First I was Afraid, I was petrified . . .

Ciao!

Thought I'd follow the song theme this week. Anyways, this will have to be short as I'm running out of time today. The Internet wasn't working at school earlier, and then we had a really bad storm. First time I've seen lightning and heard really bad thunder. The power at our place was knocked out for 10 minutes! Anyways, I wanted to just write some random things about what I've learned on my trip. After all, my blog's subtitle is about what I've learned along the way.

I have to admit that my first week here, I was convinced I wouldn't survive three months here. I did. Successfully, and I'm so proud of myself for sticking it out past that first week or so. And what do you know, I actually enjoyed it! :) Along the way, I also learned a lot:

I think after this trip, I will be even more willing to try new things. I've always been outgoing, but this was definitely out of my comfort zone. I've also gained some skills at adapting to new surroundings. I think I'll be able to be more flexible and adaptable in the future, as well.

I've learned to look at things in a different and new way, from someone else's perspective. I've always been fortunate to be able to do that to some extent through journalism, but experiencing a completely different culture is really eye-opening.

I think the biggest accomplishment is learning to rely more on myself. Again, I've always been an independent person, but I've also been a people person, and one who relied heavily on my friends and family for support. While I've had a wonderful network of friends and family back home to e-mail with and occasionally talk with on the phone, it's not the same. I like having someone in the room next to me, or just across town, or even only two hours away back in Atlanta. When I started feeling homesick or overwhelmed, sure I called occasionally, but for the most part, I had to learn to comfort myself.

Lastly, I think on some level I realized what things are most important to me. As I've stated over and over, everything must be simplified here because of my lack of language skills. There were times when it was easier for me to just not explain something because it would take too much time or I just didn't know how to explain it. But for the things that really mattered, I made sure I understood what words to use. I looked up and memorized sentence structures to describe my friends, family, and Auburn. I made sure I knew how to explain Teach for America and my job with them. I could tell someone things that I really liked - tennis, piano, singing, music. Interestingly enough, I never got around to talking about past jobs at newspapers . . .I'm not quite sure what this means, but on some level I think it means those just weren't as important to me as the things I did learn to say. Maybe. In fact, the only thing I could say about newspapers was that I studied journalism and worked at the student newspaper. I also could say exactly what kind of articles I liked to write. That was about the extent of my explanation.

Anyways, the school is closing. I'll get on Monday for one last post! :) Have a great weekend!