#uwcac

So I have finally reopened my Tumblr after 3+ months of absence. Second term was a lot more time consuming than my first one, socially and academically. From reading my last post about first term, I have definitely come a long way since then. 

I won’t sugar coat it, my second term has been long (so, so long), stressful and exhausting, physically and emotionally. The workload for the IB started to increase in preparation for the hellish third term, with IAs, end of year exams and the EE looming over us. I got even less sleep than in first term, due to a combination of lazy time management leading to late night work (and too much fun with people when I’m awake). The reality of having only a year left started to sink in, along with the fact that we will have to take the real IB. Friendships shifted along with the seasons, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. We got our hearts completely shattered saying good bye to our second years; the realisation that you won’t see some of these people for several years, or perhaps ever again, when you’re used to seeing them everyday, and of how much stuff you never said or did with your second years, is soul destroying. 

However, I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.

Yes, it has been a long term. But I realised that there’s no other people I’d rather spend that term with. Throughout the term I made so many new relationships with people, through project week (music production!!!) to joining new activities and councils, which made me realise it’s never too late to make new friends and find new friendship groups at UWC. Through all this I grew in confidence, to the point that I did things I never believed I could have done (wrote, recorded and released a song, became a leader for an activity, became a life guard...). I got to know my year group so much better, and over this term we grew into second years, ready to meet the standard set by our predecessors. 

I learnt how to work harder and better, to meet my deadlines and the standard expected of me so I can tackle the hell of third term head on. I started to realise my full potential, and am now more confident in being able to meet it, in and outside of the classroom. My grades improved since first term because of this, and I also learnt that your classmates can be some of your most valuable study resources. (Oh yeah, and I can now function on an impressively small and concerning amount of sleep!)

Basically I grew up this term. I finally worked out how to balance my work and social life, and how to set boundaries with myself, which is a very important life skill. I celebrated birthdays and watched people legally become adults. I complained about university whilst working on revision timetables and budgeting plans. I did some boring adult feeling things. But I’m not even close to finishing growing up. Sure, I’m grown up compared to the start of the year. But in a year I’ll reread this post and probably think “wow I was young and naive”, ‘cause that’s life.

So yeah this is a long, rambling, kind of useless post to try and make up for my absence over the year. This term has been so time consuming, and I know the next one will be even more...

Well, week one of AC has officially passed and honestly more stuff has happened in that time than I thought possible, and it now feels like we’ve been here for at least a month. In this week we’ve picked out subjects and are choosing our services and activities (HL: Bio, GloPo and English Lit & Lang, SL: Maths Studies, Visual Art and French B), as well as going on First year camp over the weekend (Dancing in the Moonlight will be forever ingrained in my brain).

At AC there are eight houses; Powys, Sunley, Madiba, Whitaker, Tice, Pentti Kouri (PK), Morgannwg and Gwynedd. I am in Sunley, which is one of the furthest from the castle (the trek to breakfast on the M4 across the field will be awful in the rain), but our house parents are lovely and the second years are nice and welcoming, albeit a bit weird and loud at times. My roommates are from Scotland, Thailand and Bangladesh and they’re amazing!

The first day was quite intense. Our bus was met by screaming second years banging pans and waving flags in a massive crowd, who lead us to our houses and we’ve got to know them reasonably well (2am talks and communal showers). The days have gone quickly but slow at the same time. We also had a Brit national evening, which allowed us to get to know our British co-years and second years a bit (although with 50 students we didn't really get close with people).

If you’re reading this, welcome to my blog! Some quick facts; my name is Jasmine, I am 17 years old, I have a dog, two sisters + a fossil collection and a small obsession with textile crafts and Rudimental. Oh, and in 20 days I will be starting at UWC Atlantic College in Wales, after applying through the GB committee last summer/autumn.

This blog is my attempt at documenting my time at AC over the next two years in a simple, accessible format and to try and give any applicants an insight into what goes on here (the long nights of obsessing over every British UWC blog I could find have left their mark) and to be able to easily give help and advice.

How updated will I keep this blog? Hard to say; realistically I’ll be more behind than I want to (I'm a forgetful, disorganised but lovable mess) but hopefully I won’t abandon this! If you are interested in more UWC blogs please check out the UWC blog list,  which I’m sure will be loaded with new blogs in the next few months.

In the mean time please stick around and watch out for updates!

Firstly, this blog has been a bit abandoned and neglected. I’d like to apologise for this, I can’t promise it won’t happen again. All I can say is the UWC life got in the way! This post will be in two parts, this first part being a bit more philosophical and deeper than the second.

The last post I put on here was about the end of my first week at Atlantic College. I’m struggling to come to terms with the fact that this post is about the end of my FIRST TERM at AC. So much stuff has happened since that week. Where did that time go???

The answer is clear enough: living.

Sure, a lot of my time has been eaten up by the IB (French B SL owns my sanity, whilst GloPo has my heart) and CAS (Donkey Care, Model UN and Lifesaving). That was to be expected. What I hadn’t expected was how much of myself and my time I would spend with people.

Jasmine, I hear you gasp, you’re at a UWC, with people all the time, of course you’d spend a lot of your time with people!  In that sense, you are correct. However back home, I was a very isolated person. I had my good, close, strong friends and groups, and my family, but I was always closed off. I didn’t openly show physical affection (hugs, arm links etc) to anyone, I wasn’t very socially outgoing or popular, and I did not like discussing or processing my emotions. 

AC has changed that. Living with almost 50 people, in a room with three others at close quarters no less forced me to evaluate how I perceived others and my relationships to people, and how I interacted with people. I realised the emotional barriers and categories I’d set myself had only been holding me back, and I’d been making myself kind of miserable for a long time. 

So, I’ve had to learn to let go. Let go of my boxes and categories, my labels and barriers, the constant need for order and control. It hasn’t been easy to do or adjust to, but it’s not supposed to be. I’ve been learning to be spontaneous; to go on random trips to places (often Cardiff) with people, to let people into and chill in my corner, to prioritise my relationships with other people over some of my work. I’m still learning to relinquish control; I didn’t earn the “Miss Clean” house award for nothing, but it is slowly coming. 

Slowly, I’ve been learning to enjoy and appreciate existing again. I’ve realised that just because not everything is planned out or following its correct order doesn’t mean it will a disaster. It will be an experience, and that is part of life. I’ve met some of the most incredible, caring and crazy people in my life at this school (the list is already far too long to name everyone!), and they have all helped me change and expand my mindset, although some of them probably don’t even know this. Thanks to these people, I’ve created memories that will last a life time, and experienced and learnt things I’d never have at home, all of which have helped me.

People back home notice the difference; my old teachers comment I look happier, whilst my friends are delighted to be hugged and shown affection. I walked into my old room a stranger to it; the closed off, boxed in girl no longer lives there, and hopefully she will never return.

Still, I am not perfect and I never will be. I have unintentionally hurt people around me, I’ve made some poor life choices (French B SL I’m looking at you) and at times I have let my fears and doubts restrain me from things, causing me to miss out. However I’m learning from this, and at AC I am constantly learning how to be a better person.

When they say you’ll learn and gain more from UWC than an education, they really mean it. I came to AC unsure and sceptical, about myself and the world. The best thing I thought I could gain here was an IB diploma, and some connections for the wider world. Boy was I wrong. I’ve only been here one term, and I have learnt more socially here than I have in a year at my old school.

hello idk how to use this site that well so sorry if its a bit basic but i decided to make a blog!!! its mostly to document exciting stuff or random thoughts or whatever i feel like posting. hopefully it will last for a decent amount of time.

to put it short, im going to united world college (UWC) in wales (atlantic college) this coming school yr and i wanna share all my stories and experiences and random thoughts and whatever i feel like :’)

so follow my blog if ya want - i promise itll be good;)

byyee for now

ps: my favorite animal 

hello idk how to use this site that well so sorry if its a bit basic but i decided to make a blog!!! its mostly to document exciting stuff or random thoughts or whatever i feel like posting. hopefully it will last for a decent amount of time. 

so to put it briefly, im going to an international school this school year called United World College (UWC) WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO and its probably the perfect opportunity to have a blog bc of all the excitement and GOOD and BAD stuff that is to come with it! ill write a separate post allll about it and maybe about my personal experience as well because it seems to be pretty common among UWC blogs <33

so follow my blog if ya want - i promise itll be good;)

Oh second year, where to start? Oh third term, why did you have to?

Sorry for inactivity lately- though it doesn’t seem to put off emailed questions (which is super cool, I love chatting to you guys) Third term has hit like a car crash and I don’t seem to have enough time to do anything lately.

A quick catchup:

I got back after a hectic but lovely and well needed summer on the 9th of August, and was thrown straight back off campus with my service group to the beautiful Welsh village of Tenby where we camped and spent three days surfing, SUPing and swimming as a bonding experience. It was super nice to get closer to the group, and we definitely gelled over the few days (putting on wetsuits that were shabbier than the ones at first year camp in a very, very public car park would make anyone stick together.)  After getting back from Tenby, we spent five days running a kids swimming summer camp for the service week, which was a lot of fun, if super tiring. Chasing an over excited five year old around a swimming pool for two hours is harder than it looks, trust me. Especially when they can’t swim and you have to hold them up to breathe every five seconds.

The rest of August period was designated study time and I worked a fair amount on my extended essay and some other coursework, but most of it was spent in the sea, in fields and on cliffs watching the sunsets with my co-years, chatting, reminiscing and predicting what the year ahead would be like. It was an amazing time period- I’d happily die to have it just one more time- and I’ve never felt closer to a group of people.

First years arrived August 22nd to a classic AC welcome of dancing, singing, crazy outfits, air horns and pots & pans. Though Gwynedd broke all our wooden spoons and most of our kitchen stuff with the enthusiasm, I think the first years liked it (???)

Codes started a week or so ago, and the first years already feel like a permanent fixture around the house. It’s super cool having some new nationalities in the house- like Icelandic and Ethiopian- though I can’t deny I miss my second years a whole ton.

We’re back to the grind now, with deadline after deadline and planning my timetable is the most difficult it’s been my whole life. But hey ho, onwards and upwards. I’m in the process of writing a day in the life post, so I’ll publish that and maybe some photos soon.