Pre-Departure Blog

Grateful for where I’m at, excited for where I’m going!

Hello and welcome to my first Blog post ever! I am so excited to begin this journey abroad in Barcelona, Spain. I have always had a passion for traveling. My parents were both born and raised in Mexico and our family often visits and I love going there! I have always had the dream to travel across the world and be exposed to the different cultures of Spanish, as there is a lot.

I am originally from Arizona and all my life has been around the Hispanic culture. I spoke Spanish at home and loved being bilingual. One of the reason as to why I picked Spain as my country of choice was definitely for me to practice my Spanish more. You see, all my life I spoke Spanish until I started attending school where it is all taught in English of course. My Spanish began to suffer because I would speak English more consistently. Although I am still fluent in the Spanish language for both written and oral work, I am not nearly where I want to be at for my confidence to speak. What once was a very confident and talkative Spanish speaker, has turned into a more timid and insecure speaker. I really want to submerge myself in the Spanish culture so that hopefully when I arrive back to Arizona I will be more equipped to further extend my Spanish dialect.

I also as a side goal would like to experience even a glimpse of what my parents had to face when they moved from Mexico to the United States with absolutely nothing and no guarantee to anything. I believe that is the beauty to growth, you have to go through life to experience the good parts. Nothing in life is easy, and I think a lot of people know that but only a few overcome it. Spain will definitely be a culture shock, but I will learn to appreciate the struggles my parents had to face.

What I would like my Blogs to consist of is just my true emotions to experiencing new things as I travel around Europe. So far I will be studying in Barcelona and working through an internship called “wifitakeaway”. As a major in both Business and Spanish I will be challenged with both the business and language aspect which I am eager to learn from. As a first generation student and a minority I think it is very important for me to be as real and raw with my audience. Letting them know what my fears are, what I am excited for, what I wish I knew before, what I would do or not do again, etc.

This whole trip will push me so far from my comfort zone as I really have never done anything like this alone. I hope to grow and become independent. I hope to find myself because without discomfort there is no growth. I will come back to Arizona a whole new person and I am a little scared but more excited to be given such a great opportunity. I will soon be figuring things out by myself and venturing off into the night life of Barcelona. One thing that has always stuck to me is that time flies by. Everything in life comes to an end, and it is up to us to make the most of it.

Everything about my trip is a first and new experience for me and that is why I think these blogs will be so valuable to my audience. I will to blogging about how my weeks has been going, what I have been doing, and how does it feel to live with a host family. I hope to gain a lot from this experience and grow not only as a student but as an individual. My future career is a little blurry at the moment which causes me to be really anxious, but with the help of my mentors and this program, I hope to have it cleared at some point. Thank you, and enjoy my next few blogs. See you soon.

Thalia.