I have really missed the Paris/travelling bits that I was posting over the summer, so here is one blog entry about all of the amazing things that are happening away from Cambridge and the UK.
So, lets start off fairly close to 'home', in Southampton! It is half term and I am down for the weekend since my film friends invited me to come and stay with them. It is so nice to have meals with friends, talk about films and drink some wine together- how I had missed that! Hampshire is beautiful in autumn and I walked down to the old Southampton walls with my friend Sam yesterday. In a way, it is also quite nice to get a break from education. I still have an essay to write until the end of the week and of course will get back to my studies in the next days, but it is so refreshing to talk about films and other stuff. It's a little bit like I opened the window to my brain and let lots of fresh air in :-)
Around midday, I will be travelling back up and tomorrow I am off to Oslo! I had booked the flights back in September when Ryanair had an offer and got them for £15 return which is amazing! Of course I will need to pay for the hostel, food and the transport from and to the airports, but that is just about doable. The trip will give me the opportunity to visit the Democratic school there. This is the first time that I am actually able to see one after doing the tonnes of reading in the last months and I am pretty excited as you can imagine. What awaits me? Chaos? Community? Structure in any way? I am a little bit worried about not being able to speak Norwegian but lets hope that somebody will be able to explain stuff to me in German, English or French. Will keep you updated :-) The google weather forecast promises snow!!
There are at least two more exciting journey for me in the next months which are education related: The International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC) in April in Tel-Aviv, for which I should really book tickets now, and then of course the AERO conference in Albany in June. Now that I am officially a presenter (click here to see that I am right :-P) I have a proper reason to interview people about their education experience and hopefully will also be able to visit a few more alternative schools in the next months. I just wish I had more money!
My youngest sister is 15 and she just took part in an exchange program with a school near Chicago which I also did at her age. A group of German students visits for almost four weeks in autumn and the Americans come to Germany the following summer. Although I did not get on brilliantly with my host-sister at the time, I really enjoyed the experience and I think in one way or another it definitely influenced me to come to the UK just half a year later. Just being able to speak English in a real, valid context was pretty amazing. In a way, learning a language is one of the few things you can truly apply once you leave school- and yet very few people actually value it. Anyway, to add a little bit sensation to the blog: My sister got swine flue and I was really worried that she might not be able to take the flight home with everybody else. However, everything is ok now! :-) Also on the topic of exchanges, Alex Blagona, a very actively blogging MFL teacher up in Suffolk, gives his opinion about heallth and safety issues in UK school exchanges here. His blog is really well worth reading so have a look if you have a spare second.
So, I better get up now and meet a few more friends before I have to go back up to 'the North'.
Happy 'half term' everybody! :-)
PS: After the foundation of the National Student Film Association (NSFA) in June, I am now involved in the starting up of a big Student Film Festival in Cambridge. I have fantastic ideas for it and with all of the resources and the reputation the uni has to offer, this could be the first international festival of the UK. Super exciting stuff! Hopefully, I am going to start a new blog as soon as things get going properly to update you and use it as a documentatio for other students who want to start their own festivals. I wrote a 5 page abstract yesterday on what you have to think about and what we did with SoFi, the University of Southampton Film Festival, and I am eager to get as many students inspired to take the initiative as possible. It is a little bit like schools starting, just on the side of film :-)
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