After my last post I've been thinking even more about what I will get out of my stay here. Everyone told me that if nothing else I’d appreciate my life at home better. Generally, I think of myself as disillusioned with American society. This hasn’t changed; I still think my country is horribly plagued with huge problems that aren’t going to be mended by a simple change in administration.
Despite this it pisses me off when my roommates make fun of how many illiterate people there are in the US. (I think the reason for this is that there is no word for literate in Spanish so they think that Spain is higher than the US. They study physical education and aren’t Spain’s brightest future scholars. They have had a lot to do with why my experience has not been the greatest.) It still makes me angry when people here talk about stuff they don’t understand – especially when it is something I connect with. I’ve gotten ask if I lost weight here because I don’t eat fast food everyday like they assumed I did at home. In actuality, I gained weight and eat much healthier at home and can exercise without the fear of getting run over.
Connecting back to what I was saying earlier about appreciating my life in the US, I definitely do. My life at home is great. This I guess is a sacrifice people need to make. I’d rather have hot water in the morning than seeing Gaudí’s masterpieces on the way to class. I’ve always valued practicality over looks. I’m still not sure why IES treats us like we are in high school. IES has made me appreciate so much more how smoothly Macalester runs. After only two years, that institution makes up a huge part of how I define myself. I worked for Residential Life and it took coming here to understand why creating a community in the dorm space is so important. I used to complain about how many resources get wasted on international student, but now I really understand that people need to belong… something that I have yet to feel here. Maybe it was because I was here for such a short period of time, or because I didn’t really bond with too many people, or maybe I just came here with the wrong mind set. Whatever Macalester is doing there are doing something right. They can get students from all over the world to fall in love St. Paul, Minnesota, while IES cannot manage to do the same with Barcelona.
I just spent $334 changing my plane ticket home eight days earlier. When booking my flight to Barcelona I planned to stay in Europe for another month after classes ended. Now, I’m dying to get home and everyone is talking about how excited they are to leave, when I still have three weeks in Europe after they all go home. This time should be amazing traveling first with my family and then with high school friends. IES has left such a bad taste in my mouth, I just want to leave. I know I’m incredibly fortunate to have this experience, and I have done a lot of amazing things. An interesting concept is how we relate happiness to the value of an experience. I have learned so much and seen things that I have wanted to see all my life but, on a daily basis, I’m much happier at home. This I think has a lot to do with how big of part relationships play in my life. I hear people talking about leaving a significant other at home, while I can hardly handle a semester without my close friends. Often I’d rather spend the night talking to friends online than going out. This makes me more optimistic about my three weeks of traveling with familiar people after everyone else goes home.
Overall I have learned a lot in Spain, and can better appreciate my life at home. My major is international studies and I wonder what this will all mean. I have spent my college life learning about other places in the world dreaming of getting out of the Midwest and the first time I spent a significant amount of time outside my home state, I feel so disconnected I sometimes can’t stand it. Really, I think the people have a lot more to do with it than the place. I need good strong relationships with people and its takes me longer than four months to create them. I knew this about myself coming going into it, so I came the assumptions that I was going to be a loner for four months. Moreover when I got to IES no one really seemed worth getting know, reinforcing my assumption. The best moments I have in Europe are when I was with either Seva or Mandy.
How will I remember this experience? I’m almost positive one of two things will happen. The first option is that I will regret feeling so out of place, and just didn’t enjoy myself more. The second is that I will only remember the fun I had here and ignore all the anxiety I felt. Nonetheless, I hope I will come out of this experience with something positive that I did not have before, and at the end of the day that is what really matters.
1 comment:
That was a thoughtful analysis but I have to point out that if you came to Spain thinking this: "Moreover when I got to IES no one really seemed worth getting know, reinforcing my assumption.", then you really came with a closed mind. Your experience was probably negative because you don't give people a chance (the other IES students and Spanish ones).
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