Project Week - Moscow

A Day of Travel

Our project week started in the pale light of pre-dawn, our sleepy eyes blinking as we rolled our suitcases to the bus stop. Our flight was at 7:00 am, so we woke at 4:30 am to catch the bust at 5:00, just to be safe. The journey was uneventful and fun, we spent a few hours in Rome, then on to Moscow. It was amazing to look out the plane window at Russia - after a winter of no snow, there was snow everywhere, and it was so flat! coming from Vermont to Italy I'd forgotten that there were places that were truly flat...but it was flat as far as I could see, and the city was a small blotch on the white snow.

Despite our worries, we got through Passport control without difficulty and were met by Danil, Heloisa’s friend, and Tatosha, our Russian third year, at the entrance. They took us to our hostel, a beautiful place behind one of the only two catholic cathedrals in Moscow.

A Day of Exploration

Our first trip was, of course, to the Red Square. It was a beautiful day, and St Basil’s Cathedral was spectacular in the cold sunlight. We went inside and marveled at the decorations – many of us had never seen an orthodox cathedral before, and the icons were truly spectacular.

Then we went to the shopping center nearby to have lunch, where we met Danil again, and he took some of us to see Arbat, the most famous street in Moscow. We couldn't figure out why at first, it wasn't that different from all the other streets, until I realized that it was like Times Square in NYC - it's an icon of the city, a place to pin your heart, even though it's not actually much more spectacular than the rest of the city.

That evening, we all went to Danil’s school to meet his friends. Despite the language barrier, we had a wonderful time talking, and then Danil got out his guitar and they all sang their favorite Russian songs for us. We enjoyed it immensely.

A Day of Success

Today we went to our first official activity of the Project: a bilingual Italian-Russian school, where we gave a presentation about UWC and they gave a presentation about Russia, and then we had tea and chatted in Italian. The students were very nice and we had a lot of fun talking to them about the differences between our schools and countries.

We went straight from that to the orphanage. We were worried that the orphans, being only slightly younger than us (15-17-years-old) wouldn’t respond well to our games and activities, but we were completely mistaken. They loved it: they played our childish games with almost more energy than us. When we had finished, they invited us to tea, with sweets that they had made themselves, and we tried to communicate through the few Russian speakers in our group and the even fewer English speakers in theirs.

Elated at our success, we went out to an underground bar in the center of Moscow. It was a beautiful bar, with a jazz band playing and a wonderfully cozy atmosphere. I felt so at home there, if I lived in Moscow, I would go there every night.

A Day of Trials

This was the hardest day of the week for most of us.

We were scheduled to prepare and deliver meals to homeless in the evening, but we ended up spending all the time talking to the women who organized the relief work, and didn’t prepare any of the food at all. We went to help deliver it as well, but there were too many of us and not enough to do, so most of us ended up standing around looking at the homeless people come to get the tea and sandwiches we offered. We felt like spectators to their pain, and unable to help in any real way. But it also brought out how important work like this was, and sparked a will to help similarly in our home countries.

A Day of Beauty

We went to the Tritikovska Museum of Art in the morning. It was a wonderful museum, the artwork is spectacular, wall after wall covered in marvelous paintings, each one worthy of hours of study by itself, but unfortunately we had only 2 hours to see the whole museum, so we rushed around trying to absorb everything before we had to leave.

We went to have lunch with Olga, the head of the Russian national committee. It was wonderful – by far the best food we had the whole week and a very interesting conversation with Olga and Tatosha’s mother about the national committee and Tatosha’s mother’s ecotourism business.

That evening we went to the orphanage again, and had another fun time playing games. We had learned from the last session, and we had more active games this time, with the orphans running around and laughing, then they suggested a game and we all played until the end of the session.

A Day of Contrast

We woke up early to get to another school at 9:00. This school was very different from the other school we went to: it was the elite school where all the richest students in Moscow went. We went to talk to two classes, an English class of 16-year-old students and an Italian class of students ranging from 8 to 13-years-old. We were shocked at the life these kids led, their minds occupied with fashion and material goods. We had forgotten that at UWC we were the exception, not the rule, and it was a rude awakening to the real world.

In the afternoon, we saw the other end of the economic spectrum: we went to a homeless shelter to do art activities. It was a wonderful experience, much better than our other encounter with homeless people. We finger-painted, one of us with one homeless person, making paintings about spring, and communicating without words through the colors on the paper.

They loved it, and afterwards asked us again and again to come back. A summation of the day: we preferred the downtrodden to the elite.

A Day of Culture

In the morning we went to see the Kremlin, though the weather was less than desirable: rain and slush made it very hard to walk the streets. After wandering around the Red Square, trying to find the way in, we asked two guards on horseback and got directions to the real entrance. The cathedrals we saw were spectacular, every speck of them covered in frescoes and icons, so similar and so different to the churches of Italy.

We spent the afternoon in the orphanage for the last time. We had a huge party, sang songs for each other, and Vivian taught us all how to make Chinese lanterns. We were so sad to say goodbye, but we told them about UWC and invited them to apply, so hopefully UWC and the orphanage will have a great long-lasting relationship.

That night we went to the Red Square again, to see it by night. It was awe-inspiring, despite the rain, and we stayed there for a while, just gazing at our surroundings. Sarah, my prima, was taking pictures like mad, it became a running joke of the project week.

A Day of Conversations

We spent all morning in school 136, having tea and talking about our impressions of Russia and their impressions of Italy. The Italian teacher took us out to lunch in a beautiful ethnic restaurant and then to the cheap shopping haven of Moscow, where we got souvenirs and presents for all our friends. I got a blue fur hat, which is sooooo warm and cozy and wonderful. Umberto got his desired Russian army cap, and then we switched, just to make life interesting. :)

A Day of Delays

In the morning, Olga and two other people from the national committee came to talk, and we discussed the role of the national committee, how they operated, and what we expected from them in general. Then we were off…well, sort of. The flight was delayed due to bad weather, and by the time we got to Rome our connecting flight had already left. So Alitalia paid for our stay in a wonderful 4 star hotel and we got back to Duino the next morning, safe and sound.

What a trip! Thanks to everyone who helped to make it possible, there were some days when we weren't sure we would be able to go, but we pulled through, and it was very much worth it. Thanks!

Philanthropy

We had a wonderful International Affairs presentation today. Normally they're fairly interesting but overall you forget about them somewhere around 15 minutes later. But this was really great. The man was the chief executive of The Institute of Philanthropy in London (but he's a New Yorker) and my co-year invited him to speak to us. He was a great presenter, probably because he makes a living out of it, teaching "high net-worth individuals" how to give their money away wisely.
It was wonderful to hear a man speaking about the kind of life that every UWC student should have, but I've never actually seen in practice. His is the life that I wouldn't mind living, doing something good for the world while traveling and not doing too badly money-wise either. He said he woke up every morning glad to go to work, and the main payment for his work was the feeling of having truly helped someone.
We had a great discussion in the evening, 15ish people came to talk to him about philanthropy and the social, political, economic and philisophical issues surrounding it - the idea of treating cause rather than effect, or the welfare state, or the role of government or the UN...
I'm inspired. I now know that the kind of life I want actually does exist, and if I play my cards right, I could actually end up following my wildest dreams.

English Native Speaker Week

Finally, after almost two years, my National Week came.
It was fantastic, the best week I've had in the College, which is saying a lot.
Since I've been waiting for it for so long, I took a very active role in the week - heavily involved in almost everything that happened, which was a lot.
This was our schedule:
Every day, every meal, we had a different genre of music in the cafeteria, which I organized (I have so much music on my laptop now, it's unbelievable). Everything from Reggae to 80s to Indie to Celtic to Jazz to Classic Rock to 90s Pop... now that we don't have music anymore I feel like something's missing, it was really nice, especially the Jazz day - it created such a nice atmosphere...
Monday was the Introductory skit, when we all got up in Assembly and presented the program for the week - Disney style. We made a movie of all of us being Disney characters to introduce a part of the week - Lumier (the candle guy from Beauty and the Beast) introduced the taster session, Pocahontas introduced the poetry session, Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd (ok, they're not Disney, I know) introduced Saturday Morning Cartoons, and I, as Cinderella, introduced the Prom - Infomercial style. It was hilarious, the costumes we managed to get together and the acts themselves; we were laughing ourselves senseless.
Tuesday was the Poetry Session, which I organized. It was truly beautiful, it went better than I could have hoped. Coffee House style, we had everyone snapping politely to our poetry rather than clapping, and we read everything from Shakespearean sonnets to e. e. cummings to Green Eggs and Ham. I was very proud - I'd never organized something completely alone and had it come out well before, so it was a personal milestone.
Wednesday was the Taster Session, for which I cooked
5 bowls of Jello (ok, so "cook" is a relative term...)
3 apple pies
50 some-odd veggie burgers
2 bowls of mashed potatoes
2 Hawaiian pizzas
30 PB&J sandwiches
and oversaw the roasting of 4 bags worth of s'mores

and that was only one person's contribution, imagine the whole ensemble...
I'd brought burger king crowns for everyone, so all the Native Speakers wore crowns. We had music playing, and after eating we all danced and danced, playing limbo and jumping on tables...great fun.
Oh, also on Wednesday we had a Hockey Tournament and a presentation on the Group of 7 - the major artists of Canada.

Thursday was our "down day" so we only had two things going on - the Movie (American Beauty - totally depressing. I'd never seen it before.) and a Highland Dance session.
We spent the whole day practising for the show on Friday.

Friday was the show - wow, so cool. We got everyone to dress up as famous Native Speaker Couples...everyone from Superman/Wonder Woman

to Bert/Ernie to Romeo/Juliet to Barbie/Ken to Harry/Ginny. The teachers were all famous villains - Lord Voldemort, Ursula, Jafar, Darth Vader, etc.
Everyone dressed up - I think we got the most people to dress up ever, we were so happy to see them come into the room all excited for our show.
The show was great. I participated in a Formal Apology, where we apologized for Barbie, the SATs, McDonald's, Reality TV, and an illogical measuring system. Britain apologized for the Spice Girls, their spelling system, and their "bastard child, America". Canada apologized for beating everyone at Hockey (which pissed off the nordics, you can be sure), and having too much land and not enough people. We finished with me saying, "On behalf of the USA, I should apologize for... um. that whole ... world domination thing..." and I ran off the stage. The rest of them stayed on, laughing at me, until Canada turned to Britain - "what are YOU laughing at?" :)

I also did "Gee, Officer Krupke" from West Side Story, the Politically Correct Red Riding Hood, and a "Speak Like an English Native Speaker" session, where we taught a volunteer to say "Hey y'all, innit like hella goin man, eh-izzle?" which to any native speaker makes perfect sense. right?

Saturday morning we woke up early to cook pancakes for Saturday Morning Cartoons - we watched Loony Tunes and The Emperor's New Groove while eating huge quantities of pancakes and maple syrup. (thank god I still have some left!)

And Saturday night was Prom - wow! it went so well. We spent all afternoon decorating and getting ready, Palazzina Dayroom has never looked so good. We had chips and punch (which we told everyone was spiked), an Official Photographer, and Prom King and Queen, drawn from a lottery. It was the greatest party UWC has ever seen. Full Stop. (as they say in british english - help! I'm being corrupted!) we had soooooooo much fun.

And that was it. The week was over. it was so sad to leave - it had been like a mini-vacation, none of the school rules applied to us - no curfew, no homework, no activities or social service, nothing but national week. it was so relaxing to be stressing out about something that didn't have anything to do with school.
And everyone said it was the best week ever. (or, if their pride couldn't take it, the best...except theirs) Success!!!

Look at that, I've spent way too much time writing. Now I really must study for the trial exams coming up next week. good bye.

PS Hey look! they've put our videos on YouTube! you can check them out at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x11Nglpvug and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqroN-k3UEY

Rome

I've given up trying to write everything amazing about this place in detail - if I try, I'll never even start. So I'll try to give a brief overview of life here before I remember all the things I have to do and feel to guilty to continue.
World Cultures is the best class in the world. What other class will take you on field trips to Venice, Ravenna, and Rome? We went to Rome 2 weeks ago for 4 days, studying ancient Roman archiatecture, early Christian mosaics, the High Renaissance (Michelangelo & Raphael), and Baroque/Neo-Classicism. It was a huge overdose of awe - I couldn't think afterwards, my mind was reeling from too much art. How do you choose between Bernini's Rape of Persephone:
So real you can see his strong fingers digging into her flesh, feel her terror and despair, his bestial triumph, at the moment when they cross the border into the underworld and he knows he has her for good...
and the ceiling of Il Gesu,
where the painted angels come out of the frame onto the gilded ceiling, bursting open the roof and spilling sunlight onto the congregation inside?
How do you compare the spectacular beauty of a sunset over the city-scape of Rome:

with the ancient majesty of the ruins of the Forum?

How can I convey the wonder of that trip?

I give up.

The next week was - though it seems impossible - even better.

African-Middle Eastern Week

My last national week ever. It's so sad, because the next National Week is my own, so I won't get to participate in it. It was fabulous though, a great week to end on.
It started out with a phenomenal poetry session - the best I've ever seen. They brought blankets and pillows into the lecture room and created a warm and cozy atmosphere, and served Turkish tea, and then started reciting the most amazing poetry - so powerful, so full of emotion, so beautiful... and they did something no one else has done before: they sang some of their poems, and the combination of music and poetry was gorgeous.
The taster session was great as well, it rivaled the Italian one, because though it didn't have as much food it had much more varied and exotic foods that made up for it.

And they had Arabic/African music playing, so after eating we all danced and danced:

(The Israelis have the craziest hair ever, especially when they dance!)


The next day we had the "chill-out session" when we relaxed, drank tea, smoked nargille, got massages and face masks, and generally calmed down.
And then the show. Oh so much fun.
I was partnered with Honza, and we went as a camel:

There were some other really great costumes as well:

Marco as an African Warrior


Ridhima and Joe as street beggars


Eduardo as a Jew :)


I participated in the show, doing a skit with Nevin on the cultural differences between America and Palestine. e.g. How she literally drinks Tabasco sauce, and is shocked at short skirts, how I'm not allowed to touch the Koran and how (the crowning glory of the show) we dress differently to go swimming. She came out in a full body suit, looking like a deep-sea diver, and I came out in a bikini (in front of the whole school! AAAH!). It was fun, though I got teased mercilessly afterwards.
The skits were funny, the dances were beautiful, the raps were great. And there was one really profound dance/sketch that was serious; when four people came on stage representing four major issues: Julie as a drug addict, Eitan as a prisoner, Ansally as a prostitute, and Elroy as a disabled person.

It was really touching because it reminded us that the problems that we always hear about in African and the Middle East are actually universal, that everything they have, we have as well, but to a lesser extent.

On a more upbeat note, the next week is Native Speaker Week, the one I've been waiting for since Balkan Week, oh so long ago! I'm so excited for it, we have such a great group and such fabulous ideas, it will be the best week ever!!!!

EE Show

Friday was the EE show for which we were all very excited. We kept seeing first years doing strange things around Duino, hearing loud music coming from the basement, coming up on conversations that stopped as soon as we got there, and other tell-tale signs of an upcoming show.
Our invitations were interesting - mine was, "the hairiest hair model", for example, and some others were, "The Most Colorful Butterfly", "The Scariest Mummy", "The Most Romantic Boy"
(that's Nyamka, who does a surprisingly good impression of a romantic boy...) etc. Toni (Finland) was "The Strongest Vodka", of course:

I had a violin lesson so I didn't have much time to prepare a costume, but I cornrowed half my hair and then made a row of buns in the middle and left the rest down. Slightly uncomfortable in the crowded room, but whatever.
Their show was great (not better than ours though, we still have the UWC record for greatest EE show ever :) haha) the theme was "GuinnEEs Book of World Records", hence the costumes.
They had a lot of songs with changed lyrics, like "Let It Be" turned into, "The EE" (as in, "there will be an essay, the EE....") and such, and some crazy record stuff, like a competition between a first year, a second year, and a teacher to eat the most pasta, drink water the fastest, peel an apple without breaking the skin and transport a raw egg from one bowl to another using chopsticks.

They had a great skit about the EE (Evil Essay) tormenting us poor second years who would rather be partying or drinking coffee. They/we finally defeat him by finishing the essay on time and have a great big party. Yay!

But now Axel, the Swede who played the Evil Essay, freaks me out - anyone would if he looked like that!

There were also some very sweet skits, like the paper dance where they came onstage holding pieces of paper to form out sentences like:

And at the very end they all came on stage with the name of their EE friend taped to their...ahem...bottom and invited us onto the stage to dance and hug and congratulate.
this is my EE friend (Lorenzo) and me:

They also made fantastic cake for us, which was a wonderful idea and I need to find the recipe because it was insanely good, even the tiny piece that I got and shared with my EE friend.

And afterwards Lorenzo took me to Old Castle for the first time. By strange coincidence he happened to be present at the conversation early in the year when I said, "I've never been to Old Castle, so now I want to make it a special occasion - I think I'll get my EE friend to take me when I finish my EE." So after the show he said, "So, are you ready to go to Old Castle?" I was so surprised that he knew what I was going to say before I said it!
But Old Castle was fantastic, so beautiful and ancient - it's 11th century they say - to think that we had this in Duino all this time and I'd never known...
So the EE show was fantastic, in all its elements, I love our Primi!!!!!

Vienna

Last weekend was 'Long Weekend'’, our 4-day vacation. After much trial and tribulation, manindecisionns and revisions, and a lot of looking at flight/train ticket prices, we decided to go to Vienna for three days. The group consisted of: Vanessa, Nidhi and me (the Weird Sisters)

and our first-year male companions, Nidhi's primo, Shashank, Vanessa'’s boyfriend, Bar (Israel), and my adopted primo, Lorenzo.

When we got to Vienna, we met up with my co-year, Leah, and Andrea from Brazil. So this is all of us:

We had a fabulous time. We left Saturday evening and took the night train to Vienna. We didn't get much sleep, but that was mostly our own fault, as we stayed up most of the night talking and laughing and watching a movie. When we got there, we made our way to our hostel, the Blue Corridor (you can imagine why I chose itJ), deposited our bags, and went out to explore Vienna. We went to the Schonbrunn palace of the Hapsburg emperorsgapedawped at beautiful rooms and paintings while listening to the commentary on headphones, enjoying making a running commentary on the commentary in whispers.

Then we went to the Stefansdom Cathedral, the cathedral I had marveled at last year when I went with Street Performance. If anything, it was more awe-inspiring and more beautiful than before. We sat there and looked around and talked about the art like good Art History/World Cultures students, pointing out the differences between the gothic and baroque styles and how it differed from the renaissance style of the Venetian churches we had just seen and generally feeling very educated and prouourselves. Then.Then we went to meet Leah and Andrea at the Opera house. When we finally got there, after walking around the entire city of Vienna looking for the Opera (it turns out that the first building we found was actually the correct one, but we didn't recognize it from the back, so we walked all around the rest of the city to finally come back and realize our mistake), we sat in line for tickets again, this time for Carmen. After 2 hours we ended up with almost exactly the same spots as last time, which was really cool. The opera itself was fantastic. I love Carmen! All the music is fantastic, even the minor melodies, and the performance was awesome. The sets so real you couldn'’t tell where the stage ended and the backdrop ended, the costumes were of brightly colored swirly gypsy skirts and Toreador capes, and the actors that you into the story without even needing the subtitles on the screens on our seats.

The next day we went to the National Treasury, an amazing collection of insanely expensive stuff, from beautifully embroidered cloaks to ornately carved reliquaries to portraits of the Emperors and their families. My favorite was the huge sapphire, cut in such a way to reflect as much light as possible:

In the afternoon, we split up:– some to the Freud museum, some to go shopping, and Lorenzo, Shashank and I to go to the Kunst Historische Museum. When we got there, Shashank learned two new words in German: "Montag Geschlossen" (Closed Mondays). Aahrg! We sat and fumed for a while, but then decided to go enjoy our day somewhere else. And you know what? we had so much more fun than we would have had if we'd gone into the museum.

If I write it down, it'll sound dumb - we walked around Vienna, laughing about German, we almost went into an Italian church until we realized we lived in Italy, we sat on the steps of the Parliament building, we walked around a garden somewhere, and we went to an Esperanto museum. You may think that an Esperanto museum is about the dumbest place imaginable, especially when it's one small room that documents the history of a well-intentioned but useless language, but it was so much fun!! Lorenzo and I could basically understand the signs in Esperanto if we worked together, and we played pakman with Esperanto grammar and had fun with the interactive maps of where Esperanto conferences were being held around the world. They had to kick us out when they closed, and we walked to the meeting place planning a Project Week to learn Esperanto in a host family somewhere far away.

All together again, we went out to dinner at a bar called "The Centimeter" and had a wonderful dinner that came in a wheelbarrow which we all ate out of. Before we ate, Lorenzo proposed a toast, and said, "To the person who helped organize this trip and made it a wonderful weekend, to a great friend, and a great EE friend, Anika." I was so surprised, Lorenzo was my EE friend? I squealed and jumped up to run around the table and hug him. Suddenly it all made sense, the fact that he never wrote long letters was explained by the fact that I already knew everything he might write, having stayed in his house at the beginning of the summer while getting my visa. And having a face to put to those wonderful gifts he gave me was so nice!

Then we packed up and got on the train, sadly leaving Vienna behind. Once again, we stayed up all night talking, and when we got back to Duino we slept all day. Or rather, I slept half the day and spent the other half of the day feeling sorry for myself and wishing I was back in Vienna. But long weekend was over, and I had other things to look forward to...like the EE show!

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.