A few thoughts...

Well, before coming here there were several fears I had about this whole ‘living in a foreign land’ concept. For my own personal reflection, here’s a list of them.

1. That because of my inability to express myself, no one here would actually ever see my real personality. Sure, they might get to know me, but the me that they’re getting to know would be a rather shallow perspective because I’m limited by my ability to communicate.

1 (b). The same phenomena could also happen in reverse. That is, I might think I understand what’s going on and think I understand the people I’m talking to, but in fact my comprehension level of the language is so poor that I’m really missing a lot of information. This has the ability to be a problem on pretty much every level - - personal, school, getting directions to or from a location … pretty much anything, really.

2. That I will appear to be a complete freaking idiot because my vocabulary and grammar are so poor, and people will think I’m stupid.

3. That I will fail my classes (especially biology ones).

4. That the people here won’t ‘get’ sarcasm, which is pretty much my only style of humor, and because of this they wouldn’t ‘get’ me either. This fear was prompted by an experience of Anne’s, or rather an experience of her brother’s. Apparently he went to Germany and studied/worked there for about a year, and he had a kind of difficult time making friends with any Germans because he has a very sarcastic sense of humor and rather than being entertained by his witty comments they were just offended and annoyed. So far it hasn’t been a problem here.

5. That I wouldn’t like my host family - I was especially concerned that I wouldn’t like my host brother, or that he would be absolutely no fun, which would be a super bummer since he’s kind of my best chance at a guide to the city and meeting people. Luckily, this hasn’t been a problem at all. I really enjoy my family, and Felipe has been great about helping me out with absolutely anything.

--y-- I’ll add to this as I think of other things –there certainly are more, but it’s difficult to think of them until a situation arises which brings them to mind.