We wish you a merry christmas

Last week we had our house christmas party!

It was a wonderful evening of good food, beautiful decorations and friends.

Our house was prepared ahead of time and booked the library in the castle which is gorgeous.

The girls spent a good part of the afternoon crowded into the bathroom and running up and down the corridor getting ready.

At 5:30 we poured into the dayroom (at this point I would like to bring it to your attention that the girls were ready before the guys who are not very 'time-aware')

As is tradition everyone in the house is randomly paired up as dates for the party (we are one of the only houses who actually has the same guy to girl ratio and so none of the girls had to share their dates). Usually the guys pick names out of a hat about two weeks in advance, but as a house we decided to change the tradition as early date choosing always results in secret swapping of dates, which the girls find insulting. So instead the party reps cut christmas cards in half and then on the evening of the party we all pulled a half out and had to find who 'completed our card' and who was therefore our date. It was pretty fun. And so after a few minutes of people milling around te room holding their cards out in front of them like they were on fire, we all found our dates.

My christmas date was Faizan, the latest arrival (he can approximately a week before) from Pakistan. He is very sweet (not to mention brilliant) and gave me flowers which were lovely!

This is Laura ( from the States [on the right]), Nora (Norway [left]) and I in our dayroom:

After establishing our dates we ventured outside and down to the library.

Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) it was raining outside and because my umbrella had walked out of my room earlier in the week (I swear that it walked out on its own!) and because Faizan didn't have one, we walked to the castle in the wet. As a result my nicely straightened hair turned into a frizzy mess.

On the bright side the library looked beautiful! The tables were set up, the couches had been moved, music had been set up and the all of the shelves were decorated.

Here is Maria (Spain) in front of the tables:

Here are the beautiful tables, with christmas crackers and everything
Here is a (slightly dark) dorm photo. From the left is: Marthe (Norway - 2nd year), Kete (South Africa/ UK - 2nd year), Helen (Hong Kong - 1st year) and me!
My fabulous first year doormie!
More dorm love:
Summer (Jamaica - 1st year) and her date Geome (France - 2nd year)
Helen, my doormie with her christmas date, Donald (Sierra Leone - 1st year)
Laura, Nora and I again
Iris (albania - 1st year) the house genius and my math party buddy (really it is her doing math and me badgering her with questions)
Dongju (China - 2nd year) trying to look like a chinese pop star (and doing a pretty good job!) and Floria (Hong Kong - 2nd year) creeping in the background
Here is Laura's beautiful hair. When she arrived at AC she had dreadlocks. However after about a month at school (she only had then down about a month before she came) she decided that she wanted to take them out. So we spent many, many evenings since then sitting the bathroom, listening to music, talking and combing the dreadlocks out of her hair. It was painful process (mostly for her) but we finished the day before the christmas party and then throughly conditioned her hair and cut it... and here is the final result! I think it looks beautiful :)
Sheila (Uganda - 1st year) who was my secret santee (I gave her gifts)
James (Falkland Islands - 2nd year) and Yuki (Japan - 2nd year)
Nora and William (USA - 1st year)
Alex (Nigeria - 2nd year) and Gabriel (Venezuela - 1st year)
Leah (USA - 1st year [she is not in my house but she came to visit]) and Hugo (Spain - 1st year)
Me and my date, Faizan!
Me with Sumire (Japan - 1st year)
Faizan, Ula (Norway - 1st year {this is a classic Ula expression - he is probably one of the funniest guys I have ever met but is still a really solid guy}), Nora, Sheila, and Facundo (Paraguay - 2nd year)
Our pensive looks
Facundo looking intelligent
Everyone enjoying good food and good company
all the yummy food!
Our house dance party. After we filled ourself with delicious goodness, we migrated down to the end of the library were the couches had been cleared away and put on our dancing shoes!
After dancing off some of the food from our stomachs we gave our final secret santa gift and thus revealed ourselves to our secret santees. I gave Sheila chocolate and a big scarf to keep her warm during the winter (when I asked her what she missed most about Uganda she said the heat!).

My secret Santa was Laura (USA)! She was a wonderful secret santa and over the two weeks she had given me chocolate, a cupcake and various messages. As her final gift she made me a gingerbread house!! It was amazing!
Here are all of the guys in my house.
and most of the girls!
Sheila with my peer listener, Gala (Germany - 2nd year)
Faizan, Ola and Ola's wicked hair.
and that is that.

The party was amazing, and the people are even more amazing.

Merry Christmas!

Term One

I AM DONE EXAMS!
woot.

Good news: I am done exams and am going home on Tuesday
Bad news: I have finished approximately one fifth of my Ac education.

a few more weary days and then...

One exam down,
three to go!

TBA

no TBA does not stand for 'to be announced'
It actually stands for Time Based Art, which is an event happening at school this week

It is an art show made up of work by the first adn second year art students.

It is unique in the fact that all of the art must have some type of movement, hence the time base.

I will try and take a few pics this thursday!

the dungeon

It is only 5:30 but it is already dark out
And with the darkness comes the cold
Seeping under doors and through the stone walls
Luckily it is dinner time
I can follow the crowd and join the dinner line
Stand and listen to the chatter and enjoy the light
unluckily I have to use the loo
and the nearest one is in the dungeon
Once home to criminals and victims
It is now home to the girls washroom
Timidly I peer down the spiral stairs into the darkness
Slowly I tiptoe down the steps
expecting movment at every bend
Finally I reach the bottom
cautiously my hand feels the wall
searching for the switch
I find it!
Light floods the room

It illuminates the corners
my silly fears are dispelled

I push open the door of a stall

It creaks in protest

Then I shut myself in

try to ignore the weight of the door

the strength of the door

the fact that these doors

were meant to be locked forever

I scrub my hands

willing the hand dryer

(that sounds like a jet engine)

to dry my hands faster

and pelt for the stairs

bounding up them

headed for ground level

Done!

This was just a small insight into the girl's washroom in the Castle.

It really is in a dungeon

and it really is reather frightening to go into it alone at night

During induction they told us that two girls once died in it

But I don't mind

I don't believe in ghost

Hello, my name is Jessica. I am a emergency responder. May I help you?

Over the last three days I have learned how bandage wounds, treat shock, stop bleeding and essentially bring someone back to life.

It was.... First aid week!

While all the second years (except for the few poor sods who haven't finished their EEs [extended essays]) went galavanting around London, the first years shuffled from classroom to classroom taking notes and practicing CPR.

There were seven groups and there are six houses which meant that one house was scattered amongst the other houses. My house was that lucky one. It actually ended up being quite nice as I was able to talk with some people from Sunley who I would not normally hang out with.

The down side was that the house was unusually empty (no seconds years and the first years had their free blocks at different times)

And while all of the information was very important, I have learned almost all of it before thanks to bronze cross and bronze medallion. Which meant it was sort of boring.

However, the evenings so far have been wonderful. With no codes and only half of the student body around, it felt really relaxed!

Today we had our exam. In the morning we had a practical assessment where we a simulated situation was explained to us and in groups we had to enter the scene and do our stuff.

Then, in the afternoon we had two written papers: primary and secondary aid.

It was pretty simple stuff.

I passed! and am now an emergency responder!

So if you are ever choking, or not breathing, or bleeding, or broken, or poisoned, or crushed, or stung, or hyprothermic, or experiencing cardiac arrest, or bruised, or in shock, or vomiting, or unconscience, or drowning, etc.... I can help!

Up to speed

Dead camera battery + bad memory + lack of free time = this post that is later that I planned, and without photos.

Anyways, here is an update on what I have been doing the last week or so: (this events are not in chornological order)

- Sustainability forum
On Saturday there were a series of talks about susatinability. They varied from architechture, to permaculture to IB. Overall the event was pretty good (they did have pancakes for breakfast for the people who attended so I have to be a bit positive). However I felt like it didn't really give me any good ideas on how we can improve the sustainability at the school. And I still don't feel like I fully inderstand permaculture...
- Secret Santa
Secret Santa is a strong tradition at AC. What happens (for those who don't know) is that everyone has a person to whom they give small gifts for a certain period of time without them knowing who your are. Most of the houses started last week but the party reps in our house are a little slow. Finally Sunday night they decided it was time for us to start! So we all pulled names out of a box.... only to be told a few minutes later that they forgot to put some names in the box and that we should forget the names and that we would do it again later.
So about an hour later the party reps came around with a new set of names and I chose a new Secret santa. So yesterday morning I snuck into my secret santa's room and put some chocolate on her bed. Then, pleased with myself I went to day room. But on the door was a sign that said 'we are very sorry but please forget your secret santa and we are giving you new ones today'! So I had to run upstairs and take the chocolate off the bed of my 'no-longer-secret-Santa'.
Finally yesterday they got their act together and we all have secret santas that are official... I hope!
- Kitchen:
Every house has a kitchen. And they are all small and dirty. However our house parents were so fed up with the state of things (I agree that it was gross and therefore never use it) that they took everything out of it and unplugged our fridge. It is a bit depressing to see that the future generation of our world cannot even be bothered to clean their own dishes (Mom: you will be proud to know that anytime I did use the kitchen I ALWAYS cleaned my stuff ... and usually other people's as well)
- Laundry
Today the washing machine ate my money. It was very sad.
- coastal path
On Sunday, it was nice and sunny and so one of the girls in my house (Nora) and I walked into Llantwit along the coast. It takes about twice as long as walking on the road but it was worth every min. I love Wales!
- math party
When you don't know how to do your math homework, what do you do? When the Albanian girl in the dorm next to you is a math genius, what do you do? When you happen to have some chocolate from your secret santa, what do you do? When you have an ipod and speakers, what do you do? You throw a math party! obviously!
- Fire alarm
Some smart individual opened a door that triggers a fire alarm on Firday. It was annoying.
- AC vibes
on Saturday night there was an event called AC vibes. It was basically people playing/singing/preforming music. It was really wonderful. Some of my favs were: the gospal choir (which was basically a group of girls who sang a song and clapped and looked like they were having tons of fun), a small jazz ensemble (who were really good and I just wanted to get up and dance [ and the drummer broke his drumstick!]), and a group of girls who rewrote 'ganster paradise' as 'AC paradise'.
- Service: no longer kayaking
I officially finished kayak trainning for my service. Last week we did orienteering. and in the next term we are doing rock climbing. I can't wait!
- Fundraising event
there was a large fundraising event held at my school on friday. I joined the group of students who dressed up and helped out. We set the tables, greeted, served the food and cleaned up.
They were fundraising to build a well for a school in Africa and so a group of the Africas did some dancing and singing and had a fashion show of their traditional clothing. And the best part was that they had a goal of raising £1000, but in the end they raised just over £2000 pounds!!

It has been a wonderful week!

Sing your heart out

This term one of my activities is the tour choir (which is quite tragically not doing a tour this year). Chris Davies, one of the music teachers here, directs us twice a week for an hour and a half.

Although the choir had a bit of a rocky start (concerning half the choir being kicked out/quitting) it is pretty fun. And even though I don't particularily enjoy the song choices, it is really nice to just sing for a little while every week.

And this past week was 'music focus week' during which there were various activities to do with the history of music or random seranades of people during meals. As a part of this focus week the choir had a small concert. We sang through about five or six of the songs we have finished so far, and I think it went pretty well.

I asked someone to record it with my camera and here is the result (unfortuantely due to the slow computers I can't see the video on my computer... and consequently cannot tell what the song is...)

p.s. I am in the second row, second person on the right :)

Happy Halloween

This is a little late, but Happy Halloween everyone!

Most of the non-North-Americans here wouldn't usually celebrate Halloween, but in the international spirit, everyone dressed up Oct 31.
It was amazing what people were able to do with their wardrobes (considering no one brought dress-up with them) and how creative people were.

..Unfortuately I am not very creative and don't have any particularily odd clothing in my closet and so I was not dressed up, but here of some girls who did:

Harry used an impressive (and stupid) amount of toilet paper... I think it was 5 rolls!

I was just impressed that Gabriel managed to fit into Val's pants...

The downside was that trick-or-treating will forever be a memory to me

The upside is that I spent my halloween laughing with friends!

Would you drink this water??

Last weekend I joined the Amnesty International group at my school and went petitioning/ protesting in Cardiff.
We were trying to raise awareness about the human rights violations occuring in the Niger Delta. Basically Shell went into the delta and polluted the land and poisoned the water and stuff. And now it is just leaving without cleaning up and without compensating the hundreds of workers who no longer have jobs and can't go back to farming because the land is destroyed.

What we did was some of us (me!) dressed up like buiness people to represent shell and a group of people dressed up like the villagers of Nigeria and a group of people asked people to sign the petition.
And then the villagers yelled stuff like "I need water" "give me back my job" "how can I feed my family" "What is more important: water or oil?" and " my life sold for thier black gold" and the shell workers ignored them and shoved them around. And we did a few skits like: the villagers would line up and then yell something and then die and then the shell workers would walk over their bodies and yell stuff baout how their profit was doing. And other times when the villagers asked for water we would pour out the clean water infront of them or give them water filled with dirt.

Anyways I think was pretty effective because we ran out of sheets to sign for the petition and started getting people to sign lined paper we happened to have! I don't actually know how many signatures we got but I think we got quite a few :)

Unfortunately, becuase I was acting for most of the day my photos are not very good, but here they are.
This was a group of the shell workers surrounded by some of the villagers (it was really bad at one point because someone's backpack got nicked. So we had to put all of our stuff in the middle...which didn't look so good, but it was safer)
Here are some more yelling villagers and Jas (a shell worker) telling them to back down and that we don't care and they are fired etc.

more villagers

This is one of the two big signs that we held. and then most of ouracting went on in between the two signs. So people were forced to slow down and look at what was happening. And as they walked passed we tried to gte them to sign the petition

Here are two of the fabulous shell workers :)

And then we sent the petition to the new CEO of Shell (Peter Voser)

and here is the petition if you are curious:

To Peter Voser
Chief Executive Officer
Royal Dutch Shell
Carel van Bylandtlaan 30The Hague, Zuid-Holland 2596 HRNetherlands

We, the undersigned, call upon Royal Dutch Shell to take full responsibility for the negative consequences of their actions, and inactions, in the Niger Delta.
Royal Dutch Shell has contributed to and profited from the violation of the basic human rights (as determined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) of the local people in the Niger Delta, including: the right to food, the right to work and an adequate standard of living, the right to health and the right to a healthy environment.
The 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment declared that "man's environment, the natural and the man-made, are essential to his well-being and to the enjoyment of basic human rights – even the right to life itself." Widespread environmental damage associated with oil extraction has destroyed livelihoods, polluted water and undermined health in the Niger Delta. The same oil extraction that has generated wealth for Shell has deepened the poverty of many. According to the United Nations Development Program, more than 60% of the people in the region depend on the natural environment for their livelihood. The rivers and streams of the Niger Delta are directly used by the local people for drinking, bathing, fishing and harvesting, but Amnesty International’s research has found that these vital resources have been the receiving bodies for oil spills and waste discharge, including waste water and dumped drilling waste, for decades. Shell has also participated in gas flaring in the Niger Delta, majorly contributing to carbon dioxide emissions and climate change, and negatively affecting the health of the local people.
According to Human Rights Watch, Nigerian law requires oil companies to: respect high environmental standards in order to prevent and remedy pollution; to protect inhabited areas from oil flaring and other dangerous aspects of oil production; to provide fair and adequate compensation for buildings, crops, fishing rights, or other property adversely affected by their operations.
In light of these facts, we demand that Royal Dutch Shell:
1. Undertake a comprehensive clean-up of all oil pollution and remediation of all areas damaged as a result actions taken by Shell, in consultation with the affected communities, and report on this publicly and regularly
2. Disclose all information on the impact of oil operations on the environment and human rights, including any studies Shell may have done on the impact of its operations on the communities and the environment in the Niger Delta
3. Provide fair monetary compensation directly to those people whose basic human rights have been violated as a consequence of Shell’s actions and inactions in the Niger Delta

Oxbridge

This weekend mark my half term and so we had a long weekend!! wooot!

My daddy just happened to be on the continent (he was invited to speak for a retirement event for the author/evangelist Micheal Green in oxford!!) and so I dorve out to oxbridge and London with him! It was a really wonderful weekend. I loved seeing my daddy again and seeing some more the UK. And my own shower, bed and real food were much appreciated!

Here is a short chronicle of my weekend:

This is one of the bridges from Wales to England. Yay for civil engineers :)

It's not every day that you see a house driving down the highway!

London (this is slightly out of order, I was actually in London on the Sunday and Monday) is already in christmas mode. Oxford/bond street are all decorated.

This is the church where the event in Oxford was. It was very nice. Everyone dressed 'smart' and the food was excellent. And it was very interesting meeting different people and learning more about Micheal green (the deco had a 'green' theme...har har) and all of the different things he has done (he is a seriously amazing person). One of the speakers shared a personal testiment to how Micheal changed his life, which was very touching. so basically it was a wonderful evening and a great tribute to a great man.

Here is my daddy speaking! gooooo daddy!

The next day we drove into oxford city center and then wander around. When we arrived we noticed that all of the students were dressed up in their formal gowns. We could not figure out why they looked like this because they did not seem to be all going the same place. They were everywhere! We later discovered (due to our superb detective skills) that they were having their year photos taken.

Here is one of the main streets in oxford. so beautiful!

This is a photo of the outside of the church where the Micheal Green Event was held.

We then went and alked around Christ's Church cathedral which was gorgeous

I love ivy!

Inside there were some stunning stained-glass windows. This one was fantastic but it confused me because it was a depiction of the crusades (we think... it was warriors anyhow). And why someone would decorate their church with this I have no idea.

The courtyard of the cathedral. check out the green grass!

I want to live here

The bodleian library. Unfortunately it was closed to visitors

Then we drove to Cambridge to visit the Wilson's (Ian is a chemical professor at Cambridge).

This is the windmill across the street from their house. soo cool!

Here are some photos of the Wilsons with my dad in cambridge. Beth is on my dad's sholders, and Claire is standing infront of her dad.

And again at home (with adam trying to escape the photo)

This was a very strange work of art where a giant bug crawled as the pendulum swang

there was a ten km race through cambridge while we were there to raise money for cancer research. Both Scooby-doo and batman participated!

One of the colleges (I should probably remember which one but the names are all muddled in my mind...)

the river. I wanted to go punting but we didn't have the time

Inside Trinity college (we were allowed in with Ian's campus id!)

Here was a very random whale skeleton is a back parking lot...

This is for Emily! It is Ali Baba!

Then my dad and I went and spent a day in London. We wanted to see a show but none of them were showing on Sunday so we went to Holy Trinity Brompton instead which was really nice. and then the next day we went to regent park! here is the amazing rose garden

Soo beautiful

This is for James!

and this one too (the book was in an exibit at the bodleian library)

and to finish it off I have a question for you: front or back of Lyn's head??

I love England!