May 28th
In conversation with Bethany today, I was questioning the validity of having come here, because it wasn't really a choice I made actively or a product of my own goals. She said, "But you shouldn't even think about that, because if you hadn't been here, I would have died four months ago." It's really true, we've relied on each other so much this year. I've relied on Julie too, but in different ways. In less this-year-specific ways.
We talked about Jenny's reactions to exchange-student-ship in comparison to ours, which is a topic we actually spend a significant chunk of time on in basically ALL of our assessing-everything conversations. Not that I'm technically an exchange-student, but the fact that one of our (former?) good friends has delved so deeply into the typical exchange student mentality is just so disconcerting. And somehow threatening, I guess, because she's become (as far as I can tell) exactly the kind of American that I'm afraid every European sees in me. For awhile now I've realized that I assess the things I say in conversation to make sure I haven't somehow encouraged people to think that of me. I'm not even sure how to define it, whatever it is I'm afraid people will think: a wow-I-can-smoke-pot-legally-here-so-I-think-I-will attitude, a certain kind of ignorance that I can't quite define but that I would hate for anyone to associate with me -- characterized by that classic gung-ho attitude towards internationalism, multiculturalism, etc. etc. I don' mean I'm afraid they'll assume I'm an ignorant American -- I got over that a long time ago, and if the people I meet assume that, it's not because of anything I've projected. I mean: I don't want to be the American at the party, deliberately out for cultural enrichment and, then, a whole lot of alcohol and drugs. And that's who she is. That's what Europe has made her.
I'm not saying I've done more valuable things with my year (I SO have no idea on that front), but I certainly put myself in a different category, attitude-wise. And she says she's afraid of being condescending to Americans when she gets back. She has said that. I can't go into, now, the various levels on which this just makes me SO angry.
But this isn't tirade-on-Jenny time.
I had a thought, today: coming here has narrowed the world for me instead of broadening it. I don't think this is something "good" or "bad," it's just a truth. I feel more and more confined by my culture -- and I'm not even saying America, I'm limiting this to region -- the more people I meet. (The other side of this is that I appreciate the nuances of these things more, the nuances of how I arrived at this cultural consciousness.) I feel the presence of vast, unbridgeable gaps between people who speak different languages, and I'm serious, they're huge. And whenever I talk about this part of the experience, "fatigue" is the first word that I use. It's just tiring, to even think about.
We were looking at Jana's photo album tonight (somehow she's the only person in the WORLD who can take good pictures of me, btw), and there are pictures of us smoking at my house in, I don't know, November. In an unconscious misjudgement of...everything, I wore my dad's Heineken sweatshirt that night. All I could think was, if I were looking at this picture as someone else (I guess I mean a European), I would assume and then assume and then assume.
It's upsetting to think how careful you have to be with the impressions you make. Or somehow learn not to care.
We talked about Jenny's reactions to exchange-student-ship in comparison to ours, which is a topic we actually spend a significant chunk of time on in basically ALL of our assessing-everything conversations. Not that I'm technically an exchange-student, but the fact that one of our (former?) good friends has delved so deeply into the typical exchange student mentality is just so disconcerting. And somehow threatening, I guess, because she's become (as far as I can tell) exactly the kind of American that I'm afraid every European sees in me. For awhile now I've realized that I assess the things I say in conversation to make sure I haven't somehow encouraged people to think that of me. I'm not even sure how to define it, whatever it is I'm afraid people will think: a wow-I-can-smoke-pot-legally-here-so-I-think-I-will attitude, a certain kind of ignorance that I can't quite define but that I would hate for anyone to associate with me -- characterized by that classic gung-ho attitude towards internationalism, multiculturalism, etc. etc. I don' mean I'm afraid they'll assume I'm an ignorant American -- I got over that a long time ago, and if the people I meet assume that, it's not because of anything I've projected. I mean: I don't want to be the American at the party, deliberately out for cultural enrichment and, then, a whole lot of alcohol and drugs. And that's who she is. That's what Europe has made her.
I'm not saying I've done more valuable things with my year (I SO have no idea on that front), but I certainly put myself in a different category, attitude-wise. And she says she's afraid of being condescending to Americans when she gets back. She has said that. I can't go into, now, the various levels on which this just makes me SO angry.
But this isn't tirade-on-Jenny time.
I had a thought, today: coming here has narrowed the world for me instead of broadening it. I don't think this is something "good" or "bad," it's just a truth. I feel more and more confined by my culture -- and I'm not even saying America, I'm limiting this to region -- the more people I meet. (The other side of this is that I appreciate the nuances of these things more, the nuances of how I arrived at this cultural consciousness.) I feel the presence of vast, unbridgeable gaps between people who speak different languages, and I'm serious, they're huge. And whenever I talk about this part of the experience, "fatigue" is the first word that I use. It's just tiring, to even think about.
We were looking at Jana's photo album tonight (somehow she's the only person in the WORLD who can take good pictures of me, btw), and there are pictures of us smoking at my house in, I don't know, November. In an unconscious misjudgement of...everything, I wore my dad's Heineken sweatshirt that night. All I could think was, if I were looking at this picture as someone else (I guess I mean a European), I would assume and then assume and then assume.
It's upsetting to think how careful you have to be with the impressions you make. Or somehow learn not to care.