Out of the bubble

More than 3 months of living in India. Of the smell of Saturday violin rosin fading from my fingertips and and the smell of Wednesday sitar oil replacing it, chasing it away and by now my callouses have remolded themselves to fit the new kind of string that comes along with that even though it hurt in the beginning and I would bleed and run to my roomie and she'd kiss it and give me chocolate.

8 weeks ago I was 3800 meters up, blistering in the Himalayan air, blistering as I summitted another 300 meter climb only to go back down on the other side. With 15 kg on my back, wearing the shirt I hadn't taken off for 5 days and sweat raining from my temples, I cheered as the campsite finally came into sight and another 8 hour day came to an end. Project week is now over but the taste of the blue glacial water and the taste of ash in the chapatis we made over the fire and the taste of the ginger chai we got from one of the villages hasn't quite faded yet because the mountains had me in love and I think those boots fit me a little too well. Sitting with my feet in the river that followed us along the valley, watching the sunset as dozens of little bells signaled a goat herder was passing through and humming Shady Grove under my breath, I finally had time to reflect on me in India, something I had forgotten to do, shoved under the dirty laundry at the back of my closet.

Hampi was sitting in weird mattress restaurants and little seedpod boats and barefoot on rocks by a temple and jumping into a lake and on a motorcycle that might as well have been a bicycle and drinking coconuts and wondering if you can eat them too and then the lady smashes it and the answer is no and we move on.

The last few weeks on the hill were the worst and the best but it means that I am invested enough in this place. Tea is glue and so is apple cider and I've finally come to terms with the new kind of branches that shade me here and also did you know the people here are beautiful? I do.

12 nights ago I arrived with my Bangladeshi roommate Safieh in Dhaka, her home. There is a gentleness in the crowds that push and the bright rickshaws with three wheels that travel these crazy roads that look like birds of paradise. 2 more nights and I'm leaving for Sri Lanka for 2 weeks. Numbers numbers.

I think I do feel different. 3 months ago I was only just embarking on an adventure that I kind of thought I understood but I didn't have a clue I really didn't and now my hair is shorter and my eyes a little older and a little happier I think or at least they understand more and my feet a lot dirtier and my lips chapped from all the new words I've spoken, words and questions that I didn't know existed or maybe I did but I never knew how to ask
and I am grateful.
Cannot wait to hug everyone safe and sound back on campus.
Love to you.

"Welcome to MUWCI"

"Welcome to MUWCI, and this universe has different lighting – fairy lights only, and the occasional sunset off internet hill, a hill with no internet. You can only get internet with the mosquito net open, the mosquitoes are in permanent assault, the rain, when it starts, doesn’t necessarily stop, and there is always one dryer which isn’t working. You are advised to shower occasionally, as you are advised to attend first block, but neither is strictly mandatory. Cakes at midnight on birthdays are mandatory, as are inane conversations at the frazzled split-ends of a day – ‘Dude, which Wada is dead this year?’

Welcome to MUWCI, and your nails are almost always dirty, there is almost always mac ’n’ cheese cooking in your common room at 2 a.m. Courtyard mattresses smell of dog piss. Your roommate eats pomegranates in the rain, people on personal days ask you in the cafeteria, ‘Does language restrict the scope of human thought?’ You look left on the way to the library, and the mountains are a semi-colon to your exhaustion; eight people are dancing on the courtyard slabs on Wednesday night and each has an essay to write, half are folding in from the sheer weight of the bags under their eyes, but just eleven minutes more, because what kind of time is 12:49 to leave, anyway.
Welcome to MUWCI, and Philosophy consumes your brain: does the ‘self’ exist? But either way, you have had to find a ‘you’ to present to three hundred people. What colour do you paint your walls? Do you care where your meat comes from? Forget to miss your parents. Feel guilty about drinking tea out of paper cups at college meeting, do nothing about it. Realise how average you are, use multiple metaphors of fish and ponds to describe it, continue to feel entirely inadequate. See your first two shooting stars on the same night. Turn pink at festivals, leave your clothes outside to wash in the rain, retrieve them a month later. Shower with two frogs at a time, flush a third down the toilet by torturous accident. Put your trash in the wrong bin, steal slightly expired butter from the Wada fridge, wear someone else’s boxers to brunch. Never miss Tuesday lunch. Never cook maggi with its own masala or expect pale pants to stay pale. Understand that Sagar Inn will not serve your food on time. Listen to the same twenty songs on repeat on Saturday nights, watch thirty people from twenty countries dance to them in the rain. Realise that it doesn’t really matter where they’re from. Realise that you’ve begun to recognise them by the slope of their shoulders, the stripes of their sweaters, the way their hair curls sideways when it gets too long. Smile at Kurt Hahn’s success, crack another joke about your Nigerian friend in the dark.
Welcome to MUWCI, and have you yet walked through a cloud? Do your neighbours play guitar sitting on their  walls? Have you pierced your nose, shaved your head, eaten gummy-bears close to dawn? Do you curse PNC on Friday afternoons, know what post-modernism means? How many beds have you slept in? Why is no one ever done with their EE? Why the hell does shaking your hands beside your head mean ‘I agree’?
Welcome to MUWCI. Walk barefoot. Or don’t. Live isn’t an autological word. Do it anyway."

Written by my beautiful roommate Safieh from Bangladesh for the MUWCI Times

MUWCI moments

1. Being woken up by your roommate in the morning when you have a free block and hearing 'Thule, can I borrow a jumper?' and wondering with a half-asleep Canadian mind what the hell a jumper is and telling her to take what she wants.

2. Walking around with friends from Guatemala and Norway spreading jazz music and dancing your way across the wadas until you find more friends and sit in someone else's courtyard until late at night.

3. Not being able to remember where you left your shoes but waking up to find that your co-year returned them with a note saying you're crazy.

4. Melting chocolate into a bowl and cutting apples into pieces and eating it cross-legged with friends.

5. Falling asleep backwards while doing homework on your bed and your roommate propping you up with a pillow, turning off your lights and putting away your laptop. <3

6. Being told the next day you had a conversation with someone that woke you up when you were sleeping and not remembering it at all.

7. Receiving a letter from home and almost crying and it making everything ok.

8. Falling asleep in your co-years bed and waking up in your own and being confused.

9. Eating someone else's noodles.

10. Tea parties.

11. Entering the AQ and having to make the difficult decision of going either left or right.

12. Laughing until you cry and crying until you laugh.

13. Carefully avoiding the topic of the EE around second-years.

14. 20 second dance parties in someone else's room.

15. Running around in the monsoon after midnight holding hands and laughing so hard you can't see straight.

16. Writing this list instead of studying for your math test tomorrow.

Love to you

Routines

I've been here exactly 32 days and I love it more than ever.

It's true that the pollution in this country makes me feel claustrophobic at times, that a distant view of Mulshi Lake doesn't replace the Pacific Ocean and that I miss a bed of pine needles beneath my feet but everything I get in return is slowly settling into place;

Yesterday we had the weekly farmer's market organized by the Gomukh organic farm team which I am a part of. It felt like home with home made soaps, incense and lip blams and organic veggies and fruit on the library lawn with couches and music overlooking the sunset. We all ate 2 pomegranates together sitting overlooking the mountains. I now have lemons, tomatoes, assorted fruits, organic laundry detergent and incense and am so happy with all of it.

After a brief stop by karaoke in the social center where Britney Spears was sung so loudly the villages probably heard it in Paud, me and Lam (Finland) watched Amelie Poulain in my corner until 1am with more of our pomegranate haul, chocolate and tea. It was lovely.

This morning it was an early Saturday start because its UWC Day and also Satat (sustainability) action day. This meant the whole school met up in the MPH and was divided into main action groups that then went out and did things like picking up garbage on the river road down in the valley, planting trees on campus, building dams to harvest the water that runs down the hill behind campus and getting rid of invasive species for several hours.

Then, lunch. Cucumber, corn and coconut salad, chopsuey, rice and dal, and so much chapati.

A little while ago it was Ganesh Chaturthi, which meant we celebrated the lord Ganesha by bringing a statue of him from campus down to the river below in village Khubavali, all the while throwing pinkredpurple powder and dancing to bollywood through monsoon rains. Whatever was originally white is now permanently orange. Most of the blond people on campus now have very pink hues.

I still can't really believe I'm here yet it's starting to feel so normal. The campus is tiny and it's so incredible to have some of your favourite people a 1 minute walk from home and you can't run away from problems and I'm grateful.

So much has happened in one month. One month of India. One of the biggest struggles I had coming here was finding myself, who I was and could be in this community and country. A big part of my identity, taking walks around Swan Lake and sitting by the ocean, are far away here and I felt a little lost in the beginning. I also realized what my being Dutch-Canadian meant to me. Being here has made me realize that in Canada I was always the European, while in the Netherlands I'm always the Canadian yet I lived half my life in both. It was weird feeling like I didn't have a claim anywhere until I realized my claim is the little things in those countries that make them feel like home therefore rooting me there.

Last night I went to the treehouse by myself to gather my thoughts and I was completely filled with happiness and a kind of peace only the night can instill in me. That I'm here, in India. Finally. Though it's different than anything I might've imagined, it's more than I could've dreamed and there's no place I'd rather be.

Me and Andrea (Norway) during Ganesh

A (un)usual evening at MUWCI with Daan (Netherlands), Sam (USA), Zelma (Denmark) and Safieh (Bangladesh)

Average Sunday at MUWCI

8:20 Alarm goes and after pressing the snooze button too many times I finally get up
8:45 I run to meet Andrea (Norway) before breakfast and take some of her sunscreen
9:00 Cornflakes, bananas, rice. Always rice.
9:30 I put on my running shoes and meet up with my Himalayan expedition group and coordinator Arvin for an intense training session.
11:00 A cold shower to wash away the mud, grass, and sweat
12:30 I head to the cafeteria for brunch with Nizar (Morocco) where I eat masala dosas, scrambled eggs, pork stew and chapati with sugar until my stomach hurts.
1:00 I go back to my room to grab something
1:20 I have another masala dosa as brunch is brunch
1:45 I go to S.P.A.C.E to practice some violin, the first time since coming here. The sound of scales on the french horn played by Carole (Luxembourg) coming from the other room reminds me of home.
2:45 Yoga class
4:00 I nap, something you can't live without here
5:00 I walk to the tree house to do some homework and find some peace
6:00 Tea time with everyone who stumbles into my courtyard. It was cozy
7:00 Dinner!
8:00 Held a swing dancing lesson for Carissa (Jamaica), Nitay (Israel/Guatemala), Lam (Finland/Vietnam), Daan (Netherlands), Numaya (Bangladesh) and Toan (Vietnam). My roommate Safieh (Bangladesh) showed up later and so did Sam and Charlotte from the States.
9:30 Check-in. Meet up with Andrea and Jamie (Netherlands) and head to the Dukaan for some eggs only to find the Dukaan is closed.
10:00 Intend on walking back to my room but caught up talking to people in the common room and sitting outside in the warm air.
11:00 homeworkhomeworkhomework
11:30 Skype with friends back home
12:00 Sleep

Though life here moves at break neck speed, I am starting to feel at peace here; with the endless dal, chapati and rice; the mountains in the distance as you walk back to your wada from classes; the monsoon that can last for 10 seconds or 2 hours; that feeling of security as you walk back into your corner and realize when you say you're going 'home', you mean this tiny, cramped place.

Tiny, cramped places can hold a lot of love.

3 weeks - pictures

A roughly drawn map of campus for us firsties

The breath taking view from the treehouse

Standard practice to get electricity at MUWCI

Admin block

One of the entrances to the AQ

great

The usual chaos while shopping in Pune (Junesoo (South-Korea), Marija and Andrea (Norway))

Pune

Street fruit vendor

Paud, a village in the Mulshi Valley, close to our hilltop

Andrea (Norway) in the treehouse at sunset after a wonderful talk

I could get used to this

My corner! (A work in progress). Starting to feel like home

Welcome to Wada 3 House 5R

My roommates are Safieh from Bangladesh, Rhea from India, Ankitha from Singapore and India, and me from the Netherlands and Canada :)

Purpose

'I wish I still knew what that glint in your heart feels like that inspires and tunes the song of this world to your eyes so that you suddenly see everything that you love, everything that makes it worth it. I used to have that. I want to start each day running to go see the sunrise even if it’s barely above freezing and I can see my breath because I know that the rest of the day will be drawn from the colours imprinted on my eyelids when I smiled and said hello to the sun. I don’t want to take things by day, I want to take things by years. Relaxing is good, but I don’t relax well. I procrastinate and tell myself its meditation, but it’s hesitation and I miss purpose. I don’t believe in my purpose, anyway. I don’t trust my purpose. I’m sad that I don’t hear the echo of those I aspire to in my voice anymore, I just hear wishing and no walking.'

I wrote this a couple of months ago and I think I'm finding what I was looking for. This place makes me feel like I'm living a purpose. I don't know what it is yet but I'm getting there. Everyday is an adventure. Stressful, maybe. Not always perfect. It's not quite a home yet, but I'm building it slowly with every hug and every late night spent with new familiar faces and every freak mountain crab that makes me jump.

"Gun het wat tijd"

MUWCI ...

... means home now.

As I sat in a tiny bus with more people and suitcases that it was meant to hold, racing through Mumbai surrounded by the sound of German behind me, Spanish in front of me, Hindi from the driver, and the occasional Polish outburst from Ada, you'd think 'being in India' would've sunk in. Despite the distinct smell, the humidity and heat, the stores that looked like a patchwork quilt of metal and scrap wood and advertisements, and the seeming lack of road rules, it still didn't seem real. It had all gone so easy. On the plane from Amsterdam to Mumbai, I had a window seat and nobody sitting beside me and I lounged around claiming the two as a couch and slept excessively. It was dark when I landed around 11 pm Mumbai time. I was greeted with hugs by the four second years that had come to pick up a batch of incoming first years up at the airport. They had been waving Mahindra UWC of India signs and debating with a security guard whether they were allowed to sit on the one side of the fence. After a bit, Louise from Brazil arrived and soon after most of the others did too. The drive was long and crazy. Dodging rickshaws and stray dogs and the bigger potholes left and right, loud Latino and Bollywood music blasting from the speakers; for a little while all the first years could do was laugh out of sheer exhaustion and disbelief.

When I finally arrived on campus after a long 6 hour drive, it was 8 in the morning. A few second years that were walking by greeted us before setting off for their classes. Almost immediately there was continues movement. David helped me bring my stuff to Wada 3, house 5R and gave me time to pick my corner before giving me a quick tour of campus and dropping me off at the cafeteria where I had my first meal at the school. There never seems to be a moment where nothing is happening or you have nothing to do, and though it is exhausting, I love it.

Everyone is so welcoming here. When you pass second years or first years you haven't met yet, you stop and hug and introduce yourself. Even though I've only been here for 1 week, I'm more comfortable with a lot of the people in my Wada than I got with most of my classmates that I knew for 2 years. People say hello with hugs and kisses and when someone tries to get your attention, they don't scream your name but put their hand on your arm. They are small gestures but they make this place feel like home. Be it taking a nap, watching a movie, cooking food (or eating it), you never have to do it alone. My roommates are great. Ankita and Rhea are second years from Singapore and India who are both very sweet and sing beautifully. My co-year roomie is Safieh from Bangladesh who is both crazy and hilarious and also acts as my alarm clock.

On the first night, I had a little Dutchie tea party with my second years Elize, Dagmar and Kathelijne and my co-years Jamie and Daan (though Daan couldn't come). Stroopwafels, dropjes, orange tea and speaking Dutch with people other than my parents was strange after so many years in Canada but very, very lovely. Literally all the Canadians on campus associate with 2 cultures or more! I am the only Canadian in my year which I wasn't expecting and it's strange being the only one. I have always been a part of the majority yet here in India at this international school I am a minority in a lot of situations.

The campus is beyond beautiful and bigger than the pictures make it out to be. The view is breathtaking and in my wada there is a tree house overlooking the valley. India is present everywhere on campus though in very subtle ways. My wada is perfect and I am so happy with the people I am sharing it with. Every night there are people hanging around in the common room, making noodles at 12 in the morning, playing Never Have I Ever with a jar of Nutella, or sitting outside in the warm air playing music. My average bedtime here has been around 2 - 3 am and then I take naps during the day. Now that classes have started I'm hoping to cut that back to maybe 1 am ... but what with birthdays at midnight, upcoming homework and chatting with people from all over the world, we'll see how that goes.

Since coming here I have been thrown into the mud at 6 AM, gone to the bathroom with a frog staring at me, started decorating my corner and finished unpacking, attended a buddy ball, danced to the ear-splitting beat of the Paud drummers, performed in a show and forgotten almost all the lyrics, started classes and met some incredible people. On the 4th night here, I walked almost 2 hours to get to a nearby village called Badas where I stayed the night with a beautiful family.

I love love love it here.

Last post in the Netherlands

As I'm sitting cross-legged in my Oma and Opa's backyard writing this, I am surrounded by my childhood. The crack in the hedge where me and my sister made a hide-out, imaging a fort in the bush behind it and designating branches as our beds. The patch of grass where the kiddie pool was always set up. The sound of pigeons cooing which I associate so much with this place and that time ...

... and I'm feeling like a big kid. A big kid who's grown into her big kid teeth and has her own big kid bank account and is suddenly realizing that mysterious 'adult' world is as ambiguous to any other world as much as it is already here.

Stressing about finances. Holding my passport and ticket and not the hem of my dad's shirt, following him blindly through the airport. Thinking about laundry detergent.

I'm starting to realize the responsibilities and challenges that come along with attending a UWC, and though they scare me, they are the reason I want to go.

Little things like meeting my Dutch co-year Daan, learning that Wada 3 will be home for the next two years and, one-by-one, my other co-years starting their journey towards India has reminded me I will only be anywhere else for another 30 hours. Another 30 hours of being a zero year.

See you on the other side!

I       cannot       wait

   

Nederland

I'm finally at my home away from home.

When I boarded that first plane this morning, a lot shifted. As the plane sped up and the little cars and mountains and shores of my island got left behind and we flew over Active Pass as the the sun was rising and I realized what a beautiful place I was leaving (once again), I also realized what a beautiful place I'm heading towards.

I felt sad as I saw this past chapter of my life framed by rectangular glass and I tried to tell myself it's ok. That it's ok because my dream is coming true, but I was sad because the place I was leaving was once my dream too, and

The memories of then and now will be separated by different frames, mediated by that little rectangle. Different walls and a different roof and although I'd been counting down to yesterday since a day undetermined that felt so determined back then, there was no way to prepare.

But I have never been more at peace with a decision. As I sit here in my Oma and Opa's house, eyes burning with jet lag and stomach upset with the airplane food, I couldn't be happier. India, I can't wait to meet you.

Oma and Opa's street

'Never thought'

My sister, me and my cousin 

Dunes, beach, ocean <3

Last night in Canada

Holy shit

Beautiful last days

This weekend has been perfect. I feel complete. I can't imagine a better way to spend my last days here. Whatever Victoria means to me, this weekend captured it. Sunshine and kitchens filled with spices and orange couches and cats on rooftops and old friends and new friends.

Saturday night I went swing dancing. Somewhere between the beautiful improvisation, strangers asking you to dance and getting jammed I remembered that maybe I want to travel to understand why I want to stay for nights like that, like I once read. Nights like those.

Today I got together with a big group of good friends to have a afternoon filled with farewells. We listened to live music, jumped in the ocean on a whim and dried our ocean-drenched-sun-drenched hair hair sitting on the beach building things out of the rocks and talking. Afterwards I biked with a friend around town getting ingredients for pesto before going over to her house and making a wonderful dinner with salad from the garden and chai tea and the sunset in her front yard.

Biked home with the sounds of fireworks in the distance with the celebrations coming to an end in the city and orange being chased by darker and darker blue in the sky.

Packing

With 10 days left before I leave Canada and head to the Netherlands for a week before flying to Mumbai, my suitcase is lying empty and open against the wall facing my window.

My room looks like every thing got caught in a storm and settled somewhere between chaos and serenity and my nights are occupied with drawing after childhood drawing being put neatly into small boxes and dropped in a corner, wondering how long my hair will be when I open them again because those dreams of fairies and straw rooftops are put away too. Of that little girl that liked the colours blue and yellow and running and running to catch a distant maturity she thought she always wanted. And now I'm here.

Of not being able to land on a balancing point. Am I sad? Am I excited? Am I scared? Maybe. It's unreal, so I'm stuck here feeling like everything is normal. Well, things might be normal. But I have the constant feeling that I should be crying, or jumping but I'm running over my moss covered backyard and sinking my fingers into the soil and wanting to sleep for a while.

I am ready. I am so ready. But sometimes I wish I had more time to appreciate everything I've understood these last few weeks. How to sum up the last 16 years of my life in a suitcase.

The view from your tent

I have been cooped up in little Victoria for a while now, living in my room and busy with all sorts of things that range from seeing friends for the last time and packing up my room into boxes. All of this is extremely exciting but also scary ... and I'm left wishing I was on a mountain somewhere, or on a beach. 

I found a website today called The View From The Tent Door where people submit their stunning pictures of them camping. 

Some favourites:

 

I am hoping all the more that I can go to the Himalayas in October for Project Week! I miss this. 

I can't believe I have the chance to go hiking in the Himalayas for a school project. UWC, I LOVE YOU. 

Summer on the island

Flowers in the garden on Denman Island at the cottage

Active Pass, a beautiful lighthouse from the ferry

My little bike

Elijah dropping pretzels on me on the ferry

Canada Day downtown

Summer is here!

I have been talking to more and more of my co-years, and they are all equally wonderful. I could write pages about the small glimpses I have of them and how I cannot wait to live with them. All of them.

I got my vaccinations today!

Not many big words coming to mind right now, this is a simple post. Which is nice.

With school behind me, and this being the official first day of 'freedom' I am struck by how fast time goes. Two weeks ago, I dreamed about this moment, this day. Of nothing and anything, of liberty. Summer has never come so unexpectedly. Before I knew it, I had to clean out my locker, clean out that little part of ESQ that held a bit of me, a bit of my broken pencils and scrap paper and old tea mug and discarded jackets. A locker that witnessed all the hasty conversations between TA neighbours and quick study sessions before school. All the tutoring, eating, leaning, laughing, walking that happened in front of that locker, and now it's closed and empty and ready to hold a new person's memories.

So this is it, then? I'm officially in limbo. In that scary but blissful place where I choose my own deadlines and  I don't have a different place associated with my days. Just home. Between Victoria and Paud.

To keep me busy and give me some purpose, I will be in an experimental and interactive theater production based on the book 'Unsettling the settler within.', which hopes to put the relationships between the Canadian Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals in a new light. I will also be a youth delegate at an environmental education conference happening at the University of Victoria, which I am extremely excited for. This weekend I will be driving a car filled with friends, guitars, recording equipment and camping stuff to a nearby island to volunteer and hang out for a weekend at the Campbell Bay Music Festival and record some songs with my little band!

I'm confused but excited and calm but freaking out. I don't understand how to wrap my head around any of this and I wish I could. Breathe, breathe, breathe.

I will miss Gary oaks. and arbutus' and baby raccoon. I saw baby raccoon today, they were unbelievably cute.

I'm happy.

Aaah so many forms

There's one aspect I never really considered or thought about when I imagined attending a UWC: the paperwork. A little while ago, I received all sorts of medical things my doctor needs to sign, course selection forms, the student handbook ... the list goes on. It has made me realize more than ever that Mahindra College isn't the romantic, flawless utopia that I imagined it to be, and it is refreshing. All that sun-tinged perfection that I kept playing out in my head scared me because I couldn't imagine myself fitting in, with my awkward laughs and scraggly hair and tidying skills that can use improvement. It didn't feel like a real place that I might come to find a home in, but something I wouldn't dare touch because I'd be afraid of breaking it. Airplane tickets, visa stress, and medical forms have normalized that little campus, and I think I like this version better.

It's strange how normal this crazy concept is becoming to me. Attending a UWC. Moving to India. When I started my application in November, I would stay awake nights reading students' blogs, wishing so hard I could be them, feeling all the tension in my muscles from the days and nights that I would spend editing my application to the point where I had memorized all 10 pages and not realizing I was forgetting to breathe.

I'm grateful. I'm so grateful I'll sometimes find myself staring out the window feeling like a sunrise is coming from my chest because I'm giving myself a moment to feel like the luckiest girl alive because sometimes I really believe I am. I have the most amazing, funny, and weird parents that gave me an easy laugh and a taste for adventure. I have an older sister that will always be my partner in crime that I can sing with and make lego houses with even if we don't get along sometimes. I live in one of the best places on earth. I can find beauty in almost anything and everything. I have wonderful friends that never cease to inspire and motivate me.

Forests comfort me more than anything.

Earlier today, I went and read some old posts on another, general blog of mine and found one that pretty much sums up how in love I am with life right now:

"I love sunlight. I love closing my eyes and turning my face to it and letting it soak in through my eyelids. I love waking up in the morning to blinds illuminated by a brilliant sunrise and keeping them closed is in it's own way just as beautiful as what is behind them. I love the little circles it creates in pictures I love the pattern it creates on a forst floor after being filtered by a canopy of leaves. I love the ripples of sunlight reflected off waves on skin.

I love crying on someone's shoulder and feeling someone's heartbeat. I love going outside after it rains. I love the sound of rain from within a tent. I love breathing in nature. I love being in an airplane and seeing cities from above and waving. I love waving up at an airplane, because then I think that when I'm in a plane someone might be waving at me.

I love city lights on late nights and bike rides in the dark under clear starts. I love eating nutella with a spoon. I love conversations with strangers and bus stops.

I love peace. Within myself, with solitude. I like being at peace in nature and that sense of completeness and alignment filling me up until I can't contain it and need to sing. I love singing. I love people who play guitars who don't need to impress anyone.

I love the sway of the oceans, of wind and trees. And tall grass. I love splashing my face with cold water. I love card games with my family. I love family. I love picking up my cat when she's sleeping and she's soft and warm and holding her for a while. I love sharing, and people who share. Their music and thoughts and love. I love love."

Victoria

Now, more than ever, I have started to realize that while all my concentration seems to be busy dreaming about India, my days here in this beautiful city that I've grown to love this last year with all the beautiful people it holds are numbered. Sometimes I feel like I need to be reminded that I probably don't understand yet how much I will miss Victoria. Once September comes around and all my old friends will be back at Esquimalt High, life in those white-gray halls will continue, but without me in it. I'll miss the blossom trees that line that one street on my way to school that sprinkle the side walk with pink and our neighborhood cat Pumpkin sitting in a sunbeam as I leave for my Monday morning runs. I'll miss walking around Swan Lake and being swaddled by the sound of Canada Geese honking and a thick fog hanging over the Lochside Trail. I'll miss scarves. A lot. I'll miss the familiar mannerisms of my friends and finding mutual solace in the fact that I'm not the only one who doesn't have a clue what days Juego tests are. I'll miss biking along Blanshard and passing lamp posts where I've waited and coffee shops where I've laughed and side streets that I've jay walked and buildings that have always paid witness to my hair growing and my mind wondering. I'll miss sitting along the gorge with close ones eating bakery bread and talking about tomorrow. I'll miss being able to talk about tomorrow with those people, because soon our tomorrow's won't have anything in common. I'll miss this beautiful place filled with beautiful people and every day I grow to love it just a little bit more ... "How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.".

Imagine finishing high school in India

Though it's almost all I think about, the idea of moving to India is as abstract of an idea for me as moving to Antarctica would be. Rationally, I keep telling myself 'Thule, you're going to India next year.' but it's not something that the emotional part of my brain has caught up with. The thought of me boarding a plane with bags stuffed with clothes and nationalistic memorabilia that pay tribute to how far I've come seems like a dream that has manifested in front of my eyes and now I don't know what to do with it.

These last few days I've experienced a lot of emotions, from total excitement to nostalgia to fear. I'll think about the place that I am in and how I can only guess what lays ahead. Because this isn't like making plans for the future and generally knowing where they might go ... everything will be new. I'm scared of little things, like whether I will have problems with my luggage, whether I should stock up on hair elastics before I go or just buy them there, but also big things. I'm scared of knowing what I want and staying true to myself in such a diverse community. As much as I should have a healthy amount of doubt towards everything I previously believed and come there with an open mind, I don't want this to mean my opinion can't be different. I know I won't be alone in being scared and this comforts me. When I first started this UWC roller coaster, I thought going to a UWC school meant that I would get handed epiphany after epiphany and that everything would fall into place. I've come to realize that maybe what it will do, and what it is already doing, is showing me how to create my own.

Truthfully, I don't know yet what I'm getting myself into. I have never been to a country that hasn't been westernized and I have never been to any place warmer than central US. My diet before this point largely consisted of potatoes, salty things, and nutella. I found a home here in the forests of Vancouver Island like I found a home in the one in the Netherlands, but I know I'm ready to be uprooted to a new forest, and maybe I'll find a home there too.

8 years ago ...

... I visited a school called Pearson College and heard about the United World Colleges for the first time. I didn't know at the time that I would spend months obsessing over an email that may or may not tell me whether I was a step closer to calling a place like that home, but I fell in love all the same. That dream that I had folded into my heart as a recently-immigrated girl is now closer than ever. I don't know how to explain this feeling of complete alignment. It lifts my spirit, the corners of my mouth, and my hair because I am literally jumping for joy. To get the chance to live with around 200 students from over 70 countries is incredible and I cannot express how grateful I am for the opportunity. 

United World Colleges are located in 12 countries around the world (Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, The Netherlands, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Wales, Norway, Italy, The United States, Costa Rica, and Swaziland) and have educated students from over 180 countries. Their mission is to help new generations overcome prejudice and to promote multi-cultural understanding through breaking down stereotypes and having students from different corners of the world live together for 2 years. In this way, their aim is to work towards a more peaceful and sustainable future. The movement celebrated its 50th birthday this year (while it was Mahindra's 15th!).

While at the school, I will be following the 2 year IB diploma in English as well as doing CAS activities (Creative, Action, Service). At Mahindra College CAS activities are called Triveni, and I will have many to choose from; from fire service to paper making to teaching local Indian children English every week. Through project weeks and exeats (extra long weekends where students are allowed to sleep off-campus) I will also have plenty of opportunities to explore the country I will be living in. UWC schools give a lot of responsibility and independence to their students, encouraging them to take initiative and take charge of many of the school's activities. 

Needless to say, the four months leading up to my departure will seem like forever. I have so much packing to do though, people to see, and random Canadian things to do before I leave this place for 9 months that I will have plenty of things to keep me busy. For now, I'll just focus on my studies which are slowly creeping into my conscience as I type this and appreciate the crisp, cold weather of Victoria. I know I'm going to miss wearing scarves, big sweaters, and having a pale face and a red nose on chilly nights at the beach.

A picture overlooking the campus and the valley beyond at sunset.