Personality

This week was a good week, for the most part. I must admit though, I’m definitely out of the “honeymoon” stage of my exchange, with all of the “oh-wow-isn’t-this-great-everything-is-new-and-different” that goes along with it. I’m now at the point where certain differences are starting to bother me, where I’m getting impatient waiting for the language to really ‘click,’ and where I sometimes just want to curl up in my own bed in my own house with a good old Harry Potter book.


(Nocilla: Spain's version of Nutella. So delicious!!)

I had a long conversation about this a couple days ago (via Facebook) with Mariah Hennen, the exchange student from my district in the U.S. who is in Poland this year. I love Mariah. We both say it’s a lucky thing that Spain and Poland were in the same country group at the orientations. I remember at the first orientation in January, Mariah happened to be sitting next to me when all the outbounds were in a room waiting for a presentation on something. We all were talking while we waited, and I remember at some point our conversation went something like this:

Mariah: My parents keep saying things like “when you’re in another family’s home, you can’t leave your room a mess like this.”

Me: Me too!!! My mom says that all the time, and I’m getting so sick of it! Hey, what country are you going to?

Mariah: Poland. Where are you going?

Me: Spain

Mariah: Haha, we’ll probably see a lot of each other, because Spain and Poland are in the same country group for the orientations.

Me: Really? How random is that! Yup, look the sheet says “Spain, Italy, and…Poland.”

Anyway, I always love talking to Mariah, but I especially loved talking to her the other day because we got to discuss a lot of the same things we’re going through. We talked about how one of the hardest things right now is the fact that at this point, no one truly knows who you are.

I don’t mean that in a dramatic “no one understands me!” way, but the fact is simply that although I have great friends here who talk to me, and invite me out all the time, they really don’t have any idea who I am as a person. I feel like if someone here were asked to describe my personality, they would have no idea what to say. Okay…that sounds like I have no personality in Spain, which isn’t true, but hopefully you have some idea what I’m saying here.

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(My favorite cheese and the bottle of olive oil that is never empty)

Without fully being comfortable here yet, and without fully having the language to be able to express yourself, it’s difficult to let your true personality show. I’m a talker, I’m assertive, I’m awful with directions, I love telling stories, I over analyze things people say to me, I’m sometimes very selfish, I’m a hard worker, I love to laugh, I almost never cry in front of people, I sing loudly when no one's around, I’m extremely indecisive, and I’m very independent. Whew. Okay, well, now that’s that’s all out, I think I’ll wrap up this already lengthy post. And then maybe I’ll write another one about what has actually been going on this week in Spain.

Besitos!

Paige