Home

I AM HOME!

On Friday - after a ridiculous amount of time travelling - I returned to Canadian soil, or more specifically to Vancouver!!!

Very few things can beat the sight of the mountains dusted with snow, or the feeling of my own bed after not sleeping for two days.

I am so glad to be home. I am glad to see my family and I am excited to see friends.

I am loved.

Hanukkah

On Monday evening some of the Jewish students at my school invited anyone who was interested to celebrate Hanukkah.
I realised that I didn't really know much about Hanukkah and decided to go.
It was especially fun because I went early and helped make all of the food.

We ate some of the traditional dishes:
Sufganiyot (jelly filled doughnuts)

and latkas (fried potatoes)

It was a particularly interesting evening because there are quite a few Americans who are ethnically/culturally Jewish, but not religiously Jewish. They all talked about what they do at home and about the traditions they have.

They talked about what the food represented and also about orthodox Jewish dress and the meaning of kippahs. We didn't have any real kippahs, so some people used napkins instead.

Almog (Israel) - the girl with the long hair, and Hannah (Austria/Italy) -the one in the striped top - shared the story of the oil that burned for eight days and that is the reason for Hanukkah. Almog also tried to teach us a song in Hebrew, but we were pretty terrible.

We didn't have a real menorah, or enough candles, but we made due with some clay and birthday candles.

And at the end of the evening we played with the dreidel.

It is day like these that remind me how amazing my school is!

Christmas Party

Saturday was the annual house Christmas party.
It is one of my favourite events of the year because:
1) I love Christmas
2) I love my house
So it is a pretty wonderful combination.

In the morning I battled the prickles and collected a bag of holly. Then, in the afternoon we went to library (yes, my house is the coolest on campus and thus we get the best location for our party) and decorated.
Fast forward a few hours and everyone in my house emerged from the bathrooms (where they were making themselves look presentable) and gather in the day room.

The girls choose half of a Christmas card from a basket, the boys choose half of a Christmas card from the other basket and then we have to find who 'completes' our card and they are your date!Then we all walk down to the castle with our dates.

This year my date was Federico (Luxembourg) who is a second year in my house. We aren't the closest, so it was really nice to talk with him for the evening.

The two Quebecois first years in my house (Penelope and Julyen) were Christmas dates which I thought was quite cute:

Donald (Sierra Leone) and I

Helen and Lai Keer (china/Denmark) played us some music.

Earlier in the week each dorm had been given some gingerbread, icing sugar and candy and had to make a house. It was so much fun, and some people were quite creative.

If you look at the house that is in the middle(ish) of this table that looks like it has collapsed - it hasn't. It was actually the house of the three little pigs after it was blown down (and is complete with three little pigs suntanning).
My dorm made the house at the very bottom of the photo, with the swirls on the roof.... It wasn't really that good, but is was tons of fun to make and eat.
During the Christmas party all of our tutors inspected the houses and then gave out awards.

My dorm. I love my dorm so much!!

After the meal and gingerbread house competition was over someone turned on some music and we all started dancing... on the tables. It was awesome.

All the first years in my house

All of the second years. Aren't we a good looking bunch?

Overall it was a wonderful evening!

I am excited to go home, but I will miss my house over the Christmas break.

COP16

At this very moment, in Cancun Mexico, delegates and politicians from around the world are deciding on the future of our planet.

Among the thousands of people there are two AC students and two of my closest friends: Lindsay and Laura.

Laura is working with US youth delegation
and
Lindsay is with the UNfairplay delegation which helps countries who can't afford to send enough delegates

they are extremely busy and so I haven't really been able to communicate with either of them very much, but they are keeping a blog which is very interesting. To be honest, I don't really know what they are talking about half of the time, but I think it is incredible how much they are doing and how much they are learning.

Just this past week the Guardian wrote an article on UNfairplay which articulated many of the problems that the delegation is trying to deal with.

So, if you want to know what is happening right now to solve climate change (or what is doing being done), you can hear about it straight from the source.

Canadian pancakes

Every once in a while it is nice to slink away from all of the different cultures and immerse myself in some good ol' Canadian love.

This Sunday all the Canadians (well, not all of us, but a bunch of us) got together to share our love of pancakes, maple syrup and Tim hortons.

These are some of the beautiful pancakes before we ate them

The Canadians! From the left: Avni, Jessica, Kaylea, Brynne, Sarah and a Canadian who was visiting from the UWC Adriatic (unfortunately I have forgotten her name). George, Julyen and Penelope were there as well, but were cooking in the kitchen.

Avni had the best hot chocolate mix ever

A little taste of heaven

Kaylea doing a maple syrup shot

It was a wonderful way to start the day!

It's beginning to look a lot like christmas

Yesterday it snowed!
And it wasn't just little rain drops that look more white than clear.
There were proper crystal flakes of joy falling from the sky!

For the past week I have been feeling a little glum for a number of reasons:
1) the amount of work I have to do
2) Lindsay left for Mexico
3) It has been snowing at home and I was missing it

But then suddenly yesterday, everything was alright!
I have realised that snow does to me what catnip does to a cat.

It was a glorious afternoon of throwing snow balls and catching flakes in my mouth (when I wasn't in class of course)

And for some people it was the first time they had ever seen it snow before which made it all the more exciting.

Here is the main drive transformed into a winter wonderland

Ollie is a crazy welsh first year in my house who felt the need to prove his manliness by running outside without a shirt.
However I don't think he was so excited about getting hit in the stomach by a snowball

Snowball fights are integral to appreciating the freshly fallen frozen water

It was so beautiful!

Francis (england) and I running from the flying snowballs

What a cutie!

and me in my beautiful tuque... which I left on the bus this morning :(

the coolest igloo ever which was made by my houseparents kids

Good news in Tanzania

I received some wonderful news yesterday about the orphanage that I worked in over the summer:
11 students graduated!

This is really good news because the year before none of the students were able to pass their examinations and continue in their education.
I don't know if they will be able to have the funds to continue at another school, but having this level of education will greatly benefit them.
Click here to see a video of the students and of the school.

I really enjoyed watching it because I was able to see the students I met and made friends with!
Congrats to all of them :)