The joys of the bicycle

It usually takes me about 40 mins to walk into Llantwit (the nearest town)

Today, however, I borrowed a friend's bike and it only took about 15.

And even though it rained on the way there, the way home was wonderful.

The sun showed it's face

and I just enjoyed the light on the ocean, the daffodils that are sprouting, and the fresh air.

Buying shampoo has never been such a lovely thing to do.

Some house shenanigans

On Saturday my house had a big meal together.
There was no special occasion or purpose it was just for fun.
And it was fun.
Each dorm had a different job: cooking, decorating, making a song etc.
My dorm was lucky enough to be in charge of setting up. This meant that we had the privilege of carrying five couches out of the day room, nine tables into the day room (one of which was a large wooden one from our house parents' house), and about 48 chairs. But it was worth it.
The dorm in charge of decorating did a great job, hanging up vines and putting out candles
With the help of the house parents' children of course

Two dorms cooked, so the kitchens (both the day room and houseparents' kitchen) were packed and the house smelled wonderful. We ate soup and bread and fried rice and salad.

Each table had some floating candles

Laura (USA) and I

Killian (Germany) and I getting ready to eat

One of the dorms made a quiz. The questions ranged from difficult (who was Illtude? [there is a restaurant in Llantwit named Illtude's]) to strange (what stall in the boys bathroom is most popular?) to nonsensical (what is the harmonic between Killian singing in his dorm, Becky singing upstairs and Raku singing in the bathroom?).

Another dorm made a prize for the winning table: chocolates and a gift certificate for foot messages by Ola (based on him facial expression following this announcement I have an inkling that he was not aware of this)
Alexis presented this wonderful prize.

Our house parents son: (I have no idea how to spell his name... but it is pronounced like alan)

My dormie (Kete) kept him entertained

Across the school there is currently a competition to see which house can collect the most coppers (1 and 2 pence coins). In an endeavor to collect more in my house, we auctioned off drawings made by people in our house. It got pretty competitive.

Killian and his dorm wrote a song about the house which was hilarious.

Helen, my dormie, and I started playing with candy wrappers.

Some yellow

Some orange

and some green

the day room
There were also some heart decorations on the table

And to finish it off, one of the dorms made a skit. It was so funny.

It was a wonderful Saturday.

Prom

Saturday was Prom.
And no, I don't know why it is called that because it was for both years and was in February.

Everyone dressed up and waltzed down to the dining hall where we had a 'special dinner' (which was basically normal dinner eaten at tables that had table clothes and center pieces, and yummy heart shortbread for dessert)
We then went into the Bradenstoke Hall, which had chairs and pillows and there was a concert (the musicians at this school are very talented so it was really good).
Then I, along with a group of girls, went up to the history department where someone had set up a projector and screen and watched 500 days of summer (which a great movie).
And then there was dancing. And although I am not much of a dancer I went for a little while. We then retired to my house and baked Brownies.
So all in all it was a lovely evening.

Sarah (Isle of Man) and Hannah (Sunny California) looking beautiful:
Hannah and I:

Sarah and I (and someone [possibly Becky] hurrying to get ready in the background)

Sheila (Uganda) and I (again)

Now, there was a fair amount of drama around campus preceding prom due to the subject of 'dates'. To begin with the ratio of guys to girls is 2:3, so it would work perfectly to begin with. And then not everyone goes, and so the number of potential dates drops again. And then once the asking begins it can be rather silly.

So in my house a group of seven of us (Laura, Iris, Tilda, Lynn, Nora, Sarah and I) plus Hannah (from Sunley house) all went with one guy.

He was the charlie to us angels.

Here is Victor and two of his dates:

Trying to be serious and charlie's angel-esque and failing

Looking serious

Me and my roomie

Hannah and Leah - the California babes:

The North Americans

A few more girls came over to say hi

Rockin' the dance floor

Groovin'

and finally chilling in the old staff common room - Hannah, Tilda (scotland) and Laura (US)

Cinderfella

Saturday evening was Cinderfella.

Cinderfella is an annual fundraising event. Two guys from each house are nominated and then students pay for tickets so that they can go and watch the 'men' participate in a beauty pageant.
To be honest I am still uncertain of how I feel about it. Parts of it were hilarious but other parts were just a bit awkward.

Unfortunately my camera takes abysmal photos inside and so I was only able to capture two that were ridiculously blurry (although these ones are still pretty bad)
Starring in both my photos is: Jordan - 2nd year and Jamie - 1st year (the school's resident giant).
And I have to say that Jordan, with aid of a wig actually looked pretty good.
Jamie just looked tall.... so normal.

and it is your lucky day because I also captured a short video of Jordan and Jamie's 'talent': ballet! (Radu: take notes)

Haiti

On Saturday a group of students from my school trekked over to a neighbouring town, Cowbridge, and raised money for Haiti.
We went in three waves (9-12, 12-3, 3-6). I went in the middle group.
We all dressed up in our fashionable high visibility vests and poured into the main road armed with buckets and signs.
It was a beautiful day and the street was pretty busy.
People were generous and, although I don't know how much money we have raised yet, I do know that my bucket was very heavy (and I may have pulled a muscle in my arm from holding it for three hours).
Here is my shift:
We were excited!

And me:

Snowdrops have sprouted all across campus, sprinkling the lawns with the sign of an impending spring!

Success

ACMUN was a success.
Despite some confusion at the beginning regarding the style and rules we were supposed to be using, most of the debating went smoothly. And although the debating slowed to a snail's pace at the end of the first day, we were able to pass a resolution and solve a crisis on the second day (albeit that the crisis was solved with an invasion of Georgia. But Russia did agree to recommence the flow of oil to France...).
Here are a few of the highlights (most of which involve the terrorists who were running around and wreaking havoc:

1) We (the security council) were locked in the library for about an hour. Luckily we were released before it was time to disband for lunch. The human rights committee was not so lucky...
2) The Human right council was locked in the history department and how to climb out the window, across the roof and down a fire escape ladder in order to get to lunch.
3) Two committee members were kidnapped. The first was the USA, which pretty much halted all debate. And second was Norway which also put a large dint in the debating and subsequently brought about the invasion of Georgia.
4) The king of Sweden was kidnapped (or so we were informed) and was threatened to be killed unless we referred to the Sweden as the 'land of Abba, Ikea and hot blond women' for the rest of the conference.

At the closing ceremonies we gave out four awards for our committee:

1. 'The most Hardcore MUN-er' - Hayden (delegate of the land of Abba, Ikea and hot blond women). He was amazingly prepared (I am talking serious background info notes) and was extremely knowledgeable about the ongoings of MUN conferences. He spoke well and wrote a great draft resolution (which was unfortunately rejected because it was so through that most people had absolutely no idea what he was talking about).
2. 'The best Lobbyist' - Jens (delegate of Russia). Both of his resolutions (with small amendments) were passed.
3. 'The most Persecuted' - Killian (the delegate of the United States of America). The poor guy was under attack for almost the entire first day.
4. 'Lost in Translation' - Yuwa (delegate of Japan). We chose four delegates from our committee to participate in the crisis committee. They were woken up at three in the morning and forced to assemble in the economics department where they had to stay until they solved the crisis (which they eventually did by starting a nuclear war). Unfortunately Yuwa was woken up, told to get dressed and then abandoned. They never came back for her or told her where to go. oops.

So overall it was a fairly dramatic but enjoyable event.