Adapting to school and life at UWCCR

September 21, 2022

Adapting to school and life at UWCCR

It's been more than a month since I arrived at UWCCR. Lots of things happened. School started three weeks ago. It's a lot of work, and the teachers expect a lot from us. We study IB, so I have 3 higher and 3 standard-level subjects. My higher-level subjects are English Language and Literature, Economics, and Global Politics. In the first two weeks, I took Psychology instead of Global politics but I didn't feel like it was the right fit for me, it was too science focused and I'm more of a social science person. My standard level subjects are Spanish AB Initio, Environmental systems, and Maths analysis and approaches. The most time-consuming ones are Economics and Maths at the moment, but I usually don't mind that I have to work a lot. The topics are fairly interesting in most of my subjects and I always study in the library. I really like the atmosphere there. The only thing I don't really like about school is that it starts at 7:30 and we have 3 or 4 classes a day, and all of them are 1 hour and 20 minutes long. It starts very early and the length of the classes sometimes makes it hard for me to focus the whole time.

I'm starting to feel more comfortable around people and I feel like I already built some meaningful relationships with some people. Spending time with your friends outside of campus can really help to get to know them better. We usually just go and have coffee or lunch nearby. There is a very nice coffee shop where we usually go, it's called Wo Kapi. Sometimes my schooldays can get very busy and overwhelming, so it's just nice to leave all of that behind for sometimes when I leave campus, it really feels like I'm entering a different world.

Last Sunday me and my Hungarian co year made Pogácsa for Eastern European family dinner. It was so nice, everyone loved it. I really enjoyed trying new Eastern European dishes. There were some really special food that I have never heard about before but apparently are very popular in most Eastern European countries, for instance, pierogi and borscht. I also made myself zucchini fitters and helped a friend bake crumble. Baking and cooking really makes me happy and relaxed, and it feels so nice to share food with others here, they really appreciate everything since the food I make is usually new to them.

Some interesting activities that I participated in in the past weeks: Firstly we had our first open mice where lots of people performed mainly dances and songs. It was very cool, everyone was so talented. Secondly, we were able to see the carnival on independence day. Most of the schools in Santa Ana participated and did national dances. Last week we had a Central American week, where we learned about the culture of all the Central American countries, tried their cuisine, and had some fun activities on the topic, such as dancing. And finally, we had the UWC day today which was amazing, but I think I'm going to write a new post about it when I get the photos they took today.