Randomoid Pictures for All

This is the photo used for the front of the AC Calendar this year created through the group's Social Enterprise; all of the students from the houses grabbed their flags and actually were allowed to climb on the roof to take the pictures [from the Watchtower]. If you see the American flag in the picture, it's me holding/waving it! I love my insanely international home.

British Parliament in London
Covent Garden [A small orchestra playing below]
Buckingham Palace! I took this picture after walking eternally from one side of London to the other...what a tourist.

Monk? Marine? Spock? Budda?!

Yes, it is true, I have no hair at all, as it is in a small bag in my room after being shaved off my head. Surprisingly I don't have as a head as oddly shaped as I thought it would be, and I seem to have a lot of people requesting that I keep it shaved! I don't think I'm going to do that though... To give a brief recap, 6 other guys and I shaved our heads for human rights [Amnesty International], and managed to collect £700 [$1400]! Needless to say, I'm very proud of the others that participated in the shaving, and am really glad that I did it.

I also got to be with my wondrous link family today [hurray for Bryn and Alison!], who made us a traditional Sunday British meal of cheese and cauliflower, roasted potatoes and parsnips, gravy, yorkshire pudding, carrots, green peas, beef, and vegetable chili! It was AMAZING, and we topped it off with Eve's pudding [kind of like apple cobbler]. They even dropped off a bag of goodies on our bed when we weren't there, so that was a really nice thing to come back to. Ah yes, Virginia and I have the best Link family :]


Love,
Your budda buddy?

Codes+Service+Activities

Codes.
Codes are what we call our classes here at Atlantic [and I believe all the other UWCs generally do so too], which consist of three standard levels, three higher levels, and TOK in our Second year. We also have "free codes", which are weird versions of off blocks that occur very frequently. The teachers are also very flexible in regards to classes. For example, today I only had two codes because I had two frees, and my Chemistry gave us a free code to study/revise for our upcoming test. Here are the codes that I'm taking [Obviously the IB because my school created the IB with Ecolint, the International School of Geneva, and some school in NY]:

Codes

Higher Level Chemistry: A two year code, with my teacher Geoff [We call all of our teachers by their first name]. Geoff is an interesting person to have for a teacher simply because he wrote the entire book used for IB chemistry, as well as the syllabus. This class only has 12 kids. So, I'm not too worried about doing well on the IB Chemistry exam :]
Higher Level Biology:This Bio class is more of a univeristy kind of class, meaning that we do more practical work than theory, which usually involves my very very very interesting and excited teacher [James, another person who is a genius in Biology and happens to contribute to everything Biology all over the world] running around outside recognizing differeing organisms, and then examining them under a microscope to identify different things within. He also is the Estate Service instructor as well as Visual Rescue. He also has a series of massive jars full of bacteria and things that he's had for 30 YEARS, and never touched.
Higher Level European History:Definitely one of my favorite classes; my teacher is Kate from Hungary [Amazing at History], and the people in my class are from Italy, Poland, Germany [two], Kenya, Mauritius , Britain, Slovakia, and me! The discussions in Euro are amazing, as we have people from the countries we are studying, and the different positions and views are the most invaluable aspect we have in this class.
SL Japanese ab initio:This is by far one of my favorite classes, yet one of the hardest as well. Japanese has three different alphabets, the grammar is completely different, and the way of thinking is opposite from that of Westerners. We're almost done with learning Hiragana, and having a class of only 6 people is very intimate yet still very intense. My teacher is Kai from Germany, who went to Atlantic a long time ago, and has been here since the year after university.
SL English A1:My teacher is Lydia [My tutor/counselor], who is an ex student and has her masters in Poetry. We've been analyzing and discussing poetry lately, and it has been amazing since poetry is definitely something I enjoy working with. We've already read a novel that we're goign to write a commentary on, and I have a presentation tomorrow about a poem that I was given to study. Definitely a very very fun code.
SL Math Methods:I never knew how many ways people could write a decimal, or a period, or a multiplication sign, or different ways to think about math. We had to go through a "standardizing" sort of period to make sure everyone was sure what was going on, but we are on to actual math now, and will go from statistics to higher algebra to trig and to calculus by the end of the two years. My teacher in this class is Kai as well, and he's an extremely good math teacher.

Service

Lifeguards:For my service at AC, I've chosen to become a hardcore oceanic kayaking surfing nutcase of a lifeguard. We have three different sessions [my sessiosn are on tuesday and thursday], which involve completely different things. Fitness sessions include running your booty off for about 30 minutes, as well as press ups, sit ups, crunches, planks, and anything else that my instructors [Alan from Zimbabwe and Harriet from...Wales] feel like doing, and then running to the pool to swim like a dolphin. When they mean we're going to be in shape, they're not kidding. I believe we did something like 112 laps during our last session, and did our time swim [we have to swim twenty lengths in under 7 minutes and thirty second by april], and I was extremely excited to actually make it in 7 minutes 18 seconds! So now it's simply a challenge to myself to get better and become a faster swimmer. We have a few people in my group that are insanely fast, and a few that still are getting the hang of swimming. We even have a few people in lifeguards that are non-swimmers! So, for them, it's quite a challenge to progress all the way to being an expert swimmer.

Activities

Amnesty International:As a group we debate about situations throughout the world regarding human rights, raise awareness, and do mostly practical things to help out. For example, we're going to Cardiff quite soon on a weekend to perform street theatre in the busiest street in all of Cardiff: Queens. We're not sure exactly what we're going to do, but it will either by protesting against the human rights violations in Burma, Guantanamo bay prison, or another event that is atrocious. Last week my entire school wore red to honor the Buddhist monks in Burma that sacrificed themselves to better their country, and on Friday I am completely shaving my head [yes, shaved as in smooth, not just buzzed], in order to raise money for amnesty. There a few other guys, and even a girl who are going to do so as long as people donate enough money [I think the goal is something like £500, or 1000 dollars].

GreenPeace: I know when you think of GreenPeace you probably thing of the insanely radical organization that will do anything to help the environment and stop whalers, but I can assure that our organization is not like that at all at AC; we raise awareness through making our school more environmentally friendly, as we are a model for the world, and can raise awareness through our status. We also are meeting with a greenpeace member who will help us out with getting started[it's our first year to exist at AC], which is very exciting.

Javanese Gamelan: The Javenese Gamelan is a large collection of confusing instruments that I'm learning to play with a few other people from the school. One neat tradition is that we are not allowed to wear shoes near the gamelan, or to step over any piece of it. If you step over the piece, you are said to disturb the Javenese spirits within [interesting...]. We've already conducted one peace that's really neat, and we're going to perfect it until later in November when we perform for the school.

Tour Choir:This is my official unofficial activity...I'm a Base, and will continue to practice with the group until we have our songs memorized and completed until our time comes in March to fly to Warsaw, Poland, and perform in a massive cathedral! We have more concerts throughout Poland, so it should be really really fun.

Meditation and Sahaja Yoga: This is what I join my houseparents in every other day with a few other Dyfedians, which is one of my favorite things here. I'd suggest looking it up yourself because it's difficult to explain otherwise. Tonight the Buddhist Abbot of the Dalli Lama [Excuse the spelling of that...] is coming to lead a school wide meditation, which should be amazing.

There are about a million other things that go on around the school, but it would take me forever to list them all so I'll just leave it at those for now. Another favorite past time is staying up till the wee hours of the morning with people from conflicting nations and debating about the situation, and the solution from both sides. For example, last night I stayed up with Amit [Israel], Malia [New Mexico], and Bjorn [Germany] debating about the Palestinian and Israeli conflict. Truly, where else can you debate with the direct members of each point of the conflict as you can here?

Anyway, I must go to Southerndown beach now to Surf [HurrahhH!] for Lifeguards, so I best go get my wet suit on.

Hope everyone is having a great Senior year!

Love Love Love,

Kev

Induction! Initiation! More!

-Where: On the coast of the Irish Sea in West Wales within an ex-students large estate.

-Who: Half of the Atlantic First years, Camp Leaders [Second years], Peer Listeners, staff, and induction crews from each service.

-Why: To commence extremely rapid and intense bonding between people of all nations, to have fun, to learn about each other, and to make us appreciate home.

-When: The beginning.

After spending the first few days in shock because of the situation my co-years and I were all in, the time for “serious bonding” came in the form of a longggg bus ride to the coast in which I learned every detail about the lives of the three people sitting around me, as well as the eminent three day induction period that has been so anticipated since it’s mentioning. I’d heard many different stories, most involving the abundance of cow patties, freezing weather, falling tents, and frightening food, as well as the seeming side-effect of bonding and having a great time. Luckily for us, it was just the opposite! We slept [quite tightly might I add, with no pillows and no showers!] in British Air force Tents on a field overlooking the coast [Breathtaking to say the least], which we were unaware of as we arrived in the middle of the night thinking we were just on a farm, and woke up to the Irish sea and sheer cliffs around us. On the night that we walked in, dreary eyed and bums aching from the drive, our second year camp leaders were in the large barn leaning forward, heads down, and hands on their knees. Being the History Channel lover that I am and the memory of the movie “Whale Rider” popping into my head, I knew that they were going to greet us with the traditional, yet frightening “Hakka” practiced by the indigenous people of New Zealand. So, our first greeting of camp was a fired up bunch of second years screaming an indigenous war chant with painted faces while looking as scary as humanly possible. Great way to wake us up, as well as a way to confuse us just a little bit more, which usually turns into asking tons of questions and looking oblivious. We were woken up after a few hours of sleep [Dance party all night anyone?] by the second years chanting “Wake up” around our tent, while “affectionately” opening all the windows, and letting the cold air whip into our bundle of ACers huddling for warmth. After a night of fun and some talking with our second years, we started the rotations for activities at camp, which went as follows: Environmental, Surfing, Coastering, Initiative Games, Coastal Walk. For Environmental we helped build a traditional Pembrookshire Hedge with the farmer, as it would have taken him much more time than the two hours that it took us together. Initiative games was really fun as we played a bunch of leadership oriented games that I’ve never seen before, mind games, and games just to get us dirty. The coastal walk involved walking 17km down the coast of Wales, which literally means walking on a pathway with a cliff two feet away from you, and gale force winds pushing you down. Our walk leader from the CAVRA service took us to a place where we saw sea lions, and eventually to a small beach where we all had lunch and talked, until we had to run past the wild horses back to camp. And now, for the two most amazing things, Surfing and Coasteering. In order to go surfing in Wales, it’s generally a bright idea to wear a wetsuit, as it’s absolutely freezing in the water [as in much cooler than barton springs], and the jagged rocks generally don’t mix well with people. So, my Induction group and I waddled out of the van that Alan so generously sped through the practically 4ft wide roads to get to, and stripped down to get in our Wetsuits in the gale force winds, light rain, and majestic life jackets and helmets. Yes, we looked like a bunch of goonbas running around in our bright yellow helmets [Confounded British health and safety regulation!], while small children ran beside us in their stylish wetsuits into the surf. We did some warm up exercises with our French Instructor Nick, and then linked arms to walk straight into the biggest surf that I’ve ever seen in my life. Truly, While walking the waves were a couple feet above our heads like mountains crashing down, and all the time Nick continued to laugh and push us forward to the point that we were on our tippy-toes in the water. Finally, a massive wave blew us all apart and we body surfed back to shore, and commenced in beginning to surf. Much to everyone’s surprise, a Texan can surf! I actually did really well despite the large surf, and we all had an insanely fun time surfing together. And, for the Camp Finale, Coasteering. Coasteering involved my group once again suiting up in our wetsuits, our helmets, our lifejackets, and this time our Tennis shoes [or “trainers” as they say here]. Our iron men of instructors charged up the hills down to the old ruins of a slate mine, and jumped into THE coldest water I have ever felt [Most likely because MY wetsuit had a GIANT hole right in the crotch…my luck!!], and swam/tried to swim to the open water. We slipped around over seaweed and climbed through the inlet, only to jump into the expanse that was brimming with sea lions. Yes, we were swimming with sea lions in the Irish sea with people from a million different countries…Wicked. We practiced proper technique to jump of cliffs [Hurrah!], and then swam over to the part of the land mass that was jutting out, with a smallll hole that you could see when the tide went back and forth. Naturally, our instructor decided that we would go under the cliff through the tidal hole and come out the other side. As we went one by one, it literally felt as if the cliff was sucking us under and popping us back out into it’s stomach; we were in a massive cavern under the cliff, and once everyone was inside we swam out to the other side. The Using the barnacles on the slate cliffs, we were all able to scale nearly vertical parts to once again jump off into the violent water and roaring waves. I still can’t believe that it passed health and safety regulations, but it was definitely fun! We went down a few natural slides, got sloshed by massive waves that would pull you back and then cover you with the next one, climb up the sides of cliffs, and then reach a massive jump with which nearly everyone jumped off! We had two non-swimmers, so it was definitely difficult for them, we be managed to pull them along through the water and help them out with everything. My tutor, who is also my English teacher was also with us, as well as Neil Richards [Our new Headmaster/Principal] who went with the next group. We went back to Camp pumped with adrenaline at the insane feat that we had just conquered, and had the traditional bonfire that night. During our last night’s bonfire, every country that was represented sang their national anthem for everyone, and sang different campfire songs in different languages. On that note, everything here is very multi-lingual; during anything that requires counting or numbers, you say it in your own language, which becomes very interesting when you’re stretching and you hear 12 different languages within a few minutes. In the end, camp was amazing, I became extremely close to the people in my tent, the second years that were with us, and the people that were in my induction group. I hope to be a camp leader next year so that we can have as much fun as we did this year next year with our first years! Neat eh, while everyone else was in school, my school sent us on a camping trip to go cliff diving, surfing, and hiking. Everyone should get the chance to experience an education as it’s done at Atlantic, and that’s why I love it here.

Loving it,

K

This is "Southerndown Beach", which is the place that I go nearly every week with Lifeguards to go surfing and train for our certification. It varies between no surf [as you can see in this picture], and really large surf. Fun to say the least!


Did I mention that there are sheep EVERYWHERE? Plus, I learned something ridiculous the other day; sheep are born with large bush tails, but they take them off! There's a bunch of sheep that are brown and white in Llantwit that have their tails still...we were dumbfounded.