I am thankful because….

I am very blessed.

I am at a debate competition in Stuttgart right now

                I have wonderful teammates, Ingrid Fiedler (USA) and Marius Kat (Netherlands)

                We won our first two debates, and we learned a lot of lesson from the two that we lost.

                Our preparation went well tonight, so we should have a strong base tomorrow.

                Stuttgart is a beautiful city, I especially love the Christmas Market it is really bringing the holiday cheer.

I have a surprise from my roommates waiting at home, and they refuse to tell me what it is. (Torture.)

SHAKED AND I WERE SELECTED TO PRESENT OUR RESEARCH PROJECT IN A CONVERENCE IN KOSOVO on the 11^th and 12^th of December at the American School of Kosovo.

                Our project is: Education Reform in Post-Conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina

I had a wonderful vacation and Thanksgiving with Milica’s family and Shaked in North-Eastern Bosnia.

I am surrounded by people that I love, and that I know love me, a deep love, not an artificial one.

                Little things makes this evident.

                Sometimes I don’t know how to show them how much I completely appreciate their influence and presence in my life.

WE WILL HAVE FIRST YEARS NEXT YEAR  (attached is the short letter from our headmaster with confirmation)

Dear students

I am pleased to be able to inform you of the following:

Last Tuesday, after two days of extensive meetings in Sarajevo, the Executive Committee of the UWC-IBO Initiative authorized me to begin the process for the enrolment of a fifth generation of between 80 and 100 students for 2010-2012.

This is excellent news although a major funding challenge still lies ahead of us. I have already made provisional offers of 100 places to  National Committees, and will be following up on this with a firm notification of our intention to them after 15 December.

Best regards

Paul Regan

And the amazing thing is that this list could on for pages, I could write for ages about what has happened in just the last five days.  I arrived here yesterday but it seems like it has been a week.  There are so many insights, things that I have learned, people I have met, new experiences.

I traveled here all by myself on a bus from Belgrade, Serbia – and I’m trying to communicate in so many different languages and cultures.  I would never have believed everything that the Man up above had in store for me even six months ago.  I didn’t know that I was accepted into UWCiM six months ago.  Yesterday was the 3 month anniversary of my official life as a student at UWCiM, because on the night of the 29^th of August, 2009 was my first night staying in my dorm room.  So much has happened since that night, it is a legitimate usage of the word EPIC.

               

 Gute Nacht,

Hilary