algo de español

Es interesante ver cómo han desarollado mis pensamientos, puesto que antes pensaba siempre en ingles, y ahora pienso una mezcla, pero con cada día que pase acá en Bolivia después de estar en España, mi mente suele volver a español, a lo menos para las cosas sencillas. Pero tan pronto como quiera decir algo un poco más complicado, algo que requiera vocabulario más complejo, me fallan las palabras y me dejan una gringa sin poder expresarse.

Pero el otro día, fui a una cena, invitada por una Couchsurfer a quien le había invitado otro Couchsurfer, y rodeada por gente hablando inglés (la mayoría de los asistentes de la cena era americana, británcia, o canadense), me sintía confundida y extraña por estar en la companía de tanta gente hablando inglés. Me había acostumbrado estar en la companía de otros extranjeros o españoles a lo menos, y los dos días que pasé en casa (osea, en los EEUU) estaba con mis padres, hablando coreano.

Ya sé que mi español tiene muchos rastros de inglés, y no me hace más facil aprender español cuando estoy confundiéndome todos los días con los vosotros (que usaba en España) y los ustedes (que usa el resto del mundo hispanohablante). Pero bueno, intento e intentaré: dale pues.  

happy birthday, america! i hope you have a great one, i miss you!

...or so would go my facebook post to the U.S. of A. if she had her very own facebook profile and we were friends on facebook.

having been away from my country for the past three 4th of julys, it's become sort of customary to good-naturedly take the jibes that inevitably arrive with being an american citizen abroad, particularly in recent times with recent developments in the eric snowden fiasco, which has led to a convention of the presidents of bolivia, venezuela, ecuador, argentia, and uruguay which appears to be taking place around the corner of the block where i am living for the summer. given the number of armed personnel lounging casually outside the swankiest hotel in town, i think that it wouldn't be too far crazy to guess that some important people might be staying there, or meeting there.

amidst all this, i've gotten an email from the consulate in la paz regretfully informing me that their 4th of july celebration scheduled for this weekend has been postponed to another date TBD. if the U.S. ambassador is not kicked out along with (potentially) the ambassadors from spain, france, italy, and portugal, then perhaps the fireworks and bbq may be rescheduled sometime in the near future.

to be a U.S. citizen abroad, and particularly to be american and in bolivia at this time is an interesting thing.

i hold a mixture of feelings for my home country, land of my birth and citizenship, where i have lived officially for all my life. in a lot of ways, i am an american through and through. in a lot of other ways, though, i don't know how to define myself, and sometimes to call myself american is a shame, is a stigma. more often than not, i am in a state of mild frustrating and embarrassment due to my country, torn between being fed up with the actions of the government which has been giving the nation such a bad rep throughout the world, and being annoyed by the accusations and stereotypes that come with "your country" and "your people" and "oh yeah, americans".

i guess it's not so bad for me since people always assume i'm from china or japan anyways, so even when i tell them i'm from the united states they tend to ignore it and ask again where i am 'really' from.

a friend's facebook status that i saw earlier said that today is a day to celebrate america's ideals, not reality, and i found that really meaningful. although my country may be kind of that big asshole that everybody loves to hate, the usa was still founded upon a set of ideals which are still valued universally. i have some more thoughts to share on this in the future.
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july 5th update:
it looks like the bolivian president is threatening to close down the U.S. embassy in bolivia. whether this will actually happen or not, i'm not certain, but if he should pull through with his threat, i wonder what will be the repercussions... personally, locally, and internationally.

updates to come.

(photo from a parallel article by the guardian) 

after 6 months in spain and 1 week in bolivia...

i was talking to my mom on the phone (in korean) and she asked me something and i replied that i didn't know, only i replied in spanish. oops? i think she understood me anyways, although i did repeat myself in korean as soon as i realized that i had said it in spanish instead of the language of the conversation... #brainconfusion #tongueconfusion? 

and i can't stay away.

i'm back. after a 6 month long hiatus following that long amount of time without any updates (although i did try to keep a semblance of a blog on tumblr documenting my adventures in spain (which i also kind of failed), i'm back. well, actually, this time i am in bolivia. after having begun this blog in highschool, picking it back up for my travels in oman, and some of my time in rwanda, i am now in bolivia and trying yet once more. something about humans, right? we try again and again and again, and no matter how many times we fail, we still think that the next time, it just might succeed. so here goes.

By the end of this summer I will have lived on 5 continents in 3 three years. North America, Middle East (Asia), Africa, Europe, and finally, after wanting to come here for so long, South America. It sounds exhausting, and to be a bit honest, it is. I've been in Bolivia for 3 days now, and of course part of the reason why I am so tired of traveling and everything is because I've only just arrived and haven't had much opportunity to settle in. One week ago, I was still in Spain, having just left the city where I lived for 5 months. Less than a week ago, I was back in the States, catching up on precious time with my parents and my sister, devouring Korean food and un/re-packing my suitcases for my next trip. 5 days ago, I got on a plane, and more than 30 hours later, I finally landed in Cochabamba, the city where I will be spending the next [now] 8.5 weeks. Wireless connection in the apartment has been non-existent until a few hours ago, and thus time has crawled a bit. It's hard to believe that it is only Wednesday.

First impressions: Cochabamba does not call itself the city of everlasting spring for no reason - even though the Bolivians here bundle up in jackets and scarves and down jackets, the temperature outside is still pretty warm by my standards, at least til way late at night/early in the morning. It rarely rains, which is more than I can say about Santander (if anybody has ever visited Santander, particularly in a season not summer, they will understand perfectly), so there is not much to complain about there. I honestly don't feel like I have had the time nor opportunity nor energy to get out and explore the city. I have walked around a bit, here and there, and have eaten at a few different places and tried a few different Bolivian foods, but I don't know if my brain just hasn't processed all this and told me "this is worth blogging about!" or if details are too tedious to include at the moment, but I don't know what to say at the moment about Cochabamba other than that the weather is nice. Which, I am fully aware, is possibly one of the worst responses ever given in the history of mankind.

Another note: my co-intern and I are keeping a blog of our trav[ai]ls through Bolivia, which I think should be better/more regularly maintained. In any case, I have the feeling that the majority of my contributions to that particular blog will be entertaining and/or pretty and/or moving photos. Here I will try to keep my dedicated readership updated with some more meat. Pues nada, i think that's all for now. 

3 DAYS.

In 3 days (well actually, two to be more accurate), I will be on an airplane. Again. Flying over the Atlantic. Again. You'd think that by now I'd have wisened up and picked one airline to stick to so that I could get super nice membership/frequent traveler benefits.

Anyways.

In 3 days, I will be traveling to Spain. España. Espagne. 스페인. Whatever you want to call it, I'm studying abroad for the semester and I am flying in three days. I'm slightly terrified. Inordinately excited. Thrilled, anxious, a bit sad, nervous, stressed, exhilarated. So many words that thesaurus.com is pretty inadequate for tonight.

I've dreamt of studying abroad since I was a freshman in high school, wanting to get out of my mundane suburban lifestyle and out of the house and away from home and on my own and somewhere exotic and refreshing and breathtakingly new. When I first heard of the United World College, I thought it would be my chance to go abroad. I went to New Mexico. It was still quite a different experience, being across the country and in a whole new environment, but still not abroad. When I was choosing where to attend university, I came within a split decision to studying at a university overseas. I am now in New Jersey. Closer to home than before, although the decision to attend a university with the resources that it has has paid off through the opportunities I have had to travel to new countries for summer internships. However, it's still different from studying abroad. I always hoped in the back of my mind that I could go to a country like Spain to study, although the more my academic track deviated away from languages and international relations and such the smaller my hopes of studying in Spain dwindled. And then Cantabria happened. The engineering department at my school forged an exchange program contract with the Unviversity of Cantabria last April, and even before they had finished signing all the documents, I began planning out how to study there.

Fast forward 9 months or so, and I am three days away from Spain. Visa is in order. Finals have been completed. I have a place to stay. I still have one assignment to turn in, but I'm trying not to let that concern me. Part of me is still aching from the goodbyes I've said over the past few days - particularly to my senior friends whose last semesters I will be missing out on, and whose graduations I will be unable to attend. Part of me is terrified - I've never been away from home for so long, nor will I have been abroad for so long before. I don't plan to be back in the States before late August or early September, although that's just more determined wishing rather than concrete plans. And most of me is excited - I've been dreaming, hoping, waiting for this opportunity for years, and it's finally come true. I don't have too many big dreams in life, but studying abroad was one of them, and let me tell you - dreams are worth dreaming, if only just for the one or two that might come true in your lifetime. Of course, here is my cue to knock on wood that I don't end up having a miserable experience abroad.

Well, 3 days to go. Tonight I'll reflect some more. Tomorrow I'll go shopping and start figuring out what can fit into my suitcase, as well as meet up with another friend for yet another temporary goodbye. Geez, it feels like I'm leaving forever.

My first stop: Madrid! I wish I had a nice camera I could take with me for some high-quality photos. I guess my iPhone will have to make do...