I am seriously struggling with this whole alarm clock thing! I didn't hear my phone alarm go off until like 36 minutes after it did :( Oh welllll... I still made it to breakfast and was ready on time!
We met up at the academic building at 9:30 and had a talk about volunteering. We talked about why people volunteer (resume builder, feels good, gives back, fun, social connections, empowerment, recognition), and also the prevalence of volunteering in the UK as opposed to the US and what that might indicate in regards to our different ideas of citizenship. In the UK 42-46% of people volunteer at least once a year, and only 16% volunteer at least one a month. In the US, though, it's much higher (although he didn't know the exact statistics). Because British people aren't technically citizens, rather "subjects" of the Queen, our speaker theorized that the less prevalent volunteering may be due to not feeling like an integral part of the community as a citizen.
Then, Tony announced our partnerships and schools that we would be volunteering in. Alex and Nadia are together in an all-girls school, Dayna and Emma are in a dance-focused school, Jason and Malik are in an all-boys school, and Barron and I are in a co-ed and very academically focused school. Should be really interesting!
Particularly, Barron and I are volunteering in the Glenthorne School, which is in Sutton, England. Sutton is very close to Surrey, which for any lovers of the movie "The Holiday" that's where Iris (the English woman) is from! So that was very cool :) Anyways, it takes about an hour to get to the school, and we arrived to have a bit of an orientation today.
We were greeted by Mr. Clem Parrish who showed us around the school a bit and explained to us that they are currently doing a fundraising week to help benefit a school in South Africa. They usually raise about 11,000 pounds, which I think is amazing! So part of this fundraising is that some of the faculty, staff, and students (all male) volunteered to get their legs waxed for a donation from the students. So basically, the students donated at least 50 pence to watch, and then for a pound they could actually do one wax strip! It was hilarious to see men with patchy legs walking around for the rest of the day! So that, to say the least, was an interesting introduction to the school ;)
After that, we sat down with Mr. Parrish and discussed what we were interested in getting out of this experience. Essentially, Barron and I explained that we wanted to learn more about the differences and similarities of UK/US education systems and just get a more insider aspect of what it's like to be a UK citizen. We also found out that next week we get to go to Cambridge University!!! There is a group of students going to have a campus visit in order to prepare for university in the next year or so. I'm REALLY excited to check out Cambridge :)
Then, Mr. Parrish grabbed about 15 students and they stayed after class to talk to us for about 45 minutes. They went on and on about how much they were jealous of our American accents and how much they wanted one! Then they asked us about how we felt about the BP oil spill, the health care reform, and whether or not cheerleaders are like how they appear in the movies/TV. It was a fun conversation :)
OH! And I have reached one of my longstanding goals today! I've always wanted to introduce myself to a guy named Jamie and have that "WOW we have the same name" moment. It happened today!!! One of the students came in a reached his hand out to introduce himself and said "Hi, I'm Jamie" and then I got to say... "Me too!!!" It was the best thing ever!
Barron and I navigated our way back to Roehampton and we all talked about how our days went. Then Alex, Nadia, Emma, Jason, and I went on a little walk in hopes of finding a park nearby that Alex had heard of. We never really found the park (or maybe we did, but it didn't seem totally like one!) but regardless it was really fun and it was really beautiful weather out to take a nice walk :) After dinner in the Digby Stuart dining hall, most of us headed over to Louisa's (one of our Roehampton student ambassadors) flat and checked out Oceania in the Kingston area of London! :)
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