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! (:

So much to tell!

Hey everyone,

I just had exeat and it was awesome!! I will write a separate post about it as soon as I get the pictures etc. The last weeks so much happened! Ok, so firstly 9-10 february it was Lunar New Year – which you might know as ‘Chinese Newyear’-. Therefore we had a wonderful surprise for Brunch -- our East Asian students were preparing all kinds of delicious food for- pad thai, malaysian chow mein, korean pancakes, vietnamese crepes and vegetarian sushi. They even made fortune cookies for us! These are the moments that you realize how lucky you are to be at a uwc and to share all the different cultures. A Big, big Thank you to you for sharing your culture with all of us! The food was delicious. This year is the year of the snake. 

Secondly I had a French diner with all the French-speaking people. I think we were about 10 people – there are way more people, but we organized it a bit late so not everyone could come- and we had good food. It was nice to hang out with them and to speak French. It made me realize how fast you can lose a language! I really feel that I speak worse than before. But it’s fine because we all understand English as well. It was really nice and we will do it again for sure. That’s something that is also very nice about MUWCI, you just have a lot of opportunities where you come together with a group of people to have fun (for example house dinners, French dinners, dutch dinners, theatre thee,…)

Here is a little video that I liked a lot that represents India to a certain extend. However, I think it uses a lot of stereotypes about India that aren’t always true, but I can show it to give some kind of idea of where I live now (; 

A day in India 

Also, 2 MUWCI-students went to a congress in London where all UWC’s come together to talk about issues in the UWC-movement and what we can do about it and also to represent the different UWC’s and show them to each other. For this congress, we made a little video which gives a good image about MUWCI-students (: 

Lastly, and at least as important, there is big news on MUWCI! The people who spent a lot of time watching the nature and diversity on campus found out that there is some kind of jungle cat on campus. We haven’t actually seen it yet, but all the puppies disappeared, 2 big dogs disappeared and we found excreta that shows that it lives here. It could be any kind of jungle cat, but the people who are kind of into animals and know a lot about it (ess teachers etc) say that it could be a leopard. So at night no one can walk around alone and the guards are paired up for their shifts. I don’t think we should be too scared though because it is also very scared of humans and no one saw it yet…

Well, this is it for today, in a few days I will tell you about my exeat (;

XOXO,

Pauline

The end of Theatre season

Hello there,

Theatre season is over for me! There is still 1 week of plays, but I'm not in those.. Although I loved it and it was really nice to see people enjoy our play, I'm happy it's over. It ruined my social life. All I was doing is rehearsing.. 

Our play was really amazing. We performed Information for Foreigners by Griselda Gambarro. It's a really creepy play about the Dirty War in Argentina. A lot of people who came told us they liked our play the best of all the plays from Theatre Season! Every performance we did there was always at least 1 person crying because it was so scary. I'm really happy that our play was such a success.

Something I didn't talk a lot about yet is college meeting. Every monday from 5pm to 6pm we have college meeting. This is a meeting in which we discuss daily issues we face at MUWCI and we make announcements over trivenis etc. I really enjoy it, we all sit together on the MPH steps and we discuss random stuff. I like it because it's a time that you can just relax and you realize in which awesome community you live. 

Even this week while I was really busy, college meeting gave me the opportunity to do nothing without worrying about all the work I have left. 

Also this week Aishwarya and I started to share our languages. I'm teaching her Dutch and she teaches me Hindi. It's really nice to learn another language and it's way easier this way than sitting in a clas and learning it. I just ask her random sentences that I want to know in Hindi and she teaches me them. This way I learn the vocabulary and I start recognizing the grammar. It's really nice and I hope I'll be able to understand Hindi conversations soon. 

This week made me realize that MUWCI is kind of like a family. As you know I was really stressed, tired and busy all the time. In a normal school people probably wouldn't notice, but here at least 10 people asked me if I was ok and hugged me and everything. It's so nice to get so much love from sometimes random people that you don't usually are really close to. Also MUWCI-people give so much compliments. One day I was very tired and I was rushing to school and on the way someone that I hardly know just told me that I looked good that day. It's really nice to hear such things because it just makes your day. I really love muwci (: 

Lastly, Valentine's day is comming up. We can buy roses for each other and there will be a Valentine's soiree. Everyone is buying flowers for their roommates, friends,... The funny thing is that for the Valentine's soiree many people go with their best friend/roommate/... I'm going with Aishwarya. There will be Valentine games and good diner etc. I think it will be a lot of fun. 

That was it for today, I hope that I'll be able to post more messages from now on because Theatre Season is over (:

XOXO,

Pauline

Answer to Namu

"Namu N has left a new comment on your post "Welcome new people (;":

Hii i really needed it ., cause next year im planning to study muwci ! Mbe ... Can u tell me about can i often shop in pune ? Phoenix ?? And do they really has rats , monkeys in wada :0 cause it really scares me !! Help me :) and by the way i love ur blog <3 "

Hey everyone,

I'm sooooo busy right now because we're in the middle of theatre season. This post is just to answer to Namu's questions. I will give an update about MUWCI life right after theatre season is over. I know it's not nice for you guys, but I really have to much work.
First of all Namu,  thank you for reading my blog, it's nice to know some future MUWCI-students read it (;.
Secondly, you can go shop in Pune as often as you want. Every week there are schoolbusses going down to pune and you can rent a jeep whenever you want. So if you come here don't worry about buying stuff. (for example dont bring 10 bottles of soap and shampoo because you're afraid not to have enough). Most people go to SGSmall or Phoenix mall. You are really very free in MUWCI.
Lastly, there are rats and snakes and all those things on campus.. BUT don't worry, even I am scared as hell for insects and all kind of animals like snakes and stuff, and I only saw a snake once, I never saw a monkey and I did see spiders and insects, but almost never in my room. So only if you look for them (photographers are amazing at finding all those animals) you will find them. I wouldn't worry about those animals too much because they are so afraid of you that they stay away. I can asure you: If I can survive this, everyone can (;
If you have any more questions, you can always post them or send me a mail or give me your email address.
I hope this was usefull and I hope I don't dissapoint people by not writing for such a long time.

XOXO,
Pauline