As a fifteen year old traveling to New Zealand, I had little idea as to what my experience with TGS would bring me. I had heard some stories from my brother, who was going into his fourth year of this amazing program, but I didn’t realize how big of an impact TGS would have on my life.
I have checked off so many different activities from my bucket list. In my first semester, I went black water rafting in a glow worm cave, repelled off of a bridge into a river, went white water rafting in baby blue glacier water, went cliff jumping into those same waters, toured the SkyTower of Auckland, sailed, kayaked, and stand up paddle boarded, visited the sulfurous White Island, stayed overnight on Rock the Boat, swam in phosphorescent algae, watched the sunset from the mountains after a 4 hour hike, and of course, visited Hobbiton and Cathedral Cove. While in Costa Rica, I went on the longest zipline in Latin America, participated in a weekend white water rafting trip down the Pacuare river, did a homestay for a week, went horseback riding to a waterfall, drank milk from a cow that I milked, relaxed in multiple natural hot springs, visited Volcán Arenal, swam and snorkeled in the Pacific Ocean, went dolphin seeing, and learned how to surf. During my final trimester as a tenth grader, the ninth and tenth grade class went on their own odyssey for a week, visiting the Cave of Nymphs, the Blue Caves, and Shipwreck beach, went to Monemvassia, Olympia, the Oracle of Delphi, and obviously visited the Acropolis of Athens.
When I wasn’t off on a weXplore, I was working on my class projects. In each country, our teachers created schedules that allowed us to do place-based learning. All of my interesting projects can be seen here, but I’ll recall a few now.
In New Zealand, we learned all about the indigenous Maori people. After staying overnight at a family’s Marai, we continued to research their tattoos in art and culture in global issues and English. I also wrote a paper on the effects of air pollution on the health of Kiwis and presented with Danielle and Ayesha to a sixth grade class. Global issues, world language and literate, and visual arts were combined into one class for the pre-IB grades during the second semester. In Costa Rica, Kiana and I worked together on Project Advocacy, in which we studied the sustainability of hotels across the country. We had science class in the rain forest most days, but mixed it up by going to the Pacific ocean on others. I wrote a field report about the hermit crabs in Drake Bay. We completed two major projects while in Greece, TGS Odyssey and THINK Dialogos. I presented at the school’s first annual Symposium about the Geometric Subconsciousness used everyday, first discovered by Greek philosophers.
In my classes, I’ve learned that everything connects. I somehow even found a way to talk about math in English class, of course using rhetoric. This past year has taught me so many other life lessons. To list a few tips:
Be IRL.
Have free time? Go out and explore.
Take advantage of every opportunity, especially the spontaneous ones.
Have a flexible schedule.
Live in the present. Don’t forget the past. Look forward to the future.
Share. Share food and clothes, but most importantly share you’re experiences with your families at home.
Which brings me to reflect. Document your experiences.
Be creative. Learn about what you’re interested in…
But be open to learning new things and hearing new opinions.
Do NOT procrastinate. You learn this the hard way, but end up doing it again.
Traveling is cool and all, but the people are what make the experiences memorable.
Honestly, I don’t have the best memory, but once you get a group of TGS kids to sit down, the stories are endless. From illegal first impressions in coffee shops in Auckland, foosball leading to high-fives to the face in the forest of Costa Rica, and eating a feast of waffles and milkshakes the night after coming back from a weXplore to the Peloponnese.
In my first year, I flew on a total of twelve airplanes, which is a dozen more than I had ever been on before. As I fly to the Uk on September 5, 2015 I realize how quickly my first year of TGS has ended, but here’s to an even better second.
