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Posted on August 29th, 2008 by Juan Ortiz-Apuy
Some 28 years ago, in the mist of much anxiety and joy, I was born in the capital city of a small country named Costa Rica.

On that day, I was named Juan because, according to my father, of my close resemblance to my grandpa. A few years after this day, my family decided to move to a small town in the northern part of the country called Tilaran. I remember that as a kid, I was always fascinated by the fact that such named in aboriginal tongue meant “land of wind and rain”. And yes, it definitely was. I have many memories of waking up to the chaos and confusion that the overnight rain-storm had brought to my family. I would usually get up and join my dad and my mom in astonishment that the storm had flooded the backyard and almost broken in half the last standing palm tree.

So for about 18 years, I lived in this place and surprisingly enough I became used to (and even casually enjoy) the constant rain and unpredictable wind. There, I attended Maurilio Alvarado Vargas for high school years were the years rolled by one after another peacefully and almost too fast. Upon graduation, I felt like a needed a big change so along with my father’s excitement and my mother’s angst, I boarded a plain to Mexico City to attend Med school at the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico.

I couldn’t say much about the time that I spent at this university since…well, I just really didn’t. It wasn’t long before I realized that maybe medicine was not my cup of tea exactly. So I would usually spend my class time (and in between) running around the city visiting every kind of museum and gallery that there was. After a few months of this, it finally hit me so I decided to come back and pursue a career in the arts field. Since there wasn’t any fine arts program, I enrolled in architecture holding on to the rumor that the University would be opening a fine arts program soon. Two years later, the rumour had just become a rumour so I began searching for a way out. I finally found the opportunity to come to Montreal, Canada. After a few months of preparations and hard work I applied and was accepted into the sculpture program at Concordia University.

Today precisely, four years have gone by since that day and now I’m here writing this introductory blog. I finally managed to graduate with a Bachelors degree in Fine Art, (with great distinction :) , and I’m only a couple of weeks away from taking a plain to Glasgow to begin my graduate studies. Ohh yes, a few months ago, tinged with an incredible amount of happiness and surprise, I received a letter that I had been accepted into The Glasgow School of Art to pursue a Master degree in Fine Art. The rest after this, I will be telling you soon…

juan.

Thank you Stephen…….. Welcome Juan!

Posted on August 29th, 2008 by admin

As many of you will have noticed, Stephen has already completed his year studying at the University of Leeds and has returned back home to Australia. I am sure you will agree it has been a fantastic insight into his year studying in the UK and judging from all the comments you have left you enjoyed it too!

The InternationalStudent.com team would like to thank Stephen for all his hard work blogging over the last year and wish him the very best of luck with his continuing studies. If you ever need anything, you can always drop us a line and we are happy to try and help you!

So, many of you will be wondering what is going to happen with the blog now – and it is with great anticipation that we can announce a brand new student blogger to the InternationalStudent.com community. Juan Ortiz-Apuy is our brand new study in the uk student blogger – coming from Costa Rica and pursuing his masters in fine art from the Glasgow School of Art.

I will let Juan introduce himself and give you some background about him when he blogs his first post, so Juan – over to you!