Tuesday, July 21, 2015

One Month...

Hello world, 
It's midnight on the 22nd of July right now which means I'll be leaving my home in exactly a month to start a whole new chapter of my life in Mostar.
Right now everything is still surreal, the only real preparation I've done is the documents they need from us and in two days we have a two day seminar that maybe will make things feel more real.

A month sounds like a lot of time, but what is a month compared to two years? 
I'm torn between spending my whole last month out with friends, around the city, having fun in the summer heat or staying at home enjoying my normal routine life in my comfortable surroundings.

Everything is a bit confusing at the moment, I'm excited to start a new adventure but I'm scared to leave the old normal life behind. 
There is a lot of emotions and there will be a lot more exactly a month from now on the 22nd of August. This post is a mess I know but I want to show future students who would like to go through the UWC experience all sides of things the good, the bad and the messy.

I'll probably check in again before my flight,
Love, 
Malak.

Life, Friends, Mostar?

Hello world,
This is the first post of hopefully many others on this blog, my blog. A blog of a simple 16 year old girl that lives a slightly complicated life.

I'm sure you want to know more about me than being "a 16 year old girl", (well no i'm not sure you want to know about me at all :p), anyways I'm going to tell you. I'm Malak as i said before a 16 year old girl and I live in the beautiful city of Haifa. I have two amazing (yet annoying) siblings, Hilal (26) and May (22). 
(Hilal, Me and May in Sarajevo)

This year I started 11th grade but unlike my first two years of highschool I was missing one of the biggest parts of my life, my best friend Natalie. Natalie left at the start of the year to study a year abroad in Iowa, USA.
(Me and Natalie at the airport saying goodbye)

I was thrilled and excited for her to experience this amazing year abroad and to grow and become a better person but the selfish side of me was sad for not having my best friend for a whole year. 
Not having Natalie on top of all the pressures of 11th grade made my first half of the year hard. I was stressed and under pressure and I felt lost. That's when I heard about UWC (What is UWC?) so I decided on a whim to send an application, never thinking that in about 6 months (after a long application, a stressful camp and a more stressful interview) I would get a call that told me you are going to attend UWC in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

(Before knowing I would attend UWC Mostar my mom
had planned a trip to BiH so these are pictures I took
on that trip, an overview of Mostar and my future school.)

So here I am during the preparation process before leaving to BiH (which is in about three months), getting to know all the amazing people chosen by the Israel NC to go to one of the 15 UWC schools around the world. Most importantly my future Mostar family the wonderful Dor and Carmi, Areez (who is one of my best friends we are in the same class and the first two people in our school's history to get accepted to UWC), Andre, Ayelet, Elad and Yali are going to Wales, Cleel to Singapore, Roey and Roni to Italy, Shira and Marva to Armenia, Or (who I became really close to recently) to the USA, Adi to Canada, Maya to Germany and last but not least Nicole is going to India.

This was a bit of a long post but it's hard to sum up who you are in words, as I said this post will hopefully be the first of many, my next one will probably be right before my flight, see you then.
Love,
Malak.