The following post is basically Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday all together (written mostly on Friday night and Sunday), as I have felt ill most of this week and really haven’t been able to write the blog (and any spare energy that would’ve been used for it has been expended on lessons and activities, as you will see). However, I kept a record of each day so I know what to write. I'll try to get friday, saturday and sunday up asap.
Robin
Tuesday 7th
My first day of lessons started with an unusually early morning, since my roomi decided to wake up at 6.45, with lessons starting at 8. After an unusually quiet early breakfast, in the day room, packing my bag together for the first time, I went off to my first lesson, Biology. Luckily the lesson was essentially just an introduction to the course: looking at the syllabus and going through how we will study with the teacher, Mike. We also did introductions (mainly for the teacher’s benefit, although it helps with the people whose names we’re still not sure about). Mike then informed us that after the first few weeks we could essentially pass the exam without his help at all, simply by reading the textbook and looking up things on the internet. It seems to be the only course of mine on which the emphasis is placed on learning things more than understanding, although this is maybe just Mike’s teaching style. He’s new to the college, but not to the UWC movement, as he has come from the UWC in Singapore. However I think the school there is a lot different: for example, no British students were sent there by the UWC GB committee however my co-year from Singapore told me that there are loads of paying British students at UWC Singapore. Whilst I know it is possible to bypass the selection process and pay separately at some of the colleges, I imagine this creates a worse environment (or at least not a UWC environment) in which to learn, which makes me feel especially proud (and lucky) of the fact that I am attending this particular, UWC, where every student is given a full scholarship to attend, which really creates a nice atmosphere, as it isn’t only people from well off backgrounds (not that people from private schools aren’t nice or interesting - to use the cliché I’ve got plenty of friends who attend private schools - it’s just that if I had a pound for every time I’ve heard a teacher say or write that students from state schools are more interesting, I wouldn’t be a millionaire, but I’d certainly be about £50 better off. And I’m mainly talking about UK private schools). Anyway, a lot of the stuff in the course I recognised from doing GCSE biology, also this is probably because I am doing standard level. Although if I could I would like to do higher level biology, I don’t think I’m going to go into science in the future, so I thought I would use my higher level options elsewhere.
After biology we had history with Eunice, another Brit (did I mention Mike is British), who clearly has an absolute passion for history. She has completely the opposite teaching style to Mike (or so it seems after one lesson) in that she started by saying: ‘I will tell you one thing about me first: I am the IB deputy chief examiner and I helped write the syllabus. Why did I say that? Because until the half way through the first term of the second year here I don’t want you to see an IB history syllabus, as I don’t teach to the exam. But I want you to be confident in the knowledge that I know exactly what I’m doing so you can be confident and simply enjoy my lessons.’ Or words to that effect. We then proceeded to spend the rest of the lesson talking about the twentieth century (that is what the course does, 1870-1999) and whether we agreed with the course’s definition of the time frame of the twentieth century. For example one person said 1917 as the Soviet Union influenced much of what happened in the twentieth century. Another said 1914, as that’s when WW1 began, another said 1918 as that’s when it ended and the changes from pre war and post war really started to set in. For example the demise of the empires. The dates Eunice seemed most satisfied with were 1917 and also 1919, as the Paris peace conference can be said to have led to Hitler’s rise (as Hitler was able to capitalise on the German people’s dented pride and increasing nationalism – that’s a key word in the IB history course). The great thing about being here is that you can get an international perspective on history, for example, Marton, from Hungary, was explaining about how people in Hungary don’t really feel related to world war one that much. The only bad thing really was that firstly the electricity wasn’t working, so Eunice couldn’t give her PowerPoint (on the other hand that might not have led to Eunice showing her finger puppet Guevera, Ghandi, Mandela, etc and possibly not the debate on dates. She also made the interesting point, that the World Arts and Cultures teacher, Henry had made on the day of presenting about group three subjects, that the twenty-first century will probably be judged as starting from 9/11, as really that’s when the whole culture of Islamophobia and the ‘war on terror’ began, and it had been this that has been dominant throughout these past nine years). Also the classroom wasn’t nearly big enough for the class.
After history was English A1 (A1 is for native speakers of a language and on the IB it is available in about 50 languages, although depending on resources it can be either taught or self taught. Some extra languages can also be self-taught, resources depending. At UWCAd English, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, and the languages of the former Yugoslavia are taught, all the rest are self taught), this was taught by Lydia, who is also my tutor. The problem here was that the class was too big: the maximum size for a class is supposed to be 15 whereas this class was 21. The reason why was that there were many people who spoke English almost as good as their mother tongue, for example people from Pakistan, Italy, Austria and Singapore. However in the case of Jean, from Malta, Maltese is not available as A1 so the only mother tongue he could do was English. Also, since English A1 standard and higher levels are taught in the same class this contributed to the larger class size. To be honest I would be fine with having a separate class for English A1 standard level (what I am doing) as although I like literature (the course focuses heavily on Literature), reading books and poems (talking about poems, here’s a really nice one read out by one of the secondi last week in the reflection session: http://www.healtalk.com/public/9.shtml ) I really don’t see why we have to talk about them and analyse them. I prefer to just read as relentlessly evaluating and quoting tends to lower my enjoyment of a text. Being taught exactly the same things as the higher students means I get taught exactly the same things (and have to do the same homework) as well as having the extra two lessons that you get when you take a subject as higher (even though I’m taking it as standard) which in my opinion is a little unfair, especially as I am doing three higher subjects already. I suppose it means that I will be in better stead when it comes to the exam but for the moment it is quite annoying. It all comes down to the funding, putting on an extra class when you can put both in the same block would be silly when the school is so low on funding. Anyway, back to the lesson, basically all we did was go round each person saying what text has had an impact on us. In some ways it was a little pressuring as everybody listed off classics and then I really couldn’t think of something that would make me feel like they weren’t judging me. I know that they weren’t at all but that’s just the way it felt to me. In the end I settled for Empire of the Sun, by JG Ballard, as it is a book that I really did enjoy reading, and what I said in the lesson was true: it was fascinating seeing the past through the eyes of a young Ballard, and especially the past in shanghai during the end of the colonial times which really was amazing. And that was all we had time for.
We then had our twenty-minute break-time, during which I managed to get back to Fore, check my emails, one of which was about the choices for the creativity part of CAS. The exact list is: Amnesty International, Astronomy, Brazilian Percussion, Pottery, Cult Movies, College Blog, Conflict and Peace, Creative Writing, Current Affairs, Environmental Care, Model United Nations, Choir, Music Lessons, Italian Drama, Philosophy café, photography, sustainability, theatre, Ways of seeing, yearbook, Web 2.0 and chess. After break was Italian, with Viviana Pace (Pace – ‘Patch-ay’ – in Italian. Pace is the word for peace, as it happens) and the lesson was very fast moving, although really it was a recap of what I knew already. However this was actually useful as it was sort of confirming (and in some cases reminding me) of what I know. Since the school only teaches Italian B higher or standard (as opposed to Italian A2, which is a bit like A1 but for non-native speakers) it means that we’ll focus on the communicative aspect of Italian (compared to the literature of both A2 and A1) and I think seeing as the pace is so fast (in the first lesson we covered the alphabet, greetings, essere ‘to be’ and avere ‘to have’ as well as saying where you live and how old you are) I think we will soon get on to a higher level. Also the lesson is taught entirely in Italian (as in the teacher doesn’t say anything in English) which means that it’s very hard to think in English! (Which is a good thing).
Seeing as I had the final two blocks of the day free, I went to mensa for lunch early. I now know the name of the woman who normally serves the main course (and she knows mine) because of my Italian, which is great as it means I get extra food (although that isn’t always an advantage, as it can be quite filling). The Italians have been able to get food from Maria from the very start (for obvious reasons) including getting an omelette cooked, fresh eggs to put in the residence fridges for cooking with among other foods.
At half two was the first round of taster sessions for the Physical activities. I had managed to get a place on the climbing one on sign-up last week, as at first it seemed like the activity was full but then when I came back later a name had been crossed out, so I took the place. We met in the piazza the central area near the school, which is a common meeting point, and took the van to the climbing point. However, as Ann (another Brit, who teaches science, it’s also her 40th year teaching at UWC, she started at Atlantic College in 1971), the leader of the climbing activity of the school, was doing the register at the piazza, it turned out that for some reason somebody had crossed out the prima from Denmark, Signe’s, name and put it on the Wednesday session. So that was why there was an empty place. I can’t actually think of any good reason why anybody would do that though… As it turned out she was able to come, as the second van had to return to pick up people anyway, so she just went on that. The climbing was somewhere in the carso hills (Ann was explaining how where we are, in Duino, is the end of a long stretch of rocks starting in the proper alps, coming down to the dolomites, down through the carnian and julian alps (essentially baby alps) and then into the carso and then at the cliffs where we are) and there were four ropes available to climb on (two of them supported by two secondi, one by Ann, and one by Carlo, the Italian instructor, who Ann had to translate for – Moritz, he speaks fluent Italian, just with a strong accent and can’t roll his ‘r’s at all, and Davide explained how much she missed out. The message got through all the same though). Each climb was about 25 metres high and the view was amazing at the top of the rock. Some of the climbs were pretty hard going, though. Climbing was a really fun activity and it will definitely go in my top three to choose from (not least because in September they do the famous Via Ferata in the dolomites). On the way back Ann was explaining to Moritz and I a bit about the school in the past. She told of how the school used to have a system where every single A1 language student would have access to a tutor once a month. However obviously with reduced funding comes reduced options…
After climbing a couple of us decided to go for a pizza at ‘Ciro’, the same place where I went last Sunday (it’s quite popular, despite the walk, as it’s pretty much the only proper pizzeria in Duino). We were: Egzon (Primo, Kosovo), Firas (Primo, Tunisia), Mohamed (Secondo, Palestine) and Moritz (Primo, South Tyrol) and myself, obviously. More interesting discussion ensued, especially considering that Egzon, Firas and Mohamed are all muslim. After a long period of discussion about democracy in all our various countries, during which I learnt that Britain is quite an impressive democracy (at least in comparison: Italy, well… I’ll come onto that in a few days time…; Tunisia, corrupt; Kosovo, not so bad, but a really new country ; and I’ll come onto Palestine in just a sec), although none of them, and nor I really now that I think about it, can understand why we don’t have an elected upper house in Parliament. Anyway, this discussion then led onto Palestine’s government, during which a long and heated (but, I think and hope, perfectly amicable) discussion ensued about Hamas, Arafat and whether it is right to stand up to the Israelis or try and co-operate. Mohamed told of how he actually met Arafat three times as a child and how popular Arafat was. Firas was of the opinion that Arafat eventually just became an Israeli puppet, taking money for himself (he used the example that Arafat’s wife and daughter now live in Tunisia and are famous for spending money – money Firas claimed is – or was – aid for Palestine) and that Palestine needs a leader to stand up and fight properly against Israel. Mohamed disagreed vehemently, saying that Arafat would never do such a thing. No conclusion was reached by the time we got back to the centre of Duino.
In the common room (day room, same thing) after the meal, I joined the Italians (at first it seems a little hard to make friends with them, seeing as they are so many and always together – as I’ve said before I suppose it is easier, although it’s not all of them, but really they are-a all a-very nice-a! And my Italian helps…) and watched videos on YouTube (social media, by definition). It was funny how comedy translates. A lot of the videos we watched were in English (or American, at least) so obviously the Italians didn’t get quite a lot of references about US culture or wordplays. However the one thing they found hilarious was a video about a man spending his life being harassed by a spoon-wielding phantom, which I just couldn’t find humourous (ok well maybe once or twice, but not really as funny as they made it out to be).
Just before I went to bed, I bumped into Pete, who is one of our residence tutors, an English teacher, and also who is here on a one year ‘secondment’ from the UWC in Norway. He explained how he would be leading my social service with the disable people at Campanelle centre. The residents vary from aged 15 to 70, some are long term, some only daily. Due to travel time we only get one hour there a week, which is a bit of a disappointment (although there may be the possibility to do extra service if there is space on other services, and if my timetable fits) but apparently we can still help make a real difference.
After that I went to bed.
Wednesday 8th
On Wednesday morning I had to wake up early (or rather, Raza, my roomo, woke me up by accident – kind as he is, he does make an awful lot of noise in the morning, and this isn’t helped by the tender hours in which he likes to wake – and he reminded me that we had to do our washing) as Wednesday is our room’s allocated day on the washing rota. So, borrowing Raza’s powder and these rather useful small-cloth like things you put in that soak up any colour that runs (which means you can wash whites and colours together) I prepared the washing. As it happened, Fore’s cleaning lady, who I must admit to not having learnt her name yet, although I do always say ciao, although you have to say that to everyone (another story), was in the same room so set the washing machine for me… So much for becoming independent…
I then decided I would do a little setting up for the school days ahead, so sorted out files, put poly wallets into them, found spaces to put textbooks, etc etc. By the time I’d finished it was too late for breakfast and I rushed to maths.
The teacher is Tim, from Germany, a teacher who has unfortunately been described by not just one student as ‘learning on the job’, or words to that effect. He seems a nice enough person though, although this is only after the first lesson, and the main problem will probably be that you have people like me (who is a very much a standard level mathematician) and at least half of the class (there are ten of us altogether) who are only doing standard because their timetables don’t fit in higher maths. Anyway, we didn’t do much work really, just introductions and we were given an IB Maths ‘Background Knowledge’ booklet. Like I mentioned before when taking the maths placement test (I was recommended standard level, in case you were wondering, as I don’t think I ever told you the results. Sorry if I kept you awake at night), I recognised most of the maths - it’s just that a lot of it has placed itself behind an air locked, pressurised, nuclear-bomb proof door, and is laughing at me through the small hole classed as a ‘window’ - in my brain. It also didn’t help that neither my head, throat nor arms were feeling in any fit state (at first I thought this was just lack of sleep).
Next lesson, in Italian, we covered numbers, days, months, adjectives and articles. As I said about yesterday it wasn’t particularly difficult at all, but I think it’s good to reaffirm my knowledge.
My first economics lesson was quite interesting, the teacher, Annemarie (all one word, Netherlands) is really excitable and passionate about the subject, which I suppose is a good thing. We started by listing everything we think we might study in economics and then Annemarie explained that we will do almost nothing about financial markets (as in FTSE, NASDAQ, etc) as we focus on the people (which is a relief). Also, since the IB is an international qualification (for those who didn’t know IB stands for International Baccalaureate and is an equivalent to A-levels in the UK) it doesn’t cover any specific country or area (for example if you studied it in the UK, it would look at the UK tax system and UK-specific problems) whereas the IB economics course gives a more global outlook (although on the other hand maybe it’s better to know more about the country you want to work in, although you could also argue that this specialisation can come at university level). It also means there is more scope for contribution from each student about their countries. We also watched an introductory video to economics on YouTube (Annemarie is fond of ‘new’ media).
English followed (or should I say was meant to follow) this, after break, however when we got there Lydia was trying to solve the problem of the too large English A1 class. What she did was ask the people who only spoke English as a mother tongue, and aren’t fluent in any others (so UK, Canada, USA, South Africa) to come back ten minutes before the end of the lesson and asked the rest to stay behind so she could interview them and see about the possibility of them doing A1 in another language. As it turned out, we shouldn’t have bothered coming back as the interviews were still going by the end of the lesson. In fairness to Lydia it must have been a hard thing to do but also hard for the students too…
After English I felt ridiculously tired, but had to get the washing (which I had started to hang out at break) from the machine. There is no drying room, only racks in both the boys’ floor and the girls’ floor of Fore. I don’t know what it’s like in other residences. First I had to gently relocate dry clothes to the top of one of the shoe cupboards (that seems to be the done thing for dried washing) and place mine out to dry. I then was really tempted to go to sleep, as even after some Panadol from Raza I still felt horrible. By this time I was certain it wasn’t just sleep deprivation as Sana, my fellow prima from India, who’s also in my tutor group had been suffering for a few days and it seemed to be (and is still as I write) spreading. I resisted the temptation, though and worth it it was. After lunch, I went to see Henry (the world arts and cultures teacher) to ask about whether it would be possible for me to sit in on any of his lessons in my free blocks. Unfortunately it isn’t going to be possible (lessons are already close to full, and if one person is allowed then everybody might want to…) But somehow he managed to draw me into a fascinating conversation about different cultures (although when I say somehow, the only real barrier was my fatigue, on a normal day I would be happy to listen) about why are other cultures regarded as ‘primitive’ or ‘barbarian’ (interesting the word ‘barbarian’ comes from the greek for foreigner) when really they are just different. He talked about while people say that we are not so different from apes genetically, mentally we are so different. Apes can use tools, but humans have the unique ability to pass on the knowledge and build on the knowledge using tools through the generations, and also have the imagination to picture a way around a problem, and picture life with the solution in place. A few other people, one of these being Egzon, from Kosovo, then joined us. He asked Henry, why he thought the Muslims were persecuted in the 1990s. Henry talked about the need to understand why, not simply learn that Muslims were persecuted. There were some Serbs who believed that an area in Kosovo was their Serbian (Christian) homeland and now the Muslims were occupying it. Now that is certainly a simplified, basic way of putting what Henry said, but hopefully you get my meaning. Henry also gave a compelling argument that we shouldn’t learn about religion in schools, what we should do is learn about cultures. For example Sanel, from Bosnia, who was sitting with us, isn’t Muslim, but Thursday being Eid, the end of Ramadan, he was going to celebrate it with the rest of the Muslim students from our school in Trieste, as that is what he’s culturally used to doing in Bosnia. It’s kind of really hard to explain how Henry presents his talks, but they’re always fascinating. I think the only thing that made Henry stop talking was when he checked his watch and realised that he was late for something. He’d talked for over an hour and a half, and he’d kept it interesting the whole time.
After mensa, I went to the day room with the intention of doing some maths homework (some of the ‘background knowledge’ booklet, I had to remind myself of some of the methods, as because of our modular system of examination in the UK I hadn’t studied some of the topics for a good year and a half) however I felt so empty-headed and exhausted I couldn’t bring myself to do any.
I managed to drag myself to the taster session for the orienteering physical activity, though, and I’m glad I did. Firstly we got a talk from Mark, the South African physics teacher, who has a passion for orienteering. He showed us the orienteering map (they are quite different from normal ones) of the area that he had created about 6 years ago, which he had created with loving detail (literally down to the last tree), detail that would help with the orienteering (hopefully I can also use it for going on walks in the area). Basically we each got a map and a sheet of paper with 14 locations with clues, for example ‘between the doors’ or ‘behind the rock, SE side’ which were we had to go to and we would find a square flag thing (a bit like those kites that look like cubes) with a thing that punches holes in the paper in a box next to the location on your paper, to rove you have gone there. Mark also showed us beforehand the location of each one on the map, as obviously there are a lot of doors and rocks. It turns out that orienteering is normally a solitary sport, as opposed to a team one, which I didn’t know, and the idea is (obviously) to get all the boxes punched as quickly as possible. Apparently in real orienteering they use these things you put on your finger and insert into a reader at each location, as (and we found this out) paper tends to get damaged. At first (there were five of us: me; Davide, Italy; Renate, Norway; Joao, Brazil; Augustin, Switzerland) we slpit up, occasionally meeting each other, for example at the first location near the castle in Duino, in a residential courtyard place, and another time I passed Augustin who had missed the last flag, and told him where it was, but about halfway through I met Renate and Joao, and we ended up going round together. Before that though, I had gone to station number 5, high was situated right next to what remained of a world war one trench. As Duino was occupied by the Austro-Hungarians and Monfalcone part of Italy the trench ran right between, and this was where mark’s orienteering course had taken us. It was really quite powerful, although really it was just an indent in the ground and lots of slate-like stones, so it was hard to imagine what it would have been like. Yesterday (Tuesday) in English, Lydia set us the task of finding song lyrics that we think tells about ourselves and our heritage. I really couldn’t think of anything, so settled for the chorus of the famous Newcastle song ‘Blaydon Races’. Looking for the exact lyrics on the internet, I found a piece about the Geordie dialect, where I learnt that it is partially derived from Norse, which really surprised me, and that apparently back in the heyday (as Gabriel, my British secondo, pointed out when we were talking to some other students about British accents, they were killed, along with a lot of local pride and so much more, by Thatcher, so accents have been on the decline since the 70s…) a really broad Geordie could communicate with a Norwegian person. I couldn’t offhand think of many Geordie words, although I did manage to think of one that matched when I asked with Renate: yem, the Geordie word for home, is the same in Norwegian. I’ll have to look up some more and ask her. It’s funny how being away from home makes you think more about your background and also about your country (not to mention how to explain the difference between England, Scotland, Wales and northern Ireland, why northern Ireland is actually more separate, hat Britain is and what the UK is. Gabriel and I intend to do a focus session – where students present about specific topics in their own countries – on it).
As I walked back from the final two flags (both near the residence ‘Lucchese’) I tried to decide whether I wanted to do climbing, or orienteering as my first choice, as they had both been really fun. Both also don’t take place in the winter months, so you get first preference for skiing. There’s also this thing called ‘ski-orienteering’ – a cross, surprisingly, between skiing and orienteering – which looks pretty fun, too. The sky had also turned rather dark (we had some rain on Monday and Tuesday, but not as bad this), which gave an amazing view of the castle on the contrastingly dark background, but was also a worry for me, so I hurried back to the physics lab and then to fore. Orienteering is surprisingly hard work, so whilst I was fine doing it (with the occasional coughing fit) I really felt knackered (and I just remember one of my Italian teachers at Gosforth High, Mrs Dodd, always saying ‘excuse me’ every time she said the word ‘knackered’ which none of us could understand, so just to clarify, knackered in this sense means very tired/exhausted/drained, maybe it’s just a Geordie use of the word…) and after mensa checked my emails, facebook, school email address etc etc but then went to sleep at about 8.30. I ate the last of the four nougat that my family had put in my bag as a secret surprise that I found when I got to Italy before going to sleep, in the hope of its deliciousness making me better, but to no avail.
Annoyingly, I missed the celebrations run by the Israeli seconda, Shi, and the primo, Idan, for Rosh Hashanah, but I felt that rest was more important. It also happens every year so I will take part next year. Although when I went to bed early, I presumed I would sleep the whole night, and wake up rested and fine, I actually woke up at least twice, the most notable being at about 11, when I was sweating and felt about 90 degrees (Celsius).
Eventually I managed to get back to sleep for the next day of lessons…
Eventually I managed to get back to sleep for the next day of lessons…
Thursday 9th
Now this is becoming a similar story. My roomo, Raza, woke up at 6.20 this morning. Although he did kind of have a point this time, to take in the washing from the drying racks, it turned out that most of our washing wasn’t dry anyway. It also isn’t helped by the fact that to me and Gabriele, it seems that all Raza does in the morning is bang open and shut cupboards and drawers, and the door creaks so loudly when it opens, too. I went back to sleep for a bit but it’s always hard to go back to sleep for only another half an hour when you already feel woken up. It’s further not helped by the fact that I was feeling rather ill.
After a rushed breakfast I went to English, where the class size still remained relatively big (about 16, although a few people were in Trieste for the day for Eid, so I think only about one person of the 20 had properly moved to a different language A1) but anyway we carried on. We started to look at a poem called ‘Dream of the Rood’ – poem from about 900 years ago. It was actually really interesting learning the history of it: it comes from the period between pre-conquest and post conquest so it combines Christian ideas with the heroic ballad (such as Beowulf) and it was found in a book in Italy where some unknown person had collected loads of really old pieces of literature. It has also been found carved on an ancient cross and you could tell that whoever wrote it was important as most people at the time were illiterate so most people told stories by word of mouth, a few people went round telling the stories that they had written. Lydia first showed us the old English version, which was really amazing, as it looked a bit like German, but very few words were really recognisable.
I spent my free period writing my blog for Tuesday, as even though I felt ill, I knew I had to start doing it as soon as possible. I didn’t quite finish. History followed, during which Eunice gave a presentation about what we are going to study (the power was working today) over the next two years. It was interesting looking at all the change that went on in the twentieth century (189 million people died) and I’m glad we’ll be looking at it in focus. Eunice also put on a picture of t-shirt saying ‘Communism-It’s a party’ whit a picture of Karl Marx on the DJ decks and people dancing below. She made the point that you would never have the same with ‘Nazism – it’s a party’ with Hitler on the DJ decks, even though communism in the twentieth century led to the deaths of more people. It’s been a shame over these first few days as I really haven’t felt able to properly contribute to lessons, at first because I was tired but now because I’m ill. Today (Thursday) was also the first day in which I felt my tell-tale ear ache, a signal of the certain type of cold-like illness I seem to get most years, start to appear. The main thing is that I don’t want to make a bad first impression on teachers (even though I probably already have) due to the fact that I have felt so bad. In history especially I should’ve said stuff for example, Eunice asked the class which was the first country to get universal suffrage (as in men and women can vote), I knew it was New Zealand from researching in a lesson last year in history with Mr O’Connell, however for some reason I didn’t say. Nobody else knew, so Eunice told us. The other thing is that there are some people who answer every question (in history a certain two, one of whom is simply passionate about history, the other is simply cocky and annoying, but I will talk about him later) before I (and I suspect other people) have a chance to. We then talked about democracy where a surprisingly elitist point of view came about from some: that only those educated to a certain level should be allowed to vote, as otherwise democracy doesn’t work. Which seems to defeat the point of democracy, as I thought it was where everybody got a vote. I know that idealistically it would be better if everybody did get that level of education where they were able to vote for an idealistically guided reason, as opposed to a populist one, but at the end of the day not everybody is going get that education, for whatever reason (medical issues, have to work to support family, no motive as family background doesn’t encourage education) so do we just cut these people off? Raymond from Hong Kong suggested that introducing democracy to China wont work as people have no concept of it and haven’t been educated about it so would just vote back in the communist party, however I think you need to have more faith in human nature sometimes. Although maybe in China’s example they probably would just vote back in the communist party seeing as they do have quite a lot of economic growth (although does that mean life is better for the people? See below). Said annoying person (not Raymond, I mean the one who always talks) then proceeded to go on about how he doesn’t believe in democracy, as it doesn’t work. Maybe it doesn’t work if you have that attitude. For once Eunice seemed to not lap up his words (nice as she is, she gives him far too much attention) and told him off for being so cynical. I really should’ve contributed to the argument but each time I was going to either somebody else had done so already or I was blowing my nose on a tissue. I spent break talking to Marton (Hungary) and Raymond about democracy in their countries (apparently Britain is a shinging example, and I’m not being sarcastic). They both think that democracy in their countries doesn’t work (corruption, people giving jobs to friends etc) so people should have to have achieved a certain level of education before voting, in order to get rid of poor (as in bad quality) politicians. Raymond thinks that actually China’s system works better now than it would if they had democracy, as until they get taught better they wont be able to make an educated choice. ‘Well how do you get to that position?’ I asked. ‘That’s the question, isn’t it?’ Replied Raymond. So we’re stuck.
I should also point out that there were a good number who disagreed with this view of democracy I painted, most notably Maria, form Sardinia, who I later learned about how much she hates being part of Italy, primarily because of Berlusconi and the Italian ruling corruption. She disagreed with the elitist view, pointing out that cutting people out of a vote would cut them out of the right to vote about decisions about themselves, which surely would be undemocratic.
Economics followed break and it was another interesting lesson where I was introduced to the concept of unlimited wants and limited. This is where the notion is that everybody will always want something else, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant (even down to an extra pair of socks), yet we only have limited resources with which to satisfy these wants. Apparently, our job as economists is to see how we can best satisfy these unlimited wants using the finite resources we have. We also watched a few more one-minute news report videos from the BBC (eg about gulf of Mexico oil spill sending global oil prices higher, micro economics there turns into macro economics, local to global etc etc) but it’s really odd how they have adverts on BBC abroad. Even though Annemarie was on bbc.co.uk it still came up with 15 second adverts by Cathay Pacific, Barclays and other global corporations beforehand, something that I did not expect, but Annemarie seemed used to. Also, referring on to where I spoke about China doing well economically, as Annemarie pointed out, their 10 per cent economic growth has come hand in hand with huge environmental pollution, meaning that over three quarters of China’s freshwater is now polluted to such an extent that nobody alive today will be able to drink it in their lifetime. Is that progress?
After economics we had biology, which was actually a really nice lesson. A complete contrast from the first one. Mike said that this lesson he simply wanted us to explore with cells under the microscope (we took cheek lining cells, something we can’t do in the UK because of health and safety, onion and potato, and used various dyes to look at them with) and have fun with it. Shortly before he had finished his introduction, the same person who I talked about being annoying in history, sauntered in (he’s in five out of my six subjects). He then proceeded to ask Mike whether we needed our textbooks, interrupting him in mid-flow, with something we had been told last lesson. Mike wasn’t particularly impressed. Anyway, the lesson was a nice relaxed way to end the morning/early afternoon, with not much pressure and a relaxed atmosphere.
Since the lesson was an extended period (meaning it lasted until 1.45) I was having lunch in mensa when I realised that it was nearly 2.30. So I got my hiking stuff and rushed to Shultz (the furthest away of all the residences) where I met Helen, who is the residence tutor for Shultz, and is also the tutor who leads the hiking activity. Idan (Israel), Roberta (Sardinia), Signes (Denmark), Anna (Canada) and Jack (Helen’s dog) joined us. We set off on a similar route to the way the secondi took us in the first few days we were here, although eventually we deviated completely (and it was much longer). Our first deviation was to a limestone cave that is officially closed to the public but we went through a hole in the fence (we didn’t do any damage, the hole was already there) and it was worth it. The reason the cave is suppose dot be fenced off is because it used to be a roman temple and before that a pagan one. It’s quite a small cave, but in the centre there on the wall there is a small marble altar with one of the gods (I think one of the war gods) and two rows, which were presumably seats, and one sort of table thing, which is believed to be a sacrifice table. And I know you’re not supposed to but I couldn’t not touch this altar, being so old and a link with such a vastly different culture. It was still in surprisingly good condition after goodness knows how many hundreds (well at least a thousand) years. The route was effectively an hour and a half long walk uphill through the carso (the specific limestone hills nearby, that lead on to the carnian alps and then the dolomites) and then an hour and a half long walk down, all on footpaths, which are surprisingly little used. The most incredible thing happened though near the top of our ‘ascent’, or rather, we came across the most incredible things. Or not came across, Helen had planned it, but that’s beside the point. At first what I thought were deep limestone rock formations were actually trenches from world war one. Now these really were something. We only went inside one (number 262), but there was so much of it left it was incredible, more like a small bunker without a roof. Many were too deep and therefore too dark to see into (presumably so that the soldiers could sleep) and although yesterday was powerful it was a lot easier now to see how things might’ve been. Obviously we would’ve been without the trees, but as Helen said there’s not been much reason to come up here since WW1 so its been pretty much left untouched.
After the trenches we came to a clearing where Helen showed us the mountains of Slovenia in front of us and then behind the Carnian and the Julian alps. The walk down was a lot easier (for obvious reasons, it’s not like when you’re coming down a proper mountain and it is actually difficult to go down, this was a track a car could go on) was a longer route, but we picked up the pace more. Talking to Helen, I learnt a bit about the school, specifically, it’s main funders and a bit about the school. The Italian ministry of foreign affairs funds a lot of the scholarship places, as does the regional (the region we are in is Friuli Venezia Giulia) government. Others come from private benefactors, either past students or people who hear about UWC in Italy and want to help the movement. Donations also contribute. Helen was also explaining how with Italy having one of the highest deficits in Europe the college isn’t really in a position to expand, either in terms of places, lessons, or facilities. She also told me how my residence Fore, used to be part of the castle, the events and banqueting sort of area. Lucchese, another residence, was a never-opened (or at least only open for a short while) abortion clinic Ples, another residence, was a hotel, which is why it has the large rooms on the ground floor. Pala, which I learned is actually bigger than Fore, used to be a small block of terraced housing, which kind of makes sense when you look at it (I’ll have to try and get some photos). The school building used to be a community building, but it was given to the school by the local government. All very interesting, and in fact the only two purpose-built areas of the school are Shultz, the smallest residence, and the science laboratories. Helen was wearing a ‘Darlington Tall Ships Race 2010’ t-shirt, and it turned out that she had been on one of the ships, as she teaches English every summer on a ship, and this summer the ship decided to take part in the tall ships race, too. She had a week in Darlington, due to the fact that the day they were due to sail was Friday the 13th, and the captain refused to sail, and after this day the conditions weren’t right until another week. Unfortunately she didn’t get to visit Newcastle. She also offered me to come and watch any important Newcastle games in her home as she has sky sports (UK version) for the rugby, which was really kind.
One final thing Helen said was about how often English native speakers will sometimes (not out of laziness) take a back foot, as the teaching language is English. I certainly did this, for example in economics, where the teacher would be like ‘does anyone know what ‘infinite’ means?’ as I thought it wouldn’t benefit other people as I already know. But then Helen said that actually people like it as we can sometimes explain things better, or use an idiom or wordplay. Also she said that sometimes the native English speakers might be left behind if they do this. I know she wasn’t aiming this at me, but I’m going to try and use the advice.
I then went back to fore day room where I checked my emails before realising that the final submission for activities was due in half an hour, at half five. So I got my student diary (thank you very much to Karen if you’re reading) and checked the times of my social service (Tuesdays) meaning that I couldn’t choose orienteering or football, which was a shame. So for my first choice I put climbing, second hiking and third ultimate Frisbee. I didn’t really want to do sailing as apparently it’s normally either too windy to go out sailing (as we experienced fully with yesterday – Wednesday’s – storm, with the Bora, the famously strong wind of the area. In fact it’s so strong that in the villages in the mountains they have ropes on the ground for the villagers to walk with) or there’s not enough wind and it’s just really hot and sunny! I think kayaking might’ve been fun, but I think the level they do here is more for beginners so I’d much rather somebody who’s never experienced kayaking before go kayaking and have fun than me go and find that it’s not particularly fun… Anyway, I can always change my options in October, or next year. With climbing, I think a lot of people have put this as their first choice, and there are only twelve places, so I think probably I will get hiking as my activity. I could also choose any of hockey, badminton, basketball, dance, aerobics and loads more, but I thought it would be best to choose the ones that best make use of the college’s fantastic location (on the sea and near the mountains).
After posting the form in the physical activity coordinator, Christina’s, pigeon box in the staffroom, I went down to porto, to make use of the slightly improved weather, especially after the pat few days. There I saw the group who had gone sailing bringing in their boats, and I felt slightly guilty as I had signed up for the taster session of sailing at 4.30, however we only got back from hiking at about 5, so they probably would’ve been on the water, and anyway I needed time to rest. There were a few of us there, and the water was pretty cold (although not as cold as the north sea, naturally) due to the recent rains. After relatively short swim, as the sun decided to go behind the clouds, making it even colder, we went back for mensa.
Greeting the queue outside mensa on the notice board were the sign up sheets for the final stage of CAS (creativity, action, service, see past blogs): creative activities. So I signed up for six taster sessions: Ways of Seeing (run by Henry, so hopefully similar to world arts and cultures), Model United Nations (not quite sure, obviously something to do with the UN and using the school’s multicultural make-up), Current Affairs, Amnesty International, Sustainability Group and Pottery. Unfortunately photography was full up, but then later one name had been crossed out, and, not wanting a repeat of the climbing fiasco I thought I’d wait, but then someone else took the space anyway. You snooze you lose, as they say…
After a shower I felt more energised so I decided to go down to Pala (it’s quite out of the way actually) to do my homework with Raymond, although as it turned out we just talked with people in Pala day room (it’s this really odd large, low ceilinged underground room) for the first hour. The problem with Raymond being from Hong Kong is that he can do maths, and especially standard level maths (he chose standard because he wanted to do higher in other subjects for either law or biochemistry) in a split-second, whereas it takes a lot longer for me. So whilst he is a nice person, the concept of explaining slowly how to do a mathematical problem simply doesn’t compute, so to speak. Luckily, Davide (there are two of them), who is also in my maths class, was working on the same booklet, so I asked him and he explained really well, and I love it when I understand maths and can do the questions, even if it does feel like it’s basic maths. To me it felt like Davide was a better teacher than Tim (the actual teacher, although we’d only had one lesson with him so far). Davide said it was nice as he’s never felt able to teach people before, he’s only felt he has to ask other people, which was nice for him, and then it was good as I was also able to give him something in return, in the form of helping with his English homework.
I got back at about 22.15 when I realised I should probably do the Italian homework, which was fortunately only a sheet about numbers and a sheet about articles. Although I was feeling better than Wednesday I still didn’t feel great, and managed to go begin the process of going to sleep (as you never really know exactly when you go to sleep, do you?) at about eleven.
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