Blog

  • WTO Cercles des Économistes

    WTO Cercles des Économistes

    On a cold early morning of the 1st of October, a group of students forming the Cercle des Economistes led by Mr Villoquet has set out on a curious visit into the WTO headquarters in Geneva. The three imposing letters stand very simply for the World Trade Organisation — an organisation that establishes global trade rules attempts at promoting free, smooth running trade between nations. It was therefore of particular interest to us, ardent students of economics, as trade forms an essential part in economics and its liberalisation is prone to constant fervent disputes and debates. The WTO held a Public Forum marking the 20th anniversary of the organisation, which was focused around the theme “Trade Works” and was therefore a unique opportunity to see for ourselves what could be the benefits of free trade in strengthening and stabilising the world economy.

    The session that we have attended was focused on the way that trade could improve lives. It analysed the way that the decrease of barriers in shea butter trade in West Africa has contributed to a beneficial improvement of living standards and educations by providing women collecting and processing shea nuts with greater income. It is one thing to learn about a topic in theory in a classroom setting, but seeing it for yourself and the way in which it is applied is what truly makes a real difference and encourages further inquiry and study. It was interesting to see and hear incredibly influential and knowledgeable people discuss the issues concerned, and certainly left us with plenty of food for thought as we made our way back to school. While exiting the highly guarded fortress-like building we certainly had a number of things to discuss and points to make, proving that the trip was surely one worth making, as the continuation of discovery, the development of debate and discussion is what leads to a sharing of knowledge and the generation of solutions and ideas — all skills essential for one studying or pursuing economics and wanting to understand and improve our flawed world.

     

    By Katia

  • Académie Littéraire

    C’est au cours d’un déjeuner que les nouveaux membres de l’académie littéraire du Rosey se sont réunis pour sélectionner 5 livres que nous lirons tout au long de l’année pour décider de notre lauréat 2016.

    Notre liste comprend propose des œuvres de tous les horizons, dans un mélange, d’Histoire, de psychologie, de réécriture…. Charlotte de David de Foekinos, La Part de L’autre d’Eric-Emmanuel Schmidt, La Mort du roi Tsongor de Laurent Gaudé, Meursault, Contre-enquête de Kamel Daoud et Réparer les Vivants de Maylis de Kerangal.

    Comme chaque année, nous avons choisi des romans d’auteurs francophones contemporains et c’est au cours de sympathiques soirées que nous discuterons ces oeuvres.

    Grande nouveauté 2016 : Nos camarades de Rosey Abantara se joindront à ces lectures et participeront au choix du meilleur roman Rosey !

     

     Si notre sélection vous intéresse et que vous souhaitez nous rejoindre, voici un petit résumé des œuvres :

     

    Charlotte- David Foekinos

    Charlotte est le 13ème roman de David Foekinos et gagnant du Prix Renaudot et du Prix Goncourt des Lycéens. Le livre s’inspire de la vie et du meurtre et du destin brisé de l’artiste allemande de vingt-six ans, Charlotte Salomon, pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale.

     

    La Part de L’autre – Eric Emmanuel Schmidt

    Et si Adolf Hitler fut admis au Beaux-Arts à Vienne en Octobre 1908 ? Un récit sur un monde parallèle et divergent qui explore un moment ou tout bascule. Une réflexion sur la fragilité de l’histoire dans un monde hypothétique ou une minute, une action, une décision aurait pu changer le cours du monde.

    Ce roman, publié en 2001 fut nominé au prix Goncourt des Lycéens et au Grand prix de l’Académie Française.

     

     

    La Mort du Roi Tsongor – Laurent Gaudé

    Paru en 2002, ce roman de Laurent Gaudé ce situe en Afrique ancestrale. L’histoire du Roi Tsongor, souverain du gigantesque empire de Massaba qui ce suicide le jour des fiançailles de sa fille pour éviter une guerre ravageuse qui aura tout de même lieu. Alors commence le parcourt de son fils qui voyage le continent pour édifier sept tombeaux à l’image de son père.

     

    Meursault, Contre-Enquête- Kamel Daoud

    Cette œuvre de l’auteur Algérien Kamel Daoud, receveur du Goncourt du Premier Roman 2015, est une récriture de L’étranger d’Albert Camus de la perspective du frère de l’arabe tué par le protagoniste indiffèrent, Meursault dans le roman philosophique de Camus.

     

    Réparer les Vivants – Maylis de Kerangal

     Depuis 1959, ce n’est plus l’arrêt du cœur qui signe la mort. Après un accident sur la route au retour d’une session de surf au Havre, Simon, jeune de 19 ans est déclaré mort-cérébrale. Le roman détaille les 24 heures infernales après que les parents du lycéen autorisent le don d’organe. Réparer les Vivants paru l’année dernière explore le bouleversement des plusieurs vies qui ce retrouvent connecté par cette accident, et le parcours du cœur de Simon.

  • US University Trip

    US University Trip

    College? So much importance and meaning in that one word. So thrilling and yet so daunting. So simple and yet so complex. Who am I going to be and what am I going to do? As we are approaching are final days of high school, thoughts like this are becoming more and more common. They haunt us in our (limited) sleep, throughout dinners and study halls, follow us as we trudge to class or escape to Geneva on the weekends. We all have heard many names of eminent places, had images of glorious campuses and vague ideas and dreams about the one “dream college” we are going to of to and spend the best times of our lives in. But one cannot find the right place for himself by just following the sound of a famous name or a picture on Google Images. One has to visit the place and know how it is really like and search within ourselves to see if it would in fact be right for us. The goal of the trip was to understand the concepts behind a plethora of different colleges, their spirits, ideas, opportunities and requirements, in order to have a vision of the way we want to commence our adult lives. We certainly all want to start off on the right foot, and this trip was the first step to making sure that that would be the case.

    1,739.5 kilometres, 7 days, 11 colleges. An experience and information filled journey from Atlanta to Boston, with a stop in vibrant New York. On this trip we visited a multitude of very diverse institutions — some large, others small, urban, rural, with diverse curricula, contrasting student bodies and unique quirky traditions. Our journey of exploration began in Emory, and was followed by Davidson, Duke, Princeton, NYU, Columbia, Fordham, Yale, Brown, Boston University and finished in Babson, at a point when college tours have begun to become absolutely unbearable. Yet even if our minds could no longer cope with hearing about the holistic admissions process, or the view of the standardised test scores (oh who hadn’t had enough taking those?) we were nonetheless able to understand the importance of all the information we had just gathered. For a good applicant is a prepared applicant — one that knows about the place he is applying to and sees his place in it. And what better way to gather that information than in the university from the admissions officers themselves?

    Apart from touring the campuses and throughly questioning the poor student guides about what actually happens in the university (with our Brown and Babson guides cracking to reveal the most curious stories, to say the least, about how college life is actually like [you’ll be surprised…]) we (actually) had some free time to take advantage of the places we were visiting. They ranged from the-middle-of-nowhere little towns to pulsating metropolises with, as you can surely imagine, plenty of things to do, see and experience. It is the US after all, with its cities that never sleep and promises of freedom and joy for all.

    Tired, jet-lagged and noticeably overwhelmed, we returned to Geneva on early Sunday morning. But with this unbearable seeming fatigue came a new energy — one of motivation, ambition and determination. For as we have seen, the fight for a place in those awe-inspiring universities is a tough one to be fought on many battlefields — in academics, extra-curriculums, in examination rooms and within ourselves against our own flaws and weaknesses. But it is one surely worth taking, in order to come return to these campuses once again, this time as a freshman of that one “dream college.” However for now, we have our university sweatshirts to remind us of our goals and hopefully helps us to keep going through all the challenging times to come.

     

    By Katia

  • The Pre-Ball Season

    The Pre-Ball Season

    Taking someone to the ball is a dream for many; however asking someone to go with them is a nightmare for all. Social pressure causes no one to risk the embarrassment of rejection anymore, thus very few girls are asked every year. Unless you want a guaranteed yes, you must go through the painstaking effort of occasionally foolishly flirting with your crush in Café Ljubo, until you are at the point of comfort to begin after class snap chatting and then surely losing sleep whilst late night texting. No one wants to do that either. Between risking embarrassment and requiring an unnecessary amount of flirtatious effort, just does not seem to appeal to anyone anymore.

    There’s got to be a better way!

    Wouldn’t it be easier to do as a people do in the Wonip village in the Toll Island and show affection by poking one’s love stick through the wall of their dream dates’ bedroom at midnight? Yes that’s right, there’s an actual tribe that does that. Now imagine a boy called Jimmy and his crush called Sarah. Just empathize with the embarrassment that Jimmy would experience if his little love stick is not accepted as it dangles in Sarah’s bedroom (note that love stick is a smooth wood carved ritual pole). Not to mention that Jimmy is loosing sleep over the thoughts of his crush. So do not think that you have it hard, put yourself in Jimmy’s shoes and go hang your love pole in your crush’s bamboo thatched covered hut. Man-up and ask someone to the ball with roses or else the committee will carefully select whom you sit next to, and as president of the committee, Varun, states: « we will have fun with that. » Trust me it is not something you want.

  • Weekend de Connaissance Class 1

    With a small delay here is the class 1 Weekend de Connaissance video!

  • Interview With Makram (The Lion)

    Interview With Makram (The Lion)

    Bonjour Mak, avant tout, j’aimerais commencer en te posant la question suivante : Si tu étais un lion, où et comment serais-tu ?

    C’est simple : un lion régnant uniquement en Europe !

     

    Et, est-ce que tu as eu des difficultés pour t’immerger dans le rôle d’un animal ?

    Pas du tout, je pense que je suis lié à cet animal… peut-être que cela vient des cheveux ?!

     

    Chanter, danser, jouer , tout cela en même temps… peux-tu nous en parler ?

    J’adore la danse : ça m’amuse beaucoup donc je n’ai pas dû me forcer !

    Au contraire, c’était la première fois que je chantais devant un public… j’étais très nerveux car j’étais convaincu que je ne pourrai jamais chanter devant un public. Mon cœur battait à mille à l’heure et en plus je sentais tous ces yeux braqués sur moi.

     

    Vous avez dû avoir beaucoup de répétitions ! Est-ce que tu as trouvé cela fatigant ?
    Vers la fin, on a dû travailler d’une façon beaucoup plus intense et ecla nous prenait beaucoup de temps. Bien sûr, on avait toujours envie d’y aller et surtout de nous retrouver tous les acteurs pour voir notre spectacle se construire et prendre forme. C’était un groupe vraiment sympa !

    SI je devais recommencer, je voudrais tout revivre.

    Je ne changerais rien du tout et je suis triste de ne pas pouvoir participer aux autres spectacles de cette année, mais à présent je dois me concentrer sur la classe T.

     

    Quelques conseils pour les futurs acteurs ?

    N’ayez pas peur des critiques !

    Croyez en vous-même !

    Et finalement, le plus grand cliché, mais la seule vérité : AMUSEZ-VOUS !

     

     

  • Donald Trump

    Donald Trump

    On Thursday 8th October, the Rosey debating society presented their first in-house debate, starring 3 speakers aside. The motion:

    ‘This House would Vote for Donald Trump’
    Donald Trump: racist? Sexist? Greedy? Rich? Donald Trump is all: rich, greedy, sexist, racist, with a hot wife. So what could a man with everything positive about him want more? Well, a man with everything is always looking for something more. Donald Trump decided that the best course of an action for a man who wants to set up a wall between the U.S and Mexico (at Mexico’s expense) was to become president of the U.S.

     

    What could possibly go wrong if Donald Trump is elected the most powerful man in the world? Bankrupt the U.S like the so many times he has bankrupts his businesses? In his defence, and in the views of many of U.S citizens, he would definitely take care of ISIS. Donald Trump has the solution to all of your problems (like ISIS): Nuclear Bombs!. And the best part about it all, you wouldn’t have to worry about global warming, because that’s just a myth!

     

    Unfortunately, the last poll at the end of the debate decided that the motion had better be destroyed. Only 3 people voted Trump at the end of debate. Hopefully Donald Trump will have more luck in 2016!

     

    By Theo

  • Milan

    Milan

    From Lausanne, it’s a three-hour train ride; enough time to knock out some of Monday’s homework. Upon arrival, we left the train station, crossed the street and checked into our hotel. Our lovely teachers Signora Ciacci and Signora Vonlanthen gave us an hour or so to ready ourselves for dinner. Dinner was great, especially after the hour and a half wait. Then, we went out… to get some gelato. On the way there we passed multitudes of nightclubs… but finally arrived at the ice cream store, a gelateria.

     

    The next morning was rough… because we had to wake up at 8:00am, on a Saturday! We got an early start and made our way to the Milan expo. It was packed. It seemed that all of Italy decided to go on the same day. It was great however. There were at least a hundred countries offering food from their country and little expositions about saving the planet. The group split in two. Some of us went to Brazil and Malaysia while others went to Japan and Poland to eat and look. Finally the group rejoined and together we went to Monaco via VIP passes. We passed the lines and after, we went to the VIP Room for drinks.

     

    Afterwards, we made out way to Switzerland where an orange, a saltshaker and a coffee bean attacked us. The Swiss tour was a bit odd. We were granted unlimited access to salt, coffee and for the entire group, just one cup. The expo was fun anyway.

     

    The last day before leaving we visited a museum. We saw many famous works, but we missed our reservation to the last supper, and they continued to dine without us. In other words we didn’t get to see it. Sadly it was closed off. But what we did get to see was the La Mariage de la Vierge, by Le Pérugin.

     

    On our way back, there was worry about whether we’d make it to McDonald’s before making the train, but it all worked out. Late Sunday afternoon, we made it back to school, having spent a great weekend in Milan.

     

    By Carter