When people heard I was going to study in Madrid, most
said… “You will have the time of your life!”, “Your Spanish will be so good
when your return!”, “Madrid is a beautiful city!” All true but what some people
forgot to mention is how difficult this experience might be. Looking
back, maybe some people did mention it and I just wasn't listening closely
enough due to all of the excitement. Over the course of my 2 week residence
here I have experienced challenges I had not anticipated. And it seemed like
every time I fixed one thing, something else went wrong or not according to
plan. It was a perpetual cycle of things just, not going my way. Resulting in stress
overload for me! If there are two things I don’t handle well, they are
stress and unanticipated change. Somehow, over the years, I have become
what people call, let me say, a "planner." Most of the time my
planning, isn’t a bad thing. It makes me a really good student and a great
organizer of events but sometimes, I forget that life charts its own course. In
other words, life just does not always go your way. My computer, my debit card,
my course assignments and completion of my final project at my home university
are just among some of the things I didn’t plan on not working in Madrid. In a
weird way, now that those problems are almost all fixed, I am kind of glad that
these problems happened to me. Dealing with all this stress and unanticipated
change made me realize that I need to learn to go with the flow sometimes, or as
I said in my last post, "tranquilizarme." because that is what
this experience is really all about. It’s about learning and growing from these
experiences and being pushed out of your comfort zone. In fact, that’s why I
came to Madrid, to make unforgettable memories and to grow as a person. I
definitely came to the right place to learn to take things with a grain of
salt! Madrileños are the calmest and most relaxed people I have ever come
across. In the face of adversity they often say "tranquila," and "tenga
fe" (have faith) that everything will be resolved. Their positive outlook on
everything has been inspiring. I have learned so
much from this experience already. Who knows maybe another issue lurks around
the corner but for now I’m ready to approach whatever it is in Madrileño
fashion. So much more I can say but for now, Chao!
