Opening Ceremony

My second (and last) Opening Ceremony was on Friday the 13th of October (haha). The only time throughout the year when everyone wears their national costumes together, and thus we have a lot of pictures. There isn't much else to talk about besides the pictures - speeches, choir, more speeches, music scholars playing, more speeches...anyway. There was good food afterwards, and we went on little "cultural visits" in the afternoon, exploring the surrounding area.
Nik and I wore national costumes, and were very proud of the result:

Other random pictures:


this is my prime and I: the two American girls, Lucy (Colorado) and Sarah (Virginia) and my adopted prima, Keleigh (Canada).

Speaking of adopted primi, these are two of my three adopted primi: Keleigh, whom I adopted because she is so very similar to me and the ways in which she's different are really cool - she's been doing Highland dancing for 14 years and she headed a "lights out canada" program to conserve energy and reduce global warming etc. at home, which is awesome. Lorenzo is the guy who hosted me in Milan at the beginning of the summer, so I adopted him because of our pre-college connection. There third adoptee is Nkechi, a girl from Nigeria who lives in scholtz (my residence) and has american citizenship, so she's my prima as well. I like my nicely diverse family.

This is Ximena, my rooma from Uruguay. Isn't she cool? I'm so lucky with roommates...

And this, as you can probably recognize by now, is the Weird Sisters: Nidhi, Vanessa and I. (All in blue, I might add. we have excelent taste.)
Afterwards, on the cultural visit, I had a strange encounter:
I was walking along the river when I saw a woman who was dressed like me - in 100-year-old clothes. I laughingly said to Nidhi, "hey, look! I have a friend!" and the woman came up to me, saying, "do I know you?" in English.
Apparently she's dressed this way all her life, and she just retired from her job as a seamstress. She's been to America multiple times to sell her dresses to others like her (I don't think she's amish, but she's something very similar) and she thought I was the daughter of one of her clients. She was very nice and we had a wonderful conversation, and before we left, I got a picture with her:

Isn't that great?

Asian Week

This is belated. Mi scusate, perfavore. I have a million excuses which I don't want to recount right now - they all have to do with essays and lab reports and ugly stuff like that.
So I'll tell you about the wonderful things in the college and specifically, the first National Week.
Asian Week was wonderful, we had a lot of activities throughout the week, and I can't do it justice, of course, but I'll try my best.
The first thing that distinguished the week from other national weeks was the Cultural Fair, which they had out on Fore Lawn, and served tea, wrote our names in Chinese, taught us to play the Erhu (chinese cello),

did henna tattoos,

and danced to bollywood music. Shashank, the Indian primo is a great dancer, and he led us all in corny bollywood dance moves.

The second thing, chronologically, and first on my list of favorites was Dicipline Day, when we all had to act as Asians do in school - dress in uniforms, not talk in class, address the teachers as Mr. ___ and Sir, etc. and they could send us to the Naughty Corner if we misbehaved, a place where we had to "Stand, look at the wall, and contemplate your crime and Be Sorry". We all had so much fun with it, but I didn't go to the Naughty Corner (not that I didn't try).

The poetry session was amazing, as always. I never knew that Flora (China) and Valentine (Indonesia) were such good orators. Valentine presented a revolutionary poem that made me tremble with fear. I never knew such a small, sweet girl could carry so much power.
The taster session was different than usual - normally we have it in the dayroom of one of the residences, and we all crowd in like people trying to escape from a fire and rush around trying to get as much food as possible on our plates at one time. Then we go to a corner and try to eat it all, generally ending up feeling bloated and bruised (from the mad fight for food) but very, very happy. In Asian week, however, they put the food in mensa, and we went through the normal mensa line to get the food at the end. I was late, so didn't get very much food at all, and ended up eating just mensa food, and it seemed that they didn't cook nearly as much as the other weeks. But it was fun anyway, and the best part was that they put Indian music on and we all got up and danced with Nidhi and Shashank and Malika (the volunteer from India).
Then there was the show, which was great. I was told to dress up as Sailor Moon, and I put my heart and soul into the costume. From 8 am to 7 pm I was working on it, gathering clothes and designing the outfit - the final product? here.

I participated in the show, too, which was really fun and funny. I and my rooma, Corina, played/sang "I like chinese" by Monti Python. (general gist:
"I like chinese, I like chinese
they only come up to your knees,
but they're always friendly and they're ready to please.

I like chinese thought,
the wisdom that Confuscious taught,
if darwin was anything to shout about,
the chinese will survive us all without any doubt."

It was a smash hit - everyone loved it, and even now people sing it randomly in the halls and ask me for the words. I'm proud to have made a worthwhile contribution to the UWC society.
And that was Asian Week.