Hi everyone,
I am terribly sorry for not writing for so long (oh waw, this is like the entry sentence of every blogpost). I got caught up in enjoying my last days. In exactly 13 days I will graduate and in 17 days I will sit on my plane back home. Or on my plane leaving home? They say UWC's are like second homes. I couldn't imagine what this meant before coming here, I found it pretty cliché and cheesy. But now, after two years I can understand. I lived in this place for two years. I laughed, cried, had crazy amounts of stress, had crazy amounts of fun and met some of the most interesting people. It is really hard (actually impossible) to realize that some most of these people I won't ever see again. Especially considering that most of my closest friends will be going to the US and I am going to University of Glasgow (Scotland). Others will still be in MUWCI. [although I'll probably
meet many UWC alumni as statistics say that 25% of UWC alumni are
married to other UWC alumni and 50% of the married UWC alumni are
married to other UWC alumni.. #LittleLikeIncest??]
I will be honest with you; there were times MUWCI was hard. It is obviously not a perfect place, things were difficult sometimes, we have incredible amounts of work compared to the available time (believe me, I did Greek-Math in Belgium, but never had as much stress as in MUWCI), people tend to over-analyze everything you say, we found out recently the admin was pretty corrupt, there are similarly to 'normal' schools gossips etc, sometimes it is extremely annoying to not have any time or place for yourself to think or just to relax for a bit, it was extremely tiresome to not get enough sleep all year round, and (especially in the beginning) it is extremely difficult to have to concentrate 24/7 to understand all the different English accents (and English in general), it was hard to live in a country so different from mine (no offense to India in any way!).
But even though there are these aspects, it is a wonderful experience. There will probably never be another opportunity for me to sit on a table with a Norwegian and American teacher, Indian, Polish, Nepali, Nigerian, Australian and Pakistani students. I will probably never again be able to just walk into anyone's room when I feel bored or alone. I will probably never again be able to go cry on my teacher's schoulder when I'm dealing with a lot of shit (sorry for the word). I will probably never again be so close to a Polish, Korean or Indian roommate that I don't even need them to respond to know what they think of what I'm saying. I will probably never again be able again to know someone so well that I can write their diary for them because they are to lazy. I will probably never again be able to have a wada concert in the middle of the exams where an entire community is sitting together to listen to eachother sing and perform poems even though everyone has crazy amounts of work. I will probably never again have firstyears (or students younger than me) preparing ice-cream, fruits, brownies and other delicious meals for me and my coyears during the exams as they want to support us and sing goodbye songs. I will probably never again be able to walk outside my campus for 1 hour in nature without any busy city (although sometimes that would have been nice). I will probably never again get to taste International sweets and other delicious kinds of food as people get packages. I will probably never again cook fried rice in 1 pot together with a Bruneian, Indian and Polish student at 11pm even though we have to get up at 7am the next day for the exams. I will probably never again have an English class where we discuss how the teacher's kid will look like as they will be the mix of an Indian and a orange-hair (dont know how to call it in english) American. I will probably never again be able to learn a crazy language like Hindi without even having any classes. I will probably never again meet people who are India's youngest pilot or other great achievers. I will probably never again be in the class with people who when you google-stalk them turn out to have their own ted-talk when only 15 years old. I will probably never again have parties in a little courtyard of less than 15m^2 with more than 40 people. I will probably never again be able to interupt anyone on campus at 4 am to sleep with them as there is a mouse in my room (although I would've rather not have had that mouse in the first place). I will probably never again be able to stand up in a college meeting and express my opinion knowing that everyone is actually listening. I will, in fact, pobably never again have a college meeting where everyone is allowed to express their meaning no mather how ridiculous it sounds. I will probably never again get to wake up/be woken up at 6 am to have a mudfight. I will probably never again to live in a country with monsoon and dance in the rain with friends. I will probably never again take an Indian train and have a 'short' 24 hour journey to a city to stay one day and go back. I will probably never again travel around India with a Mauritian, a Polish, a Finnish and a Bangladeshi student, not knowing what we were doing and without any adult supervisor. Similary, I probably won't visit Thailand anymore with a Polish, CostaRican, Indian and Guatemalan student fearing that we would at some point see some protests (more about this travel later :D).
When I come home on the 28 of May, I will litterally step into my adulthood as the 29 May is my birthday. I have had moments in MUWCI that I just wanted to leave, but looking back, I wouldn't have wanted to end my youth in any other way. Even those moments have taught me to be strong, to keep going and to see the positive in things even when everything seems horrible. Moreover, after I watched a tedtalk about a 9-year old girl who changed the world as she wanted to stop slavery (I would advise you to watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBZc3t4BIhY) I realized that in MUWCI we don't actually do anything. Instead, we learn to be openminded, we get so much experience and, what I like to call, 'social' knowledge that helps us to be able and to believe that we are able to one day do these kind of things. MUWCI is in a way a tool to help us achieve our goals. Goals that we might not even have set yet. Honestly, so many of us are confused about the future. For example, I came to MUWCI wanting to become a lawyer, I started doing Philosophy in MUWCI and Im going to study Psychology in college. I'm not even sure this is what I want. That way so many people here don't know what they want to do now, don't know what they want to become, don't know what they want to or will become, don't know what they are capable of, don't know how they will pay of their debts they are already dealing with, don't know how they will handle all the problems life brings. But we all know that in the end, we have one thing we can hold on to: our memories from MUWCI. We know that whatever happens, we can say we went to MUWCI. We know that wherever we find ourselves (like, litterally wherever), we can call one of our friends and visit them and stay at their place for free. We know that we met some of the most amazing people in the world. And maybe later we will tell our children that that famous actress, great physician, amazing singer, brave protestleader,... was once our classmate and that together, we ruled a school on the top of a hill in the middle of India.
The future is terryfing, we will have to pay our own lives, we will be responsible for our own mistakes, we won't have that many people anymore to rely on when we are breaking down,... But I know I have friends everywhere and that MUWCI prepared me so well. Moreover, this experience made me realize that the more I grow old, I will everytime move and make/lose friends. However, I know that there is one group of people I will always be able to count on: my family. I don't mean my MUWCI-family this time (as, being realistically, I won't see many of those back even though I want to), I mean my real family. Whenever I was in stress, I could call them and whenever I go back home it is as if I never left. So, even though I don't do it often, I want to thank them for everything. I know how much effort it was for them to send me here, and I am so grateful for everything they gave me and did for me.
I think this was about what I wanted to say for now as the end is approaching. I know some of this might sound a little cheesy, but everything here was written impulsively and from the heart. I am not proofreading it (so sorry for mistakes) and Im just going to post it. I know some stuff in here sounds negative, but I hope it is clear that I am not trying to make MUWCI sound like a bad place. I'm just expressing how I experienced it and that new applicants should keep in mind that it is not perfect.
Lastly, I would like to put here a poem writen by my Indian friend Bianca Kavita Pais about her experience with MUWCI which I really liked. Especially the last sentence. It might sound controversial or confusing, I won't explain here as I think poems are for own interpretations, but think about it.
"I am not ready yet to leave this kingdom of idealism, cynicism and pure apathy.
I am not ready to leave our safe realm where we can start a revolution and take a day to just talk. Just talk, to people from more culture - country permutations than I will ever know. I am not ready to shut-up and realize that no one cares. I’m not ready to be told that I’m special and I’m not ready to realize that I am not special after all. I am not ready to leave our sanctum of hand-expressed disapproval and aggressive acquiescence. I am not ready to lose our “I have so much work” battle cry.I am not ready to have a wada concert in my bathroom by myself. I am not ready to explain my intense homesickness of that which wasn’t actually my home. I am not ready to inhabit the library of some college somewhere, reminiscent of times when everyone that surrounded me secretly wanted to change the world. I am not ready to say goodbye to people I have only known for two years but I really have for my whole life.Our little hill in the middle of breathtaking rural India ruined my life for the best."
Oh, about the thailand travel I will post later, because I am after all in the middle of my IB exams and I have to meet my conditional offer for Glasgow University, so I can't spend all my time writing ;)
Hope you will like this :) Anyway, I'm happy about this post and I feel like it reflects MUWCI well, mayb best of all my posts.
XOXO,
Pauline
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| [Orientation week beginning this year. I'm in the pink shirt] |
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| And our crazy housepicture for the yearbook this year (one of the pics) |
