UWC Voices

A Place to Share Poetry, Fiction and Feelings, around but not limited to UWC life and its aftermath. Mixed Media Art, Commentaries and many other forms welcomed.

[uwcvoices]

As late as the 1970s, only 6% of high school graduates in the US went to college. In a growing immigration-fuelled economy, this led to a situation where any college degree landed its holder gainful employment.

Nowadays, every single one and their momma too goes to college with a loan they received from the US federal government - one that cannot be discharged even in personal bankruptcy. A bachelor’s degree has become the new high school diploma.

The entrepreneurs in education have quickly grasped the highest return would be on a model known as a liberal arts college. It allows for cheap adjuncts teaching impractical nonsense for massive tuition fees.

Yet even in the vast US labor market, employers are willing to pay only when their return on an employee is higher than the salary paid. The Los Angeles Times ran a poll back in 2014 which found that only 2% of American employees actively recruit liberal arts graduates - down from virtually 100% in the 1970s.

Desperate attempts by UWC/IB/Davis to keep liberal arts colleges afloat by injecting fresh blood in the form of the best and the brightest (even if it took giving them full scholarships) has failed to halt the general tendency of the liberal arts education decay. Ever more of their graduates must pursue graduate studies to become minimally employable, so inexpensive and relatively short training in trades and corporate training programs look ever more appealing in comparison.

The woke left can keep going bonkers all they like and living their illusion while it lasts but the liberal arts profit scheme will blow in your faces, and it won’t be pretty. You live only once and can’t afford to waste years, so be wise about your choices.

~~~

Anonymous UWC Alum

[uwcvoices]

The Night we Met

The night we met was nor hot nor cold. I don’t remember much about it, apart from the breeze on my face as I was walking to Pala. I was worried that it would make my hair look weird. 

The night we met I felt the most alive that I have ever felt. More than the other days spent at Uwc. Your eyes were shining so bright that I still remember your face, a print of my forever wall. Was I growing up? I only knew that I was chosen for the first time. But most of all, I was free. 

The night we met is also my constant thought of these days. In a world that is so different from what I expected, living with a “self” that I don’t really recognize, I often look back at who we were and the way that we magically fit into each other’s dysfunctional existence. It was magic indeed, if we only look at how differently we were raised, how your priorities were never mine, how my mother yelled at me for choosing you, how far apart we traveled to catch one single dream. 

The night we met is the proof of what we are meant to be. Two souls laughing together, who discover the beauty and the hardships that each age brings with it. I wonder how we let it happen.. all at once the hardships became a gigantic mountain that we did not know how to climb. Don’t get me wrong, we tried. We started climbing it carelessly, as we climbed any other. Then we became more reluctant, but none of us had the courage to look the other in the eyes. I was being stubborn, I wanted to get on top at the cost of dying. You wanted to climb down. Eventually you did, and you dragged me with you against my will. You decided to go left, and I could only let you go. I started walking, we never looked back. But I do often look up, at the top of that mountain that I so much wanted to reach. We keep on walking, and I know that eventually I will reach the other side of this rock. And since it’s a circle, eventually I will meet you.

The night we met, I hope we will live it again, when finally you will get tired of walking alone. I will probably get used to the loneliness, I will get skilled at relying on myself only. I won’t be afraid of the wind messing up with my hair. I won’t need you. But when we will look each other into the eyes, we will remember of that first night in a tiny room of Palazzine. By being so childish, so naive, weren’t we more aware of the important things in life after all? 

~~~

UWC Adriatic ‘17 Alum

[uwcvoices]

Flags

Content warning: somewhat graphic description of a dead animal

A few hours after graduation, I drove away from campus in the car my parents had rented - past the post office, around the corner, watching the castle pass behind the mountain. We drove 5 miles away to the old and vaguely creepy hotel in the nearby town, and I lay down in the bed in our room and took a nap. I hadn’t slept at all the night before and I was so tired I felt too hot and too cold at the same time. When I woke up, I felt empty. Totally uncertain of everything. What do you do when you have a life somewhere and then suddenly it’s over, besides take a nap?

Then I remembered the flags, folded in one of my suitcases. There, within hours and walking distance of my life on campus, I sat down and read them.

In case you’re not familiar, at UWC-USA we had a tradition of ordering flags from our home country or state, writing messages on them, and giving them to our closest friends.

Looking back, I think maybe we chose flags because they were substantial. They had weight to them. Color. The proof that people loved me filled a cubic foot of space in my duffel bag.

After two years on my wall in college, all those things about them got to be too much. They were too large and busy for my wall. They found a place in the corner of the crawl space in my childhood bedroom and they stayed there for another two and a half years.

Now, my parents are moving from my childhood home to another state halfway across the country, and I live in an apartment in a city I’ll stay in for…a year? Five? Everything I own is a commitment I ask myself over and over if I want to keep. That’s what I was thinking when I was cleaning out the crawl space in my bedroom and found the pile of flags. 

I lifted and re-folded each one, placing them in another pile, thinking of the carelessness of choosing to ink our feeling into something so bulky. As I lifted flag after flag, I started to notice it smelled funky. Then, I started to see brown spots on the flags. I lifted the flag from my

UWC girlfriend, almost completely covered in writing and now also speckled with brown. And there below it was a dead bat, it’s wings looking like small sticks beside its surprisingly furry body. It had gotten its foot stuck in a mouse trap and, as it died, it buried itself in the pile of flags, between a sharpie note from my first girlfriend and one from my second roommate. Did it find any comfort in them, as I did that afternoon in that hotel room? I doubt it.

A pest control company had put the mouse trap beside the flags. For a moment I was angry — why would they lure an animal to die right there beside my flags? But then, how could they have known that pile of fabric in the corner of my crawl space meant something to me?

I’d like to tell you that you can wash your flags. The sharpie won’t come out. Neither will dead bat residue. I washed them twice and they still smell awful. Pretreating then, spraying them with Febreeze, I also read them all again for the first time since graduation. And there were so many unfulfilled promises. Countless references to visits that never happened. Assurances that it wasn’t the end. But, so often, it was the end, at least so far. I cared deeply about so many and kept in touch with just a few. 

Perhaps we knew that at the time. Physical distance and the limits of money and time would get the better of so many of those relationships. Maybe that’s why, in that moment, we wanted our declarations of what we meant to each other to be so heavy and permanent.

~~~

Jess Abramson UWC-USA ‘15

[uwcvoices]

Lluvia de pensamiento de Los Demasiados Libros de Zaid

Consciente de que la tarea de salir de la ignorancia es más larga que la duración de las vidas mismas, hoy  fijo mi rumbo hacia un puerto firme. Ya que en sí es una cualidad del alma, hoy no busco ya salir de la ignorancia que alguna vez me llevó a descubrir otro mar. Hoy busco ser ignorante inteligente. Busco saciar la sed  de saber que emociona y guía la curiosidad por caminos desconocidos. Busco ampliar mi perspectiva del mundo. ¿Será una búsqueda soberbia y sin sentido? ¿Buscar saber más sabiendo que nunca se va a saberlo todo? ¿Buscar ampliar mi perspectiva del mundo sabiendo que no tiene límites y sabiendo que es una esfera de infinitos ángulos que no pueden ser observados todos al mismo tiempo? Por eso quiero ser una ignorante inteligente.  El seguir en movimiento, asumiendo la cualidad de ignorante, seguiré buscando con motivación; Buscando experiencias y conocimientos nuevos, disfrutando cada segundo del camino recorrido, porque he descubierto que para saber realmente, hay que abrir los sentidos y el corazón al presente.

~~~

UWC Dilijan.

A UWC Student.

[uwcvoices]

Letter

Tucked the letter you wrote me away from the others. I put it in my pocket next to my heart. I always craved the cheesy love, so fake but somehow true. It’s always been there but it grew. I tucked the letter you wrote me away from the others. I put it in my pocket next to my heart. I walked off alone, and in my daze and in the sky I saw our moon. Half full. Waning and waiting, till the moment it disappears and all that is left are stars. Stars that burn brighter than the sun. I tucked the letter you wrote me away from the other. The pocket Close to my heart. Even Closer than that night.. well.. you remember. I tucked the letter you wrote me away from the others. Close to my heart, where you will always stay.

~~~

Adriatic ‘20

[uwcvoices]

Alphabetic

Oh for one last mad dash, to the canteen the castle the codes to the c-front you sea stone walls cold waves slipping splashing shrieking Alive...Zoetic ...all things in between...

I lived out a universe in a single second now mourn it for all eternity ~~~ UWC Atlantic Alumni ‘17

[uwcvoices]

“People with depression shouldn’t be accepted to UWC” - that’s called discrimination and there is no place for it here. Unless, wait; turns out there is. Instead of supporting those fighting for their health, you criticize them for expecting that they will be able to survive at such an intense place.

It is intense, you are right.

That’s why we should lift each other up,

not pull down call out hate on criticize.

The intensity of this place, it can be too much.

Especially for the fragile, the vulnerable, the trying and failing

and trying again but struggling but still smiling

still contributing 

still giving the most we can to this place.

Try to imagine being here, but on the other side: unable to speak about your emotions with genuity, aware that the administration chooses to deal with mental health problems by drawing lines: cross one and you’re too difficult to take care of, we just don’t have all the support you may need, maybe home is a better place now. 

Home is here. It is all of ours. So be kind to each other. Make home a safe place for each other. 

~~~

UWC Pearson Current student ‘19

[uwcvoices]

what i leave behind is a broken heart and herpes

what i am left behind with is emptiness and the strong desire for someone new to fill it

~~~

UWC Alumni

[uwcvoices]

Please do not post the piece 'vulnerable' !

I do not yet feel ready to let the text I sent you about two hours ago be posted. So please don’t and thanks a lot!

~~~

The piece has sat in our inbox for many months, and of course we completely understand you changing your mind- however if you do feel ready for it to be posted at any time, just send us a message / submission saying so. We have no way to get in touch with you, you see! Thank you, anonymous Adriatic student x

[uwcvoices]

“They say young people are the future of the world, but when they rise their voice to give constructive criticism to adults towards an issue of  regional, national or global importance and relevance, they are silenced and told that they should know better” –a young person writing as the adult in the conversation to see if someone listens.

*Shouts towards the knot plunging down her stomach*

~~~

UWC Alumni

[uwcvoices]

Ojos soñadores

Extraño unos ojos soñadores

que alguna vez me miraron llenos de fuego.

De ésos ojos profundos

que sin aviso ni desvelo

le abren la puerta al alma

y se abren camino al cielo.  

Unos ojos sonrientes,

que a pesar de su presente, 

esconden en la memoria de sus venas

un luto resguardado en llagas.

Ojos que lo decían todo sin decir nada.

Abrazando el momento escapaban del futuro

evitando la cuenta en fecha:

llegó avisando y de repente.

Dejé de mirarlos pero siento su calor,

Ojos que se aman, por más dolor,

regresarán algún día en carne o sueño

acariciando el alma del que pena por amor.

~~~ UWC Dilijan Alumni

[uwcvoices]

-

would it have been too much if you would have loved me as I loved you? ~~~ UWC Adriatic

[uwcvoices]

DISPLACEMENT

I cannot remember with clarity my last memory of Duino. The last night I slept too little and at some point, I stopped feeling.

I just have fragmented images. An empty room, that used to be mine. Panic trying to grasp last meaningful moments. A sunny sunrise in Piazza, nothing poetic about it.

And then I was sitting on a bus seeing kilometres and kilometres of streets passing in front of my eyes.

It was over.

I was heading home, although home was getting further and further away.

I didn’t take the time to mourn or grieve it. I had lost the first and only place where I had ever truly belonged, and I never said goodbye.

Now home was no longer home, so I tried to make of my own self my house and carry it with me.

I moved to a new country, to a new city, to a new room that I decorated in a rush to convince myself that it felt like home. But those smiling people on the walls were no one to me. I saw myself in pictures and I couldn’t recognize me. Did it ever happen? Was it even real?

I closed all my feelings and my memories in a remote place of my heart. I got busy, I pushed myself in a tangle of streets and people. I couldn’t feel anything.

Everything reached me as the distant echo of my own life. I couldn’t draw, I couldn’t dream.

I blacked out every night and woke up in the morning every day with more faded memories of my past.

But it wasn’t a conscious choice, I was broken-hearted for the first time in my life and the grief for Duino was covered by the grief of letting go of someone I loved.

But somehow, these two griefs, of emotional and physical displacement, merged and everything grew blurry. In two months time, I was physically and emotionally pushed to leave someone and somewhere I loved.

I found myself unable to remember that it had been my life and not a distant tale that someone was telling me about.

It sounds horrible, but that numbness probably saved my life.

Acknowledging that in Duino I was the happiest me I had ever known and letting it go without diminishing it. This conflictual process pushed me in a state of anaesthesia towards my past self in an attempt to save that happiness in a never-ending bubble of light and joy that nobody could have taken away from me. (Because as in any displacement the worst part is feeling powerless about your own life).

Meanwhile, I was coming to term with the fact that I no longer liked the person I loved. But I still tried somehow to save the memories shared with him in Duino, surgically carving him out of the picture like in a real-life version of The Endless Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

It just got worse. In the process, Duino grew further and further away and it came back to me like a drunk vision of shiny people and endless nights. A magical place that had been the setting for my happiest moments which no longer existed. And I still believe Duino does no longer exist, so for me, there is no place to go back to, and mourn the end of it.

But then Duino found its way back to me. Denaturalized, torn apart, psychoanalyzed too much- I reduced Duino to its core: people.

People one step at a time fought their way out of that remote spot of my heart and came to find me. Pictures reacquired their colourful joy, as proofs that happiness was possible, love was still real and that maybe the concept of home was no longer a place.

My dried flowers no longer sadden me, reminding me of my silly attempts to stop things from changing. They showed me that some things, some moments- if handled with care and taking care of them- can remain as beautiful and meaningful. (Some of them- although I did my best to save them- lost their colours but now I am learning that is also okay and I am forgiving myself for the anger and the frustration of seeing something beautiful getting ruined).

So, I allowed myself to remember and to caress my nostalgia for all the things that have been and that no longer will be.

I remembered the shower parties with my friends and I allowed myself to smile realizing that I miss Mickey’s, although it is pretty lame as a club (but I never danced again as I danced there).

And I allowed myself to miss sharing a room with someone and having absolutely no privacy.

And miss that surreal feeling that every sunset brought in a small village by the sea.

Then the last piece came to me this week: I am lost.

I have no longer or not yet a place to call home, I have roots everywhere but I am not rooted anywhere.

I lost some of the things and people on which I built myself, certain that they would have stayed.

The house that I used to own with concrete foundations and certainty has crumbled.

However, some of the greatest experiences I had, came from being scared and lost and keeping on walking on an unknown road no matter what. Even if sometimes I couldn’t breathe, like when you get caught by Bora while crossing piazza, and the wind is so strong that you lose your breath, but you keep on walking.

I thought of all the late-night wandering which made me discover people and places.

I thought of all those moments in which I was lost and then suddenly something magnificent surprised me.

So, I decided to have faith in that magnificent moment that has always found its way to me, making up for the fear and the darkness.

Even though my life in the past two months went completely upside-down, I have faith and I am curious to see what the world has in mind for me. I don’t think I will want to build a robust and stable house for some time, but I will let myself wonder and be surprised by the universe.

So, on the ruins of what used to be the certainty of my past, I will open all the windows to the incoming tornado and I won’t build any more concrete walls, but only plant dandelions and pinwheels. ~~~ UWC Adriatic Alumni

[uwcvoices]

I wish there was

I wish there was a simple way to be young.

All the happiness and the sadness and the anger and the joy. How can one understand these feelings and use them to grow?

Of all, love is the most puzzling.

I wish there a was simple way to fall in love.

A young man asking her to dance with kindness and excitement. A smile that brightens her birthday. A tender look that does not ask for flirtation.

Instead, smiles are wasted, hearts are broken and she feels a fool. 

Will she ever find love ?

~~~

UWC Adriatic

Alumni 

[uwcvoices]

Home

UWC…'The perfect place to start a new life and to move on with your life’.

This came to my mind lately and I know it probably sounds really cringy but hear me out, it gets less interesting or more depending on how you digest what I’m about to say.

I left home hoping for a new start in a place where no one knew who I was or what I’d been through, a place where I wouldn’t have to be labelled as something, and to an extent this was and is the case for most people, but I got way more than I bargained for. My first year was a rollercoaster of me wanting to leave and go back home and lock my self up in a cage again, and me wanting to actually give Duino a shot. Ok, pause right here, Duino for you guys that don’t know is this small sea-side village in Italy where UWC Adriatic is situated, it’s full of stories and memories. Its seen people cry, laugh, fight and most of all, its seen strangers turn into family. However, don’t get too excited it also has its hidden side, which even though it is messed up to an extent, I wouldn’t call it bad.

The hidden side of Duino is that the people you meet while you’re here, give life to the memories about your past life which you’ve been trying to forget ever since you left home. Shit happens!

I felt really depressed and mentally sick over the last couple of months because something made me think about my past and made me actually decide to face it, instead of running away from it, like I had previously done. I had daily mental breakdowns but I didn’t give much importance to them, thinking that school was way more important than that and then it hit me. One day I just couldn’t deal with life anymore, I couldn’t deal with neglecting myself, my friendships, the thought of losing people who actually mean the world to me just because I wasn’t giving enough importance to my mental health and that was reflected into the amount of importance I dedicated for them, took over my thoughts and that drove me insane. I became very unsociable, I ignored everyone and threw myself into work but something and someone continuously managed to change that and managed to pull me out of this tough spot, even if it was momentarily. You could say that this person was my light in the dark!

A few months passed and I kept on thinking about this and I’ve come to a point where I’ve decided to put all my cards on the table and try to take the first step to fixing my problems by admitting to having mental health problems to the people which make all the difference in my life. I told them that my actions, my lack of interaction and my lack of explaining things was because of this. That has made all the difference!

The conversations, the cries, the laughter I’ve experienced in this place have made all the difference. They sucked, but at least I’m getting to know myself and it has allowed me to find myself in the midst of this hectic life we live. I finally accept my life, my experiences and most importantly myself.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that don’t feel scared to take the first step and open up the doors which lay ahead. Some of them might leave you in a terrible state but rest assured that you’ll find that one door that will get you going and prove to you that at some point it will get better.

~~~

UWC Adriatic

Current Student ‘19

[uwcvoices]

Never far away

Dear Friend,

I’ve always known that going back home will be tough

But I never knew that it’d be quite like this

I’m not talking about how the summer sun is burning my skin

But realizing the moment when those people who know every vulnerable secret about you are thousands of miles away.

That moment when you realize in order to survive this transition; you have to open up to new people.

It’s scary. I don’t want to forget you.

For the first time in the past two years, you made me cry.

Why? Because I was scared of not seeing you again.

But I found comfort in knowing that you’ll be a phone call or a text away. That wasn’t enough.

Even though I said I am excited to hear about all the good news from what you’ve been up to, don’t forget I miss you so much and I’m already making plans to see you again. But when?

Our walks to Sistiana, our strolls to Porto, our mini hike to Villagio del Pescatore, not listening to you when you said we were standing right in front of the Mediterranean Sea (my fondest memory of us): Those make me cry more and more.

Our late night talks I would forever miss.

We were not supposed to say goodbye to each other; maybe a reason for you missing my departure.

I’ll always be grateful to Duino for making me meet you.

Fourth term was too late of a time to get to know you; maybe it was for a reason.

Just want you to know that you hold a place in my heart and I’ll always keep you there.

Sending all my love from here to you. And if you ever need anything, anything at all, I’m always here.

Even if that means hopping on the next plane to you.

It’s been a long day

Without you my friend

I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again.

Con Carina.

Ci vediamo.

~~~

UWC Adriatic

Alumni '18

[uwcvoices]

Inner fire

You see me on your way With a smile on my face And kindness in my words. But I am cold you say, Because I do not trust easily And let you in slowly.

You do not know me. The energy behind And the love held inside Would burn you down. I keep them for the few Who really see me.

I could gift it to you Kissing your jaw On the Sunday blue With your heartbeat under my hand.

But this dream of mine Protected by the night Like a morning brine Will never be. ~~~ Alumni