One year gone

Extreme sadness, extreme exhaustion, extreme happiness.
What a roller coaster.
Being home is wonderful.
Seeing family and friends (and sleeping in my own bed) is indescribably good.

But what of the life I had for the past nine months? My heart has expanded. Grown big enough to love a second family of 350 students from around the world.
It is impossible to explain it. How in a few short months everything can change so completely and yet still be the same.

At 10 pm (British time) on Monday May the 24th I said goodbye.
Goodbye to friends, to housemates, to family.
My heart feels a bit like Swiss cheese. But the holes are filled with beautiful memories of laughter, of tears of understanding.

Atlantic College is a strange place. It is amazing and terrifying and confusing and exhilarating and frustrating and hilarious and beautiful and overwhelming and inspiring.
In August I get to go back.
But it will be different. Not just because of the new rules or different rooms, but because half of my family won't be there to welcome me back with huge hugs and outrageous stories of summers spent on the beach.

AC is defined by the people who are there.
And half of my definition is gone.
It is a terrifying thought that I will be expected to fill the shoes left by those who have left.
But hopefully I will be inspired by the same people to reach new heights.

The second years are ingrained into the fabric of the school and therefore have become a bit of who I am.
For that I am thankful.

I don't know what next year holds.
But I do know that I have anchors who will hold me firm.
How lucky am I?

However in this moment I am home.
And that is a beautiful thing!

Coming Home

I haven't written in a while, and for that I am very sorry.

However my precious little time left here is running out at an alarming rate.
So I will write when I get home, and have more time.

But for now:
I finished my french exam!!!!

and

I AM COMING HOME :)

AC Legacy

When people leave AC, they leave a different person. They don't usually notice it themselves, but it is evident to those who haven't seen them in a while, and after they look back on their two years, they too can see the slow evolution of who they are and how they see the world.

However not everyone leaves.
Some people just decide to move it forever.

There are a few teachers who seem as much a part of the school as the stones that make up the castle.

My physics teacher, for example, was student here from 1973-74!
And even more amazingly, one of the Biology teachers (James Mendelssohn) was teaching when my physics teacher was a student!!

Recently my physics teacher got a hold of some old photos from when he was a student. Unfortunately so far I have been unable to figure out who he is. However I have been able to find a photo of James Mendelssohn from when he was a teacher.

Then (1974):
And now!

Times are a changin'

IB buddies

This is a time of extremes for the second years:
- exhaustion
- exams
- studying

And as they struggle to remember every important date since 0 A.D., the make-up of every plant and animal on the face of the planet, and the entirety of every book of literature ever written, the rest of us worry about them.
And so in the spirit of keeping our second years sane and feeling as loved as possible, all the first years have been assigned 'IB buddies'.
Our purpose is to anonymously encourage one of the second years in our houses by leaving food on their bed, sticking encouraging notes on their doors, or pasting posters telling them how amazing they are all over campus.
and by just being extra nice to them.

Unfortunately I can't be extra nice or leave encouraging notes on the beds of my friends at home who are also kicking the butt of their IB exams.
So I am afraid you will all have to survive on the knowledge that I wish you the best and that I have total confidence in your abilities!!!!!!
and I will see you sooooooon

(if I survive the mountain of course work that my teachers deem necessary to finish before they let me come home...)

Group 4 project

Yesterday was 'Group four project day'.

Group four refers to the science part of the IB requirements and the project is part of the internal assessment portion of our marks along with lab write-ups.
Everyone who takes an IB science must engage in a ten hour (I think) group project that they design themselves.
At my school we do it all in one day.

The projects were done in house groups, and so at 8 in the morning we all headed down to the biology department to meet with Adrian, our group four day teacher.

After brain storming ideas for a while, my house eventually split into two groups.
A little more than half the house headed down to the outdoor pool, where they split into a further two groups and had a competition to see who could create the best boat using only recycled materials.
The other ten people (including yours truly) returned to our house where we had plans to see 'What are the most amount of steps we can have to push a cake into the oven?' in the style of Rube Goldberg.
We combed the house looking for everyday objects that could be used: our clothing line and a coat hanger became a zip line, a wooden Easter egg became part of a pulley system, and books became dominoes.
We worked for most of the day trying new ideas, setting the system up over and over again and searching for new materials.
There was a time when we had two different reactions happening, but unfortunately even though we were full of creative ideas, we couldn't make them all work just right.

In the end our day room was covered in string and books, cardboard and tape.
Our couches were shoved to the side, our foosball table was in the opposite corner and our kitchen has been rendered unusable.
But we had a working Goldberg machine.
It started with the release of a weighted pulley, which cause a foosball player to spin, dropping a rock and then it was off!
Strings were pulled, books toppled and clothespins were unclipped.
Fortunately I was able to capture it working successfully on my camera (it is rather blurry because my camera is slow to focus, but it is there nevertheless).
Unfortunately due to my laptop breaking, I can't upload the video or any of the photos.

After our machine put the cake in the oven we followed the rest of the house down to the pool where they had a relay in their boats.
One boat sunk before it reached the other side.
The other boat made it back a forth with its entire team and would have remained dry... except it was tipped by the losing team.
My group sat on the side of the pool and cheered.
And then, nice and dry, returned to our house to eat our cake.

Success!

The other houses: built a swing and a path, constructed a trebuchet, made soap and investigated the uses of nettles, amongst other things.

Personally I think my group had the best project because we got to dance to music while in our house and had a cake at the end of it all.

Done!

On Thursday I finished my end of the year exams!!

It is a wonderful relief to be finished. Now I can focus on the rest of my work: my ee, my Peace and Conflict IA, my physics practical etc.
wahoo

This end of exams is another landmark in my second term at AC: it is the beginning of the IB exams.

My second years have all scuttled indoors and settled into their favourite studying locations for hours on end, emerging only for some food and sleep.
I wish them all the luck in the world! and wish the same for everyone at home who is taking them as well.

Furthermore, it is my last month here (even less than a month).
In the very near future I will be taking my photos off of my wall, folding clothes into bags and searching my house for all of the stuff that has mysteriously gone missing over the past nine months.
I will be signing yearbooks, promising to write and hugging everyone I see.
I will be saying goodbye to my second years. Most of whom I will never see again.
It will be the end of another year at AC.

But until then I will be trying to absorb as much of this place as I can.
Enough to last me until August.