A year in review, only one week left!

A strange thing happened this morning as I was about to get in the shower, my bracelet that says “Lorena” broke and fell off. Even though not many people call me that anymore like in the beginning, I’d been wearing that bracelet pretty much the whole year I’ve been here, and now, less then a week before I go home, it falls off. I cannot believe I have come to this point in my study abroad experience. This year has been so incredible and it is so crazy to think that this journey is coming to a close. The year has had so many distint chapters and ups and downs and although I feel like I still have a lot more to reflect on from this past year, it is amazing to me that I can see clearly how much I have changed, grown and learned. Thinking about one year ago when I was getting ready to come to Chile for the experience of a life time I had no idea what I was getting into, the people I would meet, the places I would see, and the experiences I would have. I was just so open to everything and anything that could come my way. I got to Chile, and I was scared and nervous, but I was recieved so welcomely by my host family, our study abroad directors and the 40 other EAP students who were just as scard and nervous as I was. We all came here not knowing anything but eachother with this one aspect of our lives, of coming to Chile, we were bonded so strongly and our common characteristics of loving the spanish language, traveling, new experiences and adventuring helped us to make really good friends within the group. I am so greatful for the other UC people who came to Chile, because they brought a small bit of comfort, of home. After the first month flew by, my first day at my new University had arrived. I will never forget how scary it was, learning a new big campus, listening to the lectures in Spanish while trying my hardest to follow along and take good notes (That definitely had to come with practice!), and just trying to meet and talk to people in my classes. During that semester I had the opportunity to travel all around South America, alot and just see so many different incredible places while bonding with certain people I’d met here. We would also just go on adventures exploring around Santiago and go out on the weekends and it seemed like every minute was full of new and exciting things! It was somewhere in my first few months that I decided to stay for the year in order to really experience real life here where everything isn’t so new and exciting, and do better in my classes, work on my Spanish skills and meet more people from Chile to learn more about them and the culture. On my summer break (December to March) I had the opportunity to go to Raul Marin Balmaceda in the Chilean Patagonia and live and work with a family for 2 months. If anyone asks me what my best experience in Chile was, I would hands down say that two months. I was in the most beautiful place and I was basically living my childhood dream of living in the middle of nowhere, riding horses, star gazing, being on the water, and having lots of family time. I got to know this very caring family really well and it was in Raul Marin is where I feel like my Spanish exponentially grew the most. After that it was a few more summer travels with my Dad and then to start the real test, and most internally challenging part of the whole experience for me: my last semester. In my last 3 months I got very involved at school and outside of school to keep myself as busy as possible, I took a heavier load of classes, and moved out on my own. The last semester was difficult but in ways completely different from what was challenging first semester because the newness of everything started to fade, and the homesickness sunk in, on top of that my best friends from the program now had gone. Although it has been hard, this last chunk, I don’t regret staying even one bit because the amount that I have learned is so great and I feel like it has help me to become a stronger person and I know that when I am done I will feel so proud of what I have accomplished for myself and like I can do anything.

Coming to Chile I had thought before about how different the world was in other places and how much one person’s life experiences vary from anothers, but for me that didn’t really sink and become real until I came here and I tried to put myself in another shoes for a year. I know that there are other places on this planet that are a lot more different then home then Chile is, but it still has been a very interesting and rewarding experience. I have had the opportunity to see the world from another perspective, by becoming a member of another society. It is so crazy to see how much I have learned about Chile and the people in Chile over my year here and to think about what my perspective was and how it has changed at different points in my experience. I’m sure if I was to stay here longer my perception would continue to transform even more to understand that reality that Chileans live everyday and our born into. One of the advantages of being an outsider is that I have been able to experience many different realities of Chile in terms of living in different places, from working in a really poor town to studying at a top University to living in one of the most secluded places in the world. I have been able to form my perception from the accumulation of many different perspectives and ways of life. I think it is going to be really interesting to go back home and see California, at least for a short while, from the outsiders perspective.

In addition to a new perspective of the world and the realities that people live, I feel like I have gained a lot of independence, self-confidence, and strength as a person living outside of my comfort zone and having to really establish myself in a new place. Of course I had many handicaps such as skype, and friends from California, but I feel like this has really been an accomplishment for me and helped me to grow as a person. I also think that a lot of things that I believe, certain values, and aspects of my identity that were internalized and fixed have been challenged by being here and out of my context at home because I have been able question them and see what I really do value and what things I may have just thought or believed to be true because that is what my society and the people around me believed. It is kind of a complex process, but basically I feel like I have been able to learn a lot more about myself here as I have been able to meet new people who were plucked out of their context (friends who are foreigners) at home and also people who live here and learn about their values in life.

I am so grateful to have had this experience abroad, and have so much to be thankful for, mostly from my parents and my support from home to allow me to have this selfish experience because I know without them I wouldn’t have been able to go through with it or had the opportunity. I just hope that I am able to give back from all that I have learned to my family and friends, to EAP, to Chile, to California, to my Chilean families, etc. so I can in someway repay the people who have made this experience amazing for me. It has been one of the most valuable experiences of my life both from all that I have learned and just all of the exciting and fun times I have had and one that I will never, ever forget.

See you June 26th Fresno :D