Have you ever experienced the feeling when you want something so badly that you start to cry with real tears every time you think about it? If yes, go ahead and find one of your teardrops in this story, if not, let me make you feel what it feels like.

Several years ago I heard about an amazing college where one could find friends throughout the whole world at the same time receiving high-grade education and an unparalleled life-long experience. ‘‘Amazing, darling, but not for you, ’’ was my first reaction and made me bypass the inaccessible hill by nearby lowlands, not even trying to climb. For the following years I continued to live my regular life with a very usual routine until one day I again accidently read about that college, again, and for this time, followed by a life-changing reaction.

- But why not you?

- I can’t speak English. Furthermore, I don’t have enough money.

- I know you believe in miracles.

And I did. I think that I have always believed in miracles and in the beautiful truth that dreams come true if you push yourself towards hard enough. In these positive thoughts I decided that I was undoubtedly going to apply to my dream college, to UWC planet, no matter how far and inaccessible it seemed to be. I knew that it was not going to be easy but at the same time I knew that I didn’t want to live my life regretting for not trying to do what my heart desired and felt the need of.

I remember me learning 30 new words in English per day, I remember me working as hard as I could, I remember me crying as hard as I could every time when I was looking through my dream college’s pamphlet and imagining me there, in a place where love is the common language and peace is the main engine of a powerful machine which is supposed to move throughout the world and share kindness combined with a bunch of positive vibes. In a place where I could have my lunch with people from all the continents, in a place where I could solve math problems with someone who was born 19000 miles away from my birth place.

I will never forget the day when I received a congratulating email for successfully passing the first step of the application process. And then the second. And then the third. It was the wettest selection process which I ever passed through. I was crying before all the exams because of panic and after all of them because of happiness. In the end of the rain I was nominated for a place at UWC Changshu China.

-You did it. You learned English in several months. You did your best. You went through it.

-It…it just happened…a beautiful miracle just happened.  

And I took a flight to that completely new planet and just several months ago from now I was in another airplane taking a flight from one Chinese city to another, I was going to teach English to Chinese students, something I couldn’t ever imagine to do. In the same way, I couldn’t ever imagine representing the Armenian national costume in a Chinese advertisement, walking in streets and speaking Chinese to random Chinese people, taking part in a Model United Nations Conference and discussing global issues with people whom I met the first time in my life.

And now, after every little thing which happened and before every little thing which will, now, when I’m trying to tell you this story, my eyes are continuously staring at this wet cup of tea put on my desk. The latter reminds me of all the ‘‘rainy’’ processes which I passed through in order to take this flight and makes me think about what could happen if I didn’t take the risk, if I didn’t follow my heart and if I again bypassed the hill by lowlands. We all need a kind of hard rain and storms in our lives on our way of climbing the hills. We all need that tears in order to fight our meaningless fears and we need to go higher than lowlands in order to see the beauty of the sunrise. We need to believe in our dreams and to climb towards them no matter how far they seem to be… because…just because miracles happen.

Milena, UWC Changshu China'2019