Wednesday night I found myself walking down the street wearing a backpacking backpack full to the top with ingredients, (struggling a little under the weight). After dreaming Wednesday night, of trying to roll out pie crust in a room full of UWC students and family members where kids were climbing on the crust, I woke up and got back to work. We searched the city for turkey, hauled 20 lbs of potatoes to the residence, and bought another backpack worth plus as much as 2 of us could carry in our hands of groceries. We were preparing to cook for over 100 people from over 21 countries.

We started cooking at 3:00, peeling and peeling potatoes, mixing up vats of cornbread and banana-bread batter (we had to multiply the recipes by 10), chopping fruits and veggies for salads. The six American students along with helpers from Turkey(my roommate), Austria, Germany, Hong Kong and other countries, along with the amazing kitchen staff who kept us from burning anything helped supply us with ingredients, equipment, and knowledge, had filled up the tables with food by 7:30 when the feast began. There where mountains of cornbread, more mashed potatoes than I've ever seen, curries from Singapore, pies, cakes, stuffing, cranberry sauce made from dried cranberries (no fresh or frozen to be found), fried fish from China, and so so much more!

Preparing and cooking had been slightly stressful and a lot of work, but seeing everyone, from so many countries excited to celebrate this holiday made it more than worth it. Being able to share something important to my culture with my new friends and classmates made me more excited about thanksgiving than ever. We ate and smiled and talked about what they are thankful for and then compared our food babies.

I am thankful, thankful for out differences and our opportunities to share them, for all the people who have made my life rich and full.

Trip to Switzerland

With a week off of school I decided to visit some friends who are also living in Europe, Kaya(with AFS) Kyle(living with family in Germany) and Carla (a previous exchange student to homer, now back at home in Switzerland.

After waking up at 5:30 am, taking a bus 4 hours to Split, Croatia, then a plane to Germany, then another to Zurich then a train to a smaller town in Switzerland I met up with Kaya. It wasdark when I arrived in Switzerland but I knew I must be in the alps because I saw an illuminated church that looked

as though it was floating in the sky, I awoke the next morning to find myself surrounded by snow topped forest covered mountains. Kaya lives on the side of a now snow covered mountain in a old wooden house surrounded by fields and cows and other cute little houses and other snow covered houses. her host family was incredible, also hosting me and sharing with me traditional swiss food. the best was the breakfast; dark bread with nuts and whole grains inside (something I have yet to find in Bosnia) with butter from a local farm and home made grape jelly.

I realized, as she showed me around her house that it was the first time I had been in a house in 3 months, it felt so good to eat food made with love and watch siblings play and tease each other. the families the snow, and the Christmas decorations all made me excited for the holidays to travel back to Alaska and be in my own home with my family :).

After spending a few days living in what felt like a fairytale world at Kaya's house I traveled by train to visit Carla in the north western part of the country. I had never traveled so much by train and the precision of the time astonished me. when meeting up with someone"I will meet you in the Olten train station at 3:21 or 3:26" or after sprinting down a mountain to a train station for

10 minuets "oh, it's only 10:41, we have plenty of time, it doesn't leave for another 2 minuets" where as in Bosnia or Homer almost everything is 10 or 15 minuets sloppy.

the part of the country where Carla lives is less mountainous but no less beautiful, all the houses have a charm to them and the rolling hills of fields and forests make you feel like you are on the page of a story book.

Seeing my friends again who where all going through something similar to what I was but also very different we where able to relate and compare cultures and experiences. We spent nights lying in bed after playing "ligretto" a swiss card game just talking about th

e world and ourselves and if and how we where changing and growing. Spending time with old friends in a new place and exploring a new world was strange but also so nice.

after 6 days of paradise it was time to come home, back on the train, the plain the bus, and as I traveled home to Mostar I started to get excited, and homesick for my new home, and friends and family which are now becoming old and familiar.

Enjoying Sadness

The UWC experience is one of not only joy, new friends, awesome opportunity, and amazing adventures, although it does contain all of these. It also contains homesickness, loneliness, struggles, self questioning, unexplainable sadness, and stress, all of which I have been experiencing on and off in the last two and a half months.

Today I found a new way of looking at the feelings these hardships create. I was eating lunch with an Austrian girl who had graduated from UWC in India in 2005 and we where talking about how fast the experience is going, how sometimes I feel like I just arrived yesterday. She understood completely, also having gone though the UWC experience and gave me and my class mates the advice to savor every moment because it will be gone before we know it. She said to even savor the bad moments "Cry your eyes out, then go back to laughing,". At the time I didn't think much of it, it seemed strange to enjoy a bad time and it felt hard to believe the experience would pass that quickly.

It only took three hours till my perspective had already changed (time is a strange thing). School was over, I had a lot to study, it was p

ouring rain, my umbrella was not where I'd left it, I couldn't find a friend I was supposed to meet, and all of a sudden I just felt a rush of frustration, stress and loneliness. I just felt down. So I tried to enjoy it, I thought about the feelings I was feeling and tried to enjoy them, because I knew, that like everything else they would pass.

I made myself enjoy the rain drops hitting my face on the walk home, enjoy the feeling of having a lot to do, enjoy being by myself, and enjoy the aching somewhere in my chest.

Before I got home I couldn't stop smiling, I wanted to hug the strangers on the street, I was practically dancing!

Enjoy the sad feelings, because like everything else, they will pass.

my room... a place I have experienced ups and downs.

Halloween!

Halloween is not celebrated here, but at our school it is an excuse to dress up, put some creativity into making a costume and going out and dancing and having a good time. At 9 am I stopped by a market to see if there where pumpkins, only squash. At 4 pm I met up with Sara, another American first year and we went shopping for costume parts, scarf, pantyhose, sparkly traditional shoes that remind me of a fairy. 5pm building fairy wings –hangers + pantyhose + pink paint. 7pm getting dressed and also outfitting others, swapping wardrobes since each of us has only part of our own with us. After some makeup, hairspray, tons of safety pins, some running and costume swapping later, pus in boots, witches, ninjas, fairies, Shrek, evil clowns, shot up hooligans, and mad scientists left the residence. We walked 20 minutes to the party receiving many odd looks from the people on the streets. The party was held in a basement of a restaurant and was decorated with candles and little orange pumpkin shaped lights. We danced and danced sometimes in character, sometimes not. It was really cool the see the amount of effort and creativity put into each costume, especially with limited resources and local language skills, we were all able to come up with something to celebrate a holiday not celebrated in this country.

In contrast All Saints Day is very much celebrated here; you can see a shine to all the tombstones in the cemeteries. Candles and flowers are being sold all over on the streets and then are bought and place on the graves of loved ones.

Meeting Shelby Davis

When he walked into the meeting room full of students from our school an applause broke out that went on much longer than most applauses do. This man not only paid for me and the 5 other American students at our school but also two of the local students along with the university scholarships of many of the graduates of UWC Mostar. I was very excited to meet him and speak with him, and have an opportunity to thank him for the amazing experience and opportunity he is giving me. For a couple days before meeting him I had been thinking of what to say, how to express my gratitude. But when I sat down to have lunch with him, the other Davis Scholars, his wife, two of the previous presidents of UWC New Mexico, and some faculty in the school cafeteria; I felt that conversation flowed so smoothly. I did not have to think about how to express myself, I was just able to. He explained that he thinks of the money he gives to students, not as a gift but as an investment, he is investing in the future. This inspired me. It gave me even more the desire to do something great with my life. Besides serious conversations about the future and opportunities, we also talked about local foods, homesickness, living abroad, and I discovered that he has a daughter with a place near to Homer Alaska. It’s a small world. Overall it was great to meet the person investing in me, and to be inspired by this great generosity, it made me see this experience though new eyes and kept me wanting to take full advantage of every opportunity given to you in life.