Things get better every day

Hola a todos! It's been a while since I've written because things have been pretty busy here with classes. Quick update with the exchange rate, it took a huge slump! Luckily I took money out for my 200 peso student visa during the peak of the exchange rate, but its sittin lower now unfortunately. I guess this is good for argentina though so I should just suck it up.

Things get better everyday. I hit the slump a few days ago and I was trying to figure out why it was a slump and what made me feel that way. As I sat up on the terrace watching the sunset, a great place for deep thinking, I came back to the idea of a home. I thought somemore about what makes me feel at home. In thinking about this I made the important distinction between the external things that make me feel at home and the internal things that make me "feel at home." There are all the things I listed in a previuos blog that make me feel at home; a network of people and support, the things you are used to etc. But I was thinking, I don't mind that I can't just use my phone whenever I want to talk to someone or ask a question. I don't mind that I can't just go to the kitchen and cook up a storm. Not having these luxuries isn't that big of a deal.

Then I started thinking about missing the network of people that I have at home or at school. That's what makes the "hump period" of studying abroad, this post honey moon period, especially difficult. I don't have a best friend here, or real family members. And when I just want to go chill with another person who is close to me or be with close friends, I can't. In the beginning everything is exciting and going quickly, but then one gets hit with the fact that there isn't the comfortable network of people.

My reaction to this realization though is that I dont want to need another person to make me feel at home. And that is the "feeling at home" that I realized was on my mind. The type of feeling at home that is an internal feeling at home, which is more just a personal contentness. To feel ok just being you and comfortable with what you're doing.

Some one might think its unreasonable to not want to rely on another person to make me feel at home, but allow me to explain. Of course people are important in life, and we are social creatures who want to make connections. But I don't want to have to RELY on someone else to make me feel comfortable being me and doing what I'm doing. Of course I will rely on people all the time through out my life, but when nothing is wrong I hope I can just be good on my own. If I'm not relying on someone to give me oxygen in a hospital, or my sister to help me through a tough time, or any other situation that I can't handle on my own, I want to be an indepedent person who can just be herself in Buenos Aires or any other city I decide to plant myself. I guess what will make me comfortable and internally "at home" is just getting to know myself better. I feel more comfortable when I know what my interests or values are, what types of things I'd like ot try, what I've learned is difficult for me or makes me uncomfortable. All of these sorts of questinos and answers are helpful ot ponder. Of course I learn more about myself all the time and I don't expect to know everything ever, just be honest with myself to know more.

After asking myself some of these questions and thinking about the answers up on the terraze (in the light of a full moon none the less) I started to feel much better. I was thinking afterwards that this surely is the sort of conflict that the program is talking about when they say that students tend to have a slump in their trip. It's when you start feeling that this is longer than a vacation and that you don't have many comforts or connectinos with people that you are used to. You can't just go to your best friend to distract you from thinking about what you want to do here in BA and why. That's some hard stuff to grapple. And on top of it all, I even lucked out cause I have a really good friend here, Jesus (his name, not the religious figure) who I feel like I can go to and talk about anything really deep. I'm sure there are lots of students that don't even have that, because it is a rarety to have that after just one month of doing turisty things together. So anyways, IES was right, there are definitely ups and downs during this study about experience that I know see differently her in BA from how I saw them in Spain since my boyfriend isn't around to make things easier.

Every day is getting better because I've thought about these things and on top of that my external "home" is developing more and more. I met up with a girl I talk with to improve our languages (she's learning english while I leanr spanish) and then I just talked with my host mom for about an hour. As these relationships develop I feel more comfortable that I can just walk out of my room and talk with my family here like I do back home, or write an email to ask a friend to hang out this week. So both my external home and my internal home are developing. And that makes me feel better.

That's it for now, hasta luego,
Kati