Tengo Una Familia!!!

After all of my complaining and stressing and waiting...and waiting...and waiting, I FINALLY HAVE A HOST FAMILY!!!

I found out this morning about 4am. I haven't been able to talk to them, but I do have names, ages, and an address - which is all I could ask for at this point.

I will be living with the Correa family. There is my host mom, Eva (who is 38) and her two boys Javier (who is 8) and Pablo (who is 5). They live in a residential suburban area just outside of the city. (I google stalked the address, and the area looks very nice!) They don't have any pets and no one in the home smokes (yay!!!! lungs!!!!) and I will also have my own room! Yeah!!

Commute wise, the home is in a wonderful location. I will be about 10 minutes from my college by metro (and probably a little shorter than that by bus), and the center of the city is only a half hour metro ride away.

Perfect =D

Insert Frustration Here

I leave on Sunday and I still have no idea where or who I will be living with. Frankly, it's pissing me off now. According to USAC, they can't give us any info on our housing assignments until closer to our departure because there may be last minute changes and whatnot - now, I can believe that there could have been some changes a few months ago when they were still looking for housing for everyone, but with only 5 days to go there better not be any changes. Seriously. Ugh - aren't these things kind of arranged by now? They should be. And me being me, I have a list of all the reasons why they can't tell me about my family.

1. No one wanted me - that's right it's just like in elementary school gym class when you had to choose teams and everyone else got chosen but you, same feeling. Rejected.
2. USAC forgot about me - yup, I'm gonna have to live like a hobo and beg for money and someone to take me in. Maybe I'll take up with the gypsies...
3. Maybe they don't want me to know about them - too many skeletons in the closet perhaps...

Ok, all joking-ness aside, I really am frustrated that I don't know a thing about them. Like what am I supposed to do, show up on their doorstep and yell, "Surprise! It's a girl!"? I really would have liked to have been able to email them and establish a relationship with these people before I have to move in and share a life with complete strangers.

USAC as a whole is really just making me angry. How I wish I could have done this in high school, I feel like they care about you so much more. I haven't gotten a single update from USAC in over a month. You would think as the time for you to leave gets closer they would have more contact with you, not less. It feels like they basically just took my money and said, "Ok, see ya. Have fun figuring it out on your own". 

Maybe I'm looking at this differently than most people that study abroad in college. I don't care to leave the country and go somewhere where the drinking age is 16 and go to the bars and party every night. I actually want to go and learn something. I want to be immersed in the culture and "normal" life - not the "I'm a crazy college student on my own in Europe and can do whatever the hell I want" life. (I mean hello, have you seen the movie "Taken"? Yeah, that didn't end well now did it.) 

Ugh, long store short - having a family that treats me as part of the family is important to me. It's important for me to have a good relationship with them, and right now I have nothing - no names, no ages, no address. Sigh...USAC fails epically on this factor.

Lesson of the day, go in high school, while you're still a minor and someone has to be responsible for you.

This Is The Moment!

For months now people have been asking me why I am going to Spain, why am I a Spanish major, why don't I just do the "normal" pre-med biology or chemistry track. And for months, I haven't really had a good answer for them. I'd say, "I thought I'd be different" or "I really just don't like biology". And yes, while both of these statements are true, they really aren't the good, solid answer that I wanted.

This trip started out as a way for me to get away from where I'm from and was a chance to do something I don't think I'll ever really have the opportunity to do again, but today something really hit me.

For everyone staying here in town, it was the first day of classes at UT. Now, me being me, I e-mailed my advisor a couple months ago and asked if I could sit in on one of her spanish classes for a few days, just to kind of refresh before I leave. So this morning as my Facebook newsfeed is blowing up with statuses about how no one wants to go back to school, I was excited. Here I am with 2 weeks left of summer vacation, and I'm voluntarily going to a class that I'm not even enrolled in. Why, you ask? Because I LOVE THIS LANGUAGE!

Learning Spanish has been something I've wanted for as long as I can remember, but it never really hit me until this morning that I have a huge passion for what I am doing. Now, by no means does that mean I'm changing my career path or what I want to do with my life. I still want to be what I've wanted to be since I was 3 years old - an emergency medicine physician. But, I love the path that my life has taken.

Being able to go to Spain is going to be incredible. While I am nervous and a bit scared to leave behind everything I know, I'm excited to just dive in to a new language and culture. There's so much to be said for being completely immersed in it rather than just sitting in a classroom reading out of a book (no offense to all of my spanish teachers over the years).

The group I'll be going with has a Facebook group - just so we can all talk and ask questions and get to know each other, you know the normal stuff. Any who, earlier today someone posted that they were stressing so much over not knowing where they are living yet. (YES! Oh my goodness USAC, I can't stand not knowing where I'm living, or who it's with. You need to tell us more than a few days before we leave!!!) And someone else commented that they really hope the students that chose to live with host families get to have USAC roomies...ok, first off - everyone is different and has different preferences about what they would like their host family to be like. Second - when we applied for housing we had some options that we could select about these preferences. While there's no guarantee that you will get them, they try. Now, me on the other hand...I applied to not live with fellow study abroad students and to have a family that didn't speak English. There's a reason I'm going to Spain, and you can bet that I am going to make the most of it and accomplish the goals I have.

Here's my goal - when I come back from Spain, I want to speak fluently.

For this to happen, honestly I'm planning on cutting most of English out of my life. (I mean with the exception of talking to my family and friends back here in the states) But really, once my plane lands, there will be no more English. Call me crazy, but I really think that's the best way - no english music, no english books or TV shows, solomente español.

And here's the best part, I love it! And I'm excited to do this. This is something I've dreamed of my whole life and I finally have the chance to make this dream a reality.