You know, I thought blogging would be way easier than this while studying/traveling abroad. Turns out… there are a lot more things I’d rather be doing than sitting behind a computer screen. Luckily for my blog, that is all I have been doing the past three days while I’ve been immersed in the painful final project mode. For those who are unaware, I am doing my final independent study project on the discrimination agains women in the slum (Villa 31) of Buenos Aires focusing mainly on the fight for equal housing, housing rights and in general, gender discrimination in the context of a slum. This project has semi consumed my life for the past couple weeks meeting with NGO workers, going to english classes in the Villa, interviewing women, spanish tutoring… etc. It has been exciting, so cool and so so rewarding.
There are so many times when my life/blog here would have been so much better if I had created a twitter abroad, you know? (for example) To recap the past 3 ish weeks since we’ve last spoke… I am going to tweet what has occurred.
Final exams while studying abroad are officially impossible #betterthingstodowithmytime.
3 phones, 3 months. #stoplosingyourphone
Falling leaves, scarves and sweaters, while speaking spanish… weird. #it’sfallinargentina
Argentina passed the gender identity law, so why not go to a transgender “sex” show #goargentina
Teatro Colon has the best acoustics i’ve ever heard in my life #Symphony
The only thing that really matters is Chorizo #igainedthestudyabroad….15.
…I guess I’m just bad at reporting my life. Anyway, as I’m rounding the bases of my final thesis, stuck in cafés, drinking WAY toooo much coffee and eating way too many medialunas, I’m realizing all the things I have left to do in this country, let alone city. As summer became fall and as fall is slowly winding into winter, I am really realizing my semester abroad is quickly coming to an end. Its hard to speak those words allowed because the past four months have been the most interesting past four months of my life, and not just because I have been planted in Buenos Aires, but because my mind has been stretched beyond belief and my heart and emotions have been tested multiple times. Living abroad has been hard at times, but all the strength I’ve acquired along the way has really forced me to look introspectively into my life.
Heres some tools I clearly needed to learn in my life… Organize, Slow down, Green space is important for the mind, live life ONLY for yourself, and never ever mistake the world for a small place because it has it’s ways of proving that it is and always will dominate.
Anyway, in the next two weeks I will try my hardest to be better about this blog… I didn’t mean to neglect it but I have started to feel less like I was traveling and more like I was living here. Although, daily I am reminded that I am and will always be a foreigner..when I walk into a store and the owner comes up to me and asks if it would be better if she spoke in english (i obviously demand her to speak in castellano), the fact that I REALLY haven’t figured out how to dodge the dog shit that is scattered everywhere on the side walks, How I still cringe every time I cross the train tracks, how I still have to consult my guia t and get nervous every. single. time. i get on a bus (I never know if I am going the right way), I still divide every cost by 4…How everyone I meet asks me where I am from (I usually mix it up and say somewhere random… because why not?) and you know… I will forever be.. de los estados unidos. So every time I’ve stepped in dog poop (averaging out at once a week) and every time I get lost… I am reminded to stop. breath. and get over it, there are worse things in life.
I’ll keep you updated… If not? US of A, I’m comin’ atcha in two weeks, a new person, a fueled up energy and sense for exploration, and a new discovered patience for the smallest things in life.
I just want to take the next two weeks REAL slow, because I know leaving here… for me… will be a sad time.
