In the airport, we met with two assistants of the Rising Stars program and, interesting enough, another group from Mexico (Jalisco) from a Escuela Normal as well. They all were so kind.

After two hours of road trip on a bus, we got to Oxford city, where my classmate Gael and I took a taxi to our home-stay and met with our host-family: Mr. & Mrs. Shah. They received us "con los brazos abiertos" (with open arms), as we say in Mexico. After Mr. Shah showed us our room, we all had dinner together and chatted a little about us, the program, and our home country. It was great.

This was both a long and short day at the same time. I'm still getting used to the difference in U.K's time zone, but, I'm sure this is going to be such a great experience.

-Aurelio:)

the United Kingdom. Staff from Oxford International and coordinators of the Raising Stars program welcomed us at Heathrow International Airport and took us to Oxford, where we took a taxi to our homestays, where we would be living during our stay in this beautiful country.

We left Nuevo Laredo at almost 10 a.m. on sunday february 9th, it was a 3 hour roadtrip to Monterrey, Nuevo León to the airport. Our first stop was to grab a bite while we waited for some time to pass, since we got there too early. From here we flew 1 hour to Mexico City, and from there, 9 hrs and 45 mins to London. It was such a long journey, I had never travelled as far nor this many hours, so it was definetely challenging, but sleeping got me through.

At the Heathrow airport we met with Anette and Tom, Rising Stars personnel, and they drove us to Oxford in a bus, in the meantime they gave us our name tags with the Rising Stars logo, and our bus passes. We arrived at a parking lot in Oxford and taxis were already waiting to take us to our respective homestays.

When we arrived, we introduced ourselves and almost immediately got into the shower, then dinner, then went to bed to rest for the next day.

We had an hour for lunch and some extra free time, so we went to the Covered Market, which later on would become one of our favorite and most frequent places.

After, we went to Chaplaincy, to have our welcome ceremony and to receive a notepad and a pen. Our fist class took place in Pembroke College, just 5 mins away from here, walking.

So far, what I love most about Oxford is that this is a very walkable city.

We got out of our home-stay at around 8:00am after giving our host-family a beautiful "camino de mesa" (table runner) I brought them from León, Guanajuato, Mexico. They seemed to like it a lot, so I'm happy about that.

We took a bus to Carfax Tower in order to take our very first activity of the Rising Stars program: a tour through Oxford University. Although we were able to see other parts of the town as well and learn a little bit of Oxford's history.

During both our free time and lunch time, all my classmates and I gave ourselves the opportunity of visiting Westgate, which is pretty much like Oxford's main mall. This place was enormous and had a lot of great stores.

After lunch time, we had the opening ceremony for the Rising Stars program. In this ceremony, there was an introduction to every invited group/ school to this program -all of them from Mexico, by the way- and I had the opportunity of giving a little improvised speech introducing my own. That was amazing, though a bit hesitant.

After this ceremony, the organizers separated all the invited groups into two main groups and assigned both of these groups a group commander in order to take the first workshop. This first workshop, for me, played as an opportunity to meet both my classmates and group commander.

Interesting enough: most of my classmates are either normalistas (studying to become a teacher) or teachers; including my group commander who is an ESL teacher. We all got along pretty quickly, and I'm actually looking forward to learn a lot from all of them. I'm very excited for tomorrow's workshops.

-Aurelio:)

We had these lessons everyday, even Saturday and Sunday, from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and by this time it was already dark out and many stores were closing. Discovered that everything here operates on this schedule as well.

You might be thinking how hard the days seem, and I gotta admit they were awesome, every day we had fun, we learned, gave constructive feedback and felt so safe that no one was fearful of performing in front of the class.

I really care for my new friends from all over the country, the 9 days spent with them were some of the best of my life and I will forever treasure that.

Another thing I enjoyed was that everyday was something different, wether it was a diferent lesson, different exercise, different lunch place we went to or who we have lunch with. My favorite places were Sainsbury, the Covered Market and KFC.

Every time we finished a workshop meant having to do/perform a challenge that allowed to demonstrate what you learned and how to use it in real life. Personally loved doing these, it was at this time were we would laugh the most and really brainstorm random ideas that were hilarious but also incredible.

Seeing our mentor´s reactions to our performances was also memorable, she was always rooting for everyone but you could see it in her face how she would cringe, as us, with some performances. We all felt it and we all did the same cause seriously, some of them went overboard.

This was going through my mind as I woke up on Sunday. The final challenge consist of doing an elaborate exercise of all you have learned with the workshops, you have to put to the test your numerous skills. And had only three hours to prepare the whole thing.

My final challenge was a court room scenario, in which I had to defend AI, and Aurelio had to prosecute it. We prepared three hours from this, I did and extra 30 mins cause I was so nervous I didnt even have lunch.

The firsts to perform were the other team, Protostars. They did a sales pitch, but they were selling a message of change and hope, not necessarily a product. They all did really well, gave compelling arguments and stood their ground.

I was reherseing my arguments all this time, I figured if I really knew my topic, I could improvise some arguments to better my case. I was trying to memorize my arguments, but by the time I went on that trial, it flew away from my mind.

I had to improvise and, turns out I did not do half bad. It just looked a little like nervousness but I sure look conviced, and I think I made the public believe everything I said. I am very proud of myself for doing this.

We travelled by train, so it was faster to get to London, and it was awesome cause we socialized for the whole ride, and have a nice time.

At the tour we went to all the famous historical places like the Buckingham palace, Big Ben, Westminster cathedral, Scott Street, and many more. Here we toured around the whole day, and you really cannot cover it all, time slips away easily.

Going back home, I was so tired that I slept our the way back. After this we got home and showered immediately, had dinner afterwards and went to sleep right after. We were exhausted.

The second day we went was on Monday, and we had free time to do what we pleased or go to another tour. Both options were fantastic, I chose to have free time and go with our teacher and 4 other mates to Camden Market. We ate at KFC, walked a little, bought souvenirs and go at our own pace, it was relaxing even, but so cold.

By this time I was enjoying it still, but I really wanted to go home too. When it finally was the time I felt ready, my purpose was fulfilled and I was ready to go back home.

I really had a lovely time here, loved everyone, and everything. I was living for it. Everything was worth it and would do it over and over again. It blew my expectations like 3 times, was much more amazing than I imagined.

I was eager to go home, but also wanted to stay here forever, in this moment, happiness overflowing. But all good things come to an end, we treasure this moment for now and forever, the time we were Oxford University students for 9 days.

In yesterday's session at pembroke, we talked a little bit about Creative Thinking, so, activities during this first part of the day were about that.

Something I like about my relationship with both my classmates and the group commander -our, should I say, OUR relationship as a group- is the fact that we're allowed to bring a bit of our culture during the activities. The fact that our group leader isn't mexican and doesn't undertands spanish really pushes me to seek other ways of explaining things that, for me, are common or just don't need explanation. I think this is great for getting out of my comfort zone.

During lunch, my group and I visited the Covered Market, which is such an iconic place in Oxford. It can be compared to what we call "mercaditos" in Mexico; but, way better. In this place, there is a good variety of stores, restaurants, cafés, etc. Even thought I didn't have lunch in here, I'm looking forward to try that place called "Pie Minister" in the Covered Market.

After lunch, and back to the OISC, we talked about the art of Persuassion. During this workshop, we had the opportunity of walking on the streets of Oxford one more time in order the explore the different things this city has to offer to international students and, in overall, to tourist and people interested to invest in this city. This was, of course, a part of our activities.

I don't have a lot to add here, just one more thing: a couldn't help but notice how well equiped the classrooms are. As a normalista (studying to become a teacher), I really love that.

-Aurelio:)

For some reason, during this morning, I was feeling really shy and left behind and, in overall, just socially anxious. We all know it's not the same trying to joke around with strangers than actually trying to contribute to a class, and the fact all of these program requires us to use our second language added another lyer of difficulty; but, fortunately, I took it as a challenge and did my best the left that anxiety behind.

Particularly, the activities related to the art of improvisation helped me a lot, since the point behind this exercises was actually building self-confidence. They were so fun too.

After lunch, we went back to the OISC in oder to take other activities related to improvisation. During this activities, my classmates and I visited the Ashmolean Museum, a really beautiful museam located in Oxford. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time in order to see all expositions; but, it still was such a great experience.

Fun fact: the fire alarm actually went off while we were inside the museum. It was most-likely just a drill, but, still really scary. One way or another, it made the whole experience unforgettable.

-Aurelio:)

Once there, we met our host family and we shared with them a bit of our culture.

Honestly, I suffered a bit being on a plane for 9 hours, it was something that kept me very anxious and it was my first time flying for so long, something that gave me a bit of fear was that there was an area of turbulence that lifted me up just when I could fall asleep a bit.

Arriving in London it was all very different, they gathered us together with other students and took us to Oxford, a journey that lasted about 2 hours, when we arrived at the new meeting point, they separated us into groups and sent us to our host family. I could see how at night, it is very difficult to see as there are not many light poles concentrated in the street, I was a bit scared but I knew I was about to arrive at my temporary home.

They welcomed us warmly, let us settle in and gave us dinner while we chatted a bit about everything. Being the first day, I didn't feel very comfortable so I could hardly close my eyes, I think it's difficult to adapt to sleeping in a bed that isn't mine, but I hoped that the other days wouldn't be like that!

At dinner, we were given the food from the previous day again but I didn't want to be rude and ate it all, I thought nothing bad would happen.

In the classes, everything was going well, it was a focus on creativity, we had to invent products and find a way to sell them, we were able to form teams but we also had the opportunity to participate individually, I was very sad but I gave my all to do well!

At the end of the classes, unfortunately, I got sick and I was absent to get better, my parents allowed me to eat something different or something that my stomach would recognise, so I sacrificed myself and bought a ramen🤓.

I hoped that feeling and pain would pass and that day would be the only one like that.

When I started spending more time with my group, I was feeling more and more comfortable. The tour through the city on february 11 were very interesting and there we met the Carfax Tower, that were our meeting spot for almost everything.

The lessons were so interesting, our schedule was from 8 am to 6 pm but it wasn't tiring at all, it was so funny.

All our challenges were surprise, and some of them were in teams. Work with other people that I didn't knew was an opportunity to socialize, and it helped me to learn how to listen to others and being able to have an open mind.

After every lesson and challenge we put a star in every spot to complete the constellation at the end of the program.

I was so nervous and I thought I wouldn't going to do it well.

I was the second one of my group to present, and surprisingly to me, I did it great, my teacher was supporting me and also my classmates.

I'm glad that I presented something like that because I feel more confident after all.

London, to me, was a dream, no matter where I went, at any place I was happy.

We visited lots of places, but my favorite was Buckingham Palace.

I bought lots of things there, we walked a lot but it was amazing, as I said ay any place I was more than happy to be there.

In addition, we had our first class, which was about creative thinking and how to use it more effectively in English :].

We also had our first challenges, which are small tasks that require us to put everything we’ve learned into practice.

Besides that, we had several improvisation classes where I had to overcome my fear and be spontaneous in front of a large audience. Fortunately, everything went well!

We visited several iconic landmarks, such as Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the London Eye, and the British Museum, among others. It was truly impressive to see how grand and majestic the city is.

We also attended a conference on how to navigate life in Oxford and build a successful career. It was really interesting, and I was able to take away some key lessons that I will keep with me.

It was also our last day of classes, a day filled with both happiness and sadness. We had to say goodbye to our teacher, who was an incredible help throughout these days. I truly believe she embodies what it means to be a great teacher, and I owe everything I learned in Oxford to her.

We also had a small farewell ceremony, where we received certificates and a medal as founding members of this program.

As a final activity, we went on a tour around Oxford, exploring its urban legends about ghosts and more. It was a fascinating way to end this incredible experience.

We also had some free time, during which we got to explore (and get lost in) the city freely.

This has truly been one of the best experiences of my life, one that I will cherish forever.