That last post was a bit....scrambled. But I'm leaving it as is because it's honest. It's how my brain is. I'm trying to figure out what I'm feeling about my experience while I'm still living it. It's confusing. It's a lot. I think I'm going to be processing for a while.
I talked to another student on the drive back from Nicaragua and she said that if someone asked her to sum up her experience in one word, she would say "challenging." And I thought that was the best description I'd heard of this experience. It's been so challenging, so hard, in mostly wildly different ways than I anticipated.
I'm not sure if I'd really thought it through more than realizing that I wasn't going to see my friends for eight months and that I was going to have to speak Spanish. I spent a lot of time fixated on those two things. Which are big ones, don't get me wrong.
But I didn't, couldn't, even begin to consider all that living and studying in another country entails. All the little things. The living in someone else's house. The food, the different routines and cultural expectations. The less-than-daily communication with my best friends, my people. All the little things that make up a life.
I have seven weeks left, today. In some ways that feels really long. I don't know what a lot of my time will look like. Plans have changed, expectations have been set aside, papers have to be written, friendships are being navigated.
But here I am, sitting back in my house that mostly has wifi, after a day split between two families where I feel more or less comfortable. Where I have made my home. After watching Grey's Anatomy with my host mom, sitting listening to Like Real People Do while blogging. And like Danielle keeps reminding me, I am doing this. And there is great value in doing hard things.
I talked to another student on the drive back from Nicaragua and she said that if someone asked her to sum up her experience in one word, she would say "challenging." And I thought that was the best description I'd heard of this experience. It's been so challenging, so hard, in mostly wildly different ways than I anticipated.
I'm not sure if I'd really thought it through more than realizing that I wasn't going to see my friends for eight months and that I was going to have to speak Spanish. I spent a lot of time fixated on those two things. Which are big ones, don't get me wrong.
But I didn't, couldn't, even begin to consider all that living and studying in another country entails. All the little things. The living in someone else's house. The food, the different routines and cultural expectations. The less-than-daily communication with my best friends, my people. All the little things that make up a life.
I have seven weeks left, today. In some ways that feels really long. I don't know what a lot of my time will look like. Plans have changed, expectations have been set aside, papers have to be written, friendships are being navigated.
But here I am, sitting back in my house that mostly has wifi, after a day split between two families where I feel more or less comfortable. Where I have made my home. After watching Grey's Anatomy with my host mom, sitting listening to Like Real People Do while blogging. And like Danielle keeps reminding me, I am doing this. And there is great value in doing hard things.
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