First day of Class (no really, I had school today)

Knowing something logically is very different from knowing something intuitively, personally, emotionally.  For example, I knew (logically) that going to live in another country, even for a relatively short period of time, would be difficult.  However, I did not know (emotionally) that going to live in a different country would be difficult.  Even in as metropolitan of a city of Santiago, it seriously feels like I just moved out of mom and dad’s house for the first time and am learning how to live on my own.  Again.  And that sucks.  On top of that, with the start of my IDELT course today, part of me also feels like a terrified freshman on his first day at the university.  Here again, logic diverges from emotion: I know I can do this, having done it before and in far worse circumstances…but can I really do this?  I emotionally digress.

The BridgeChile language institute is a very nice place; albeit small, but welcoming, clean, and equipped with every amenity that a lonely, yuppy trainee-teacher could want (and for those who want to grammar-Nazi me and point out the improperly used semi-colon I used while training to teach proper English grammar can shove it really far up there).  The group of people with whom I will spend 40 hours a week for the next four weeks consists of four people, including myself, plus our trainer.  Ordinarily, I would be very excited for a small class size like this…except that they are all women.  Yes, four weeks in a small room with five women every day and all day.  I can almost feel the eggshells crunching underneath my shoes.  Realistically, though, each of the other three students is in the exact same position that I am in:  Far away from home, brand new to city, and about to be under far more stress that we currently are.  For this reason, I expect we will become fast friends by the end of our course.  Assuming I am still alive by the end of the course.

Despite all of these minor (yet damned frustrating) trials, I often find myself hazily thinking that I almost can’t believe how amazing this whole deal is.  My dad will share the sentiment, fondly I hope, about living the urban life.  I live in a beautiful home in a safe neighborhood that is within walking distance to the Metro 1 line (Santiago’s equivalent to Boston’s T) into downtown, within walking distance to the grocery store, to the shopping mall, to everything.  I commute for 30 minutes in the morning and evening, and never once on this commute do I sit down, unless there happens to be a free seat in that subway car.  I found a bodybuilding gym that’s 4 blocks from the institute and immediately off the Metro.  For a boy who grew up in a city that is made up entirely of suburb and no actual “city” to speak of, this is something that I thought only existed on How I Met Your Mother.  Finally seeing for myself that it is real has inspired me in a way that nothing else has:  if I’m willing to be afraid and try challenging myself, maybe these dreams that I’ve had since starting college could be reality. 

One dream has already started to become a reality since coming here.  My Spanish is becoming second nature, something that I just do without giving much thought to it.  Oh sure, there are still plenty of times where I hit a wall and have to stop entirely to just focus silently on the message that I’m trying to send.  But in daily retrospect, I am distinguishing continually less between my conversations in English and my conversations in Spanish.  It’s all just talking. 

So these are my thoughts and current events.  Having postponed homework to bring you all this, I should actually start challenging myself and stop the talk.  Stay tuned.