project: restoring the community centre in one of the nearby villages. Here are some of the pictures (Credits to Eunhee-Korea)
Oh and I noticed that in most of the pictures of this blogpost im wearing the pink shirt, that cause I wear the same one every time I have to do work that will get my clothes dirty to no ruin my other clothes :D So dont worry, I do change (;

Stanzin(Ladakh) in the front, Eunhee (Korea) on the left and me

Sisi (China) in the background and I

Neel (Delhi), Beryl (Kenia) and I

Eunhee (Korea), Beryl (Kenia) and I

So, euhm, last time was beginning of September if I remember well, so during that time a lot happened. The highlights were probably Ganesh, first and second year show and Satat. So I will just tell you about some of that (: I will try to keep my blog more regular from now on to keep you informed of more things happening on campus. I can't promise because I realize I say this every time :D So yeah..
So Ganesh was celebrated here on September 13. As some of you might remember of last year it is the 'pink' celebration where we dance and throw pink colors at each other. (For more check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesh_Chaturthi). Here are some pictures and a video of Ganesh this year (pretty similar to last year :D) (pictures credits to Wardah (Pakistan!))

Shruti (Delhi and my housemate) and I

I, Stanzin (ladakh) and Aishwarya (Bangalore)

Me

Shruti (Delhi) and I

Me, Lud (Brazil) and Patricia (Portugal)

So the second thing was Satat. Satat is a marathi word that means always (at least that is what our principal tries to convince us of). It is the term we use now for sustainability. One weekend we had a 'satat-weekend' So we did activities for the sustainability of our school in different groups. My group went off-campus to collect the dirt people left on streets. Me and abou 5 other people formed a smaller group and we had a lot of fun picking dirt (:
Here are some pictures that show that it was very nice (:

Lin (Vietnam), Ana (Mexico), Fiyin (Nigeria), Shabab (Bangladesh), Shruti (Delhi) and Me

Fiyin (Nigeria) and me

Shabab (Bangladesh), Ana (Mexico), Shruti (Delhi), Me, Fiyin (Nigeria), Lin (Vietnam)

Finally the first and second year show and the regional evening I don't find the pictures now, so I will try to make a new blogpost with that later.
1 to 5 November we have a free week for Diwali. I am probably going to Mumbai or Goa.
I will post back after that.
Hope this makes up for the long period without news (:
XOXO,
Pauline

Time flies

Hello everyone,

I'm so sorry I didn't write for such a long time. Time flies here in MUWCI, I didn't realize i've already been here for 3-4 weeks :o

So anyway. I will give a short overview of what happened. I feel a little akward writing this now as I found out a lot of my now first-years read this blog :D So guys; don't judge (;

Also, I would like to mention that my firstyear (Louise) has a blog now and I really like it, so if you are interested in what happens here, check out her blog as well. She will probably write more than me this year (life of MUWCI/IB second year is tough): http://louisevandamme.blogspot.in/

So the first week was orientation week for firstyears. This year, different from last year, second-years HAD to take part of it. There were all kind of activities.

-Treasure hunt: I dont really know how this was because second-years weren't allowed to take part of this as we know campus too well for it.

- Speeddating: Basically you get 1 minut and a really random question (example: topic is underwear, What is the weirdest body part? etc.) and you get to bond with a person. After one minut you switch to the next person. It is a lot of fun as some questions result in really funny answers and it is a good way to get to know some people as you remember anecdotes as their answers.

My roommate Shreya (Bangalore, India) during speed dating. Credits: Ivan

- Meeting the staf, faculty etc. If you want to get to know them as well, check out this video. It gives a good idea of the faculty, but ALSO of MUWCI atmosphere. (It is hilarious!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JBJ0btv85kg

- Mud-games. This is probably one of the most fun parts of orientation week. Due (or maybe thanks to?)to the rain the grass-parts are very muddy, so MUWCI students are very creative and have plenty of mudgames. It is hard to describe what it is like, but most people enjoy it even though we get very dirty and smell kind of bad (;

(I dont have pictures of myself because no-one took them I think :D And I was too busy with the mud.. But this should give you an idea)

Credits Ivan

Credits Ivan

- The most special part of orientation week was probably the homestay. We were divided in 3 groups and during 3 days every day 1 group went to the villages down the hill (we have a programm with these villages called Akshara which I can explain another time in another post if you want). We stayed in the houses of people there and lived with the for 2 days-1night. It was a very enriching experience. The people were SO nice and the food was really tasteful (But SO spicy :D) I got Hena done by one of the girls and I felt like I really got close to them. I would definately go back to see them. However, for me it was pretty hard to sleep with that many insects. Also, we slept at literally 1 meter from 7 cows which lived in their house. The house was really smal (2 rooms of about 9m^2) and everything was very basic (no kitchen, just fire and pots etc). But I think it was very important to experience this as it made me realize I am living a very luxury life compared to many people. However, I would like to emphasize that this does not mean that these people are "less" than us or are not happy! Sadly, I dont have any pictures of this as we were adviced not to take our camera.

So that was basically orientation week. It was really exhausting, but a lot of fun. After that school started again. Right now, I should actually be writing my EE which is due monday, but I decided to take some time to keep eveyone informed and assure you I'm still living (;

So a new year brings new friends, new roommates,... My roommates this year are: Sonia from Poland (like last year), Shreya from Bangalore in India (firstyear) and Daniella from New-Mexico (firstyear). I will tell more about my Housemates after our first housediner monday. My roommates though are very nice and I'm happy I get on well with them so good because I will have to live with them for 1 year :D We bonded a lot already. I now live in wada 4 and not in wada 2 anymore but I guess that doesnt mean anything to people who havent gone to MUWCI (:

Roompicture : From left to right (and then to the girl above :D): Shreya - me - Daniella - Sonia

. Credits: Shreya

Same order as above (; Credits: Sonia

I will just give some more pictures of MUWCI and new people and stuff and that's it for today. I'll go work on my EE (=Extended Essay = 4000-word essay about a topic we can chose)

View from the tree-house: Mount Wilkinson (I dont know if this is the ight way to write it though) Credits: Ada

Other view from the tree-house. Credits: Ada

Wada 2, my previous wada. Credits: Ada (Poland, Sonia's firstyear)

India (: Credits: Ada

India (: Credits: Daan (The Netherlands)

India (: Credits: Daan

 Oh, this is my advisor. He is basically the person I can go to with all my problems. He has been a great help for me during all this time. He is a very sweet person. I present to you: Douglas :D (Credits: Pema-Tibet)

Chilling during orientation week: Shreya (India), me, Neil (Dubai), Daniella (New Mexico), Indi (UK) Credits: Shreya

Orientation week: me and Neil

The typical first-year picture: view from the tree-house in monsoon (in summer it gets all dry and brown :D) credits: Sreyashi

How we deal with electricity in India. This is something I do all the time here, but back home I realized how weird it actually is. (You need to use the pencil to put the plug in) Credits: Sreyashi

One of the entrances to the Academic Quarter. Credits: Thule (Netherlands/Canada)

I don't immediatly recognize this wada, but it is one of them :D Credits: Thule

Entrance of the Science building. Credits: Thule

There you go. That was it.

XOXO

Pauline

Answer on Question (;

Hey Jay,

I suppose you are one of our new firstyears? If so, WELCOME!! :D If not, nice your so interested.
Students can indeed brings posters, curtains,... to decorate their room. You can even paint your room (you will have to pay a little but though so the school can paint it back white afterwards). It is actually really nice to decorate your room as it becomes your home for one year. So make it as cosy as possible! (:
Hope this answers your question!

I also have really good news: This year there will be even more diversity. We managed to get pakistani, australian, sudhani,... students.

Love
Pauline

Let the second year begin!

Hello everyone,

This post won't be very long. I just wanted to tell everyone that I arrived safely at MUWCI. My second year officialy began! Now we will have 1.5 week without firstyears and then then will also arrive. So when I went back to Belgium one of the questions I hear a lot is "which kind of animals did you see?" So I have to be honest: I didn't see much animals yet actually. I saw one little snake, a lot of small spiders (that you also find in Belgium), one big spider and dogs and cats :D Oh, and frogs ofcourse and other insects. So to be honest nothing to really freak out about (;
But - Im gonna tell this, but firstyears please don't get scared, I never saw them :D- today in ESS (Environmental systems and societies) Ryan told us which kind of insects and other animals we could find on campus and I was sooooo suprised. So many big spiders, insects and stuff. I'll post some pictures of the snakes he said were on campus. (Again firstyears dont worry cause you have to look for them to find them..)

Indian Krait

Cobra

Russell's viper

Saw-scaled viper

That will be it for today, I'm unpacking and getting used to the MUWCI life again (without hot showers).
To the future firstyears: We're looking forward to meet you,
Bye everyone
Pauline

Exams -.-

Hey everyone,

So the exams started! (; 

I just had my first exam (selftaught paper 1 today) and it went quite well.

I probably won't write much anymore before next year, because in 14 days I leave MUWCI! (For 2 months). It's crazy how fast this first year passed by ): 

Also I don't realize yet that next year the second years won't be here anymore. We will miss them so much. Some of them became really good friends of me. 

But...we will have new firstyears (; 

I'm really curious to see what they will be like! 

Well, 

i'm gonna study a bit more, speak to u later! 

(If anyone has questions, feel free to ask, there's just not much for me to tell as everyone is studying hard :D)

XOXO,

Pauline

Study Study Study!

Hey everyone,

Sorry I haven’t really been updating my blog recently, the thing is that there isn’t much happening at the moment in MUWCI because as I said before all the second years are studying really hard for their exams and we, the firstyears have a lot of work. However, I would love to answers all your question, so it would be easier for me now if you ask me questions which I will then answer asap. Because it doesn’t really make sense for me to write about what is happening here now as there isn’t much. I would like to congratulate everyone who got in to MUWCI (: You can always contact me via facebook if you have questions as well. I’m so happy to read that many people are following this blog and being excited… About Pune: Pune is a nice city and kind of safe. I mean, it is not dangerous, I’ve never had problems but ofcourse you should walk alone as a white girl, I think that’s everywhere in India. It is a nice place to just go in the weekend to go to the mall. There are a lot of malls. Most people here go to SGSMall, dorabjies or Phoenix mall. So no worries about that (;. About how much money you’re allowed to spend: you are ALLOWED to spend as much as you want. Maybe you meant more how much you need? I would say that this again varies from person to person. For European people: keep in mind that India is way cheaper than most of European countries. I would suggest you to just try a certain amount the first term and you can always get more next term.

Recently I started realizing that my first year is already almost over. Next week is our last week of classes, then we have exams and then it’s over. New firstyears are selected and secondyears are talking about universities and leaving MUWCI. It will be very different to say bye to them as we became close to some of them.

Well, that was it for now,

Love.

Answer to the question

Hey everyone, 

So someone asked me if I get bored by the location of the school. I think this is something really important as our location is kind of isolated. However, I would like to say that this is MY opinion and you never know how you would feel about it. 

So as you know I live on a hill, 1 hour away from Pune. This means that most of the time we live on our hill. This place is wonderful and really beautifull. Especially in the monsoon when everything is green, this place is like a paradise. Now that said it is true that sometimes you might get sick of this place because you live here 24/7 with the same environment, same people,... Of course there are a lot of opportunities to get of campus, for example your of-campus triveni's, going to Pune (This can be WHENEVER you want, but most people go on saturday) and even going down to Paud (the nearby village). For me living here is not that much of a problem because I don't mind being 'isolated'. I think this is related to the fact that I never really watched the news or read the newspaper etc. I guess if a third world war would happen we wouldnt know it. I mean; if you want to know what is going on "outside", you really have to start looking for it in the newspaper etc. But as I said, that's fine for me now. I do read the newspaper even though I didn't do it before to stay informed about what is happening in the world (and in Belgium), but I don't need to go down of the hill often. For some people though it is important that they can go down at least twice a month to get out of "the bubble of our hill". I can understand this and I think that's why it is good that our experience here only lasts 2 years. Another thing people sometimes like less is that you live in a closed community with +-200 other students. This means that for a whole year (and kind of the second year, but then you have new firstyears), you have to live with the same people. Because we don't have a lot of contact with the indigenous (sorry if this is not the right word, I only know the Dutch word for it) people, we only get to hang out with the same MUWCI-people over and over again. On the other side this can create really close relationships and friends that know everything about you. Also, just because it is such a small community you know that when you will do something everyone will end up knowing (even if you want to keep it secret), so this can be possitive because it can help you to do less stupid things or it can be negative as it is hard to keep secrets. 

I don't know if this answers your question. I hope it does, but feel free to ask me more. 

I just want to clarify that this is a wonderful place and that this message is not intended to sound negative at all. I hope I didn't scare anyone away. Even the people who find it harder to live kind of isolated would never give up their MUWCI-experience. I think it is just important that you realize that EVERY place has positive and negative sides and that it is up to you how you deal with them. I love this place and I certainly don't want you to think bad about it (; 

Oh and about if we feel like we have no life: It is always so busy here and we have so much to do that we don't really have time to get bored. 

Love. 

Pauline

INC

Hey everyone,

Not much happened this week. This weekend (starting from yesterday) is exeat. I am staying on campus this time because I need to work. Actually almost everyone stayed this exeat because travel week is just over and people have no more money, enthusiasm or have too much work... So it's like a weekend that we can all chill (:

Also a lot of people are volunteering for INC. That is the Indian National Committee. Basically there are applicants for MUWCI on campus this weekend for the selection round. Second years can volunteer to help. So now there are a lot of new kids on our school. 

Yesterday and Wednesday I went to Zumba. Swati, a secondyear from India, decided to start it as an activity. It is not a triveni, so everyone can come whenever they feel like it. I like it a lot because it is working out in a fun way. For those who don't know what zumba is: it is a kind of fitness in the form of dancing. Swati choreographs several songs (about 8) and then dances them and we imitate her. It is really nice even if you can't really dance well (which is my case :D)

Today I'm going to finish my selftaught commentaries and study my presentation so that tomorrow I can go to Pune. We were suppossed to go to pune yesterday, but due to the strikes in Pune we didnt go. By tomorrow it should almost be over and even if it's not, the big malls etc are open so that's good enough. 

That was it for today. 

XOXO,

Pauline

Holi

Hello everyone,

So as you probably know Holi is one of the biggest Indian festivals. (There are more important ones, but everyone knows Holi). It is the festival of the colors. Now the thing is that there is a huge waater shortage in Maharashtra (the district where I live) and so we, MUWCI-people, wanted to do a dry Holi instead. Usually they throw colored powder and water, but we wanted to just throw colors without water. Now a lot of students said that this would still be a waste of water as we shower much longer to get all the color of our body. That's why we decided to NOT have Holi. I know this might sound sad as it is an experience you have to have in India, but the second years had it last years and the first years, so me, will have it next year. We figured it would be a nice thing to do towards people who don't have the luxury to have enough water as we do. What we will have though is a bonfire where we have coffee, chai, cookies,... and tell stories. This will happen on tuesday, so we will still spend a nice time together. 

So no pictures of Indian Holi this year.. 

Yesterday my sister celebrated her birthday at home so I skyped with my family for a short time. It was nice to see everyone and this way it kind of felt like I was there anyway (: 

XOXO,

Pauline

Answer on the question and pictures Valentine Soirree

Hello everyone,

Here I am again! (: So someone asked me about sports in MUWCI. Well, I have to admit that I am not a sportive person at all and that I don't like sports, but I have good news for you: we have a lot of sport-triveni's! There is footbal, basketbal, swimming, waterpolo, fitness, all kinds of dances,... Also you can go to the gym whenever you want and you can also create your own triveni if you would like to start a new sport. That's the thing about MUWCI: you can do whatever you want, if you are willing to take initiative! (: 

Also you can go jog whenever you want. After checkin you are not allowed to leave campus though, but campus is big enough to get you tired... I think that MUWCI is a good place for both sportive and non-sportive people. So don't worry about that. 

Next I will post some pictures of Valentine Soirree. It was a nice day, there was a couple game where couples (this were mostly friends, not real couples) did all kind of games :D It was a nice evening... 

I think everyone enjoyed it because there was no pressure of coming with your boyfriend or so on (like valentine's day has a tendency to do..)

Me and Aishwarya

Aishwarya, Sonia, me and Bianca

Sonia, me and Aishwarya

Housepicture: Aishwarya, Ranna, Eeshta, me, Sonia and Minjoo

Sonia, Aishwarya and me

Aishwarya, Chi and me

Aishwarya, Chi, Fiyin and me

Me, Asihwarya and Bianca

 There you go, I hope you liked it (: 

XOXO,

Pauline

I'm so sorry

Hey everyone,

Here I am again... finally!

I'm SOOOOOOOO sorry it took me this long, I do realize that a lot of people read this and that a lot of people see this as one of the only ways to keep contact with me and to know what is going on with my life (if Im still alive and so on). So to assure you all: Im still alive!!! (:

The thing is that I've been procrastinating so much as I know there is a lot I have to talk about and I don't have a lot of free time...

So what I've desided to do is; I'll post some pictures of Gokarna. (I wont tell too

because otherwise this post will be too long, and anyway it was basically a beach-holiday with a lot of fun so there is not that much to talk about), some pictures of exeat (I know you expect stories and everything, but I can tell them later and maybe in some of my next posts I will tell them, dont worry: the pictures show how much fun we had) and that will basically be it. I will try to be more regular from now on in writing my posts so that this doesn't happen again (;

Today I had my MOCKS (which are trial exams) for Selftaught so that is one of the reasons I didnt post on my blog. 9th of april I have my orals and then somewhere end of april I have my paper 1 and 2 and then Im DONE with selftaught (; So at the moment I have a lot of work with selftaught. I have to admit though that I like to procrastinate by doing things as writing my blog (like now) and so I will try to do this more often (;

When I spoke to my parents today I told them that several people commented on my blog to ask for more posts and they also said I had to start writing it again so that kind of stimulated me to start again (:

So I hope you will enjoy the pictures and I will try to write a lot from now on (I figured that many small posts with funny stories might be more fun then big ones like this with just a lot of pictures..)

XOXO,

Pauline

Gokarna with Melisa (Turkey), Shanina (The Netherlands), Thulani (South-Africa)

Me and Thulani

Melisa and me

Exeat in Agra, Jaipur and New Delhi with Sonia (Poland), Himaansu (Mauritius), Elias (Finland) and Daniyal (Bangladesh)

Elias, Himaansu and me

Me, Sonia, Daniyal, Himaansu and Elias

Elias, me, Himaansu, Sonia and Daniyal

Me, Himaansu, Sonia and Elias

Sonia and me

Me, Sonia and Himaansu

Me, Himaansu, Elias, Sonia and Daniyal

Elias, me, Sonia and Himaansu

Elias, Himaansu, Daniyal, me and Sonia

Elias, me, Sonia, Daniyal and Himaansu

Elias, Sonia, Himaansu, me and Daniyal

Elias, Sonia, Himaansu, me and Daniyal

me, Elias, Daniyal, Himaansu and Sonia

I had a lot of trouble putting up these pictures (it took me more than 1 hour), so I will post the pictures of Valentine soirree later (I hope tomorrow, but I can't promise). 

I hope you kind of enjoyed the pictures! (: