(Me and my hot Belgian friends, Charlotte, Pauline, and Sarah)
So lately nothing very exciting has been going on here in Paraguay...
I've been spending my weekdays in school 'learning' (this translates into me doing absolutely nothing all day...) and my weekends hanging out with my AFS friends. Contrary to many of the opinions of my close friends and family back home, I'm quite shy, and have yet to form strong bonds of friendship with my school friends. Because of this, I've got the choice of hanging out with my AFS buds all the time or spending time with myself, and the former is much more appealing. =)
After school each wednesday my AFS friends and I get together at the local mall called Shopping Mariscal Lopez. These friends are from around the world; Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, Chile, Peru, Turkey and of course, America. Even though this is a weekly tradition for us, I'm still amazed that I can have friends from such far away places. That's the beauty of AFS though, I guess.
However, this may be cool, but I've been told by many to get a move on with making school friends (ie: Jorge, my mom(s), and my school friends, jaja) but I find myself surprizingly shy when it comes to starting up a conversation in a foreign language. My spanish is improving slowly - VERY slowly - so when my school ends later this week I'm going to start spanish classes. This may sound corny, taking a spanish class in a spanish-speaking country, but I don't care. If I cared what most people think of me I wouldn't be where I am today.
Which is just the thing, if I'm not worried about my self-image very much, why am I shy? Do the opinions of these Paraguayans that I probably won't ever see again really matter? They may not, but accepting stupidity and looking stupid is something that I've gotten used to. If I'm so worried about 'looking' like something, how will I learn?
(Oh, and I thought you guys would want a look at the cutest AFS logo ever!!)
Hey there, Hannah
This is Aaron Spain. I'm currently deciding on going to Paraguay for a semester. I just wanted to ask if you could tell me anything interesting about Paraguay, or really anything about it! I know absolutely nothing about Paraguay. lol If you want to talk to me about it my AIM sn is thespaniard1991. Hope to hear from you.
Hola Aaron,
Sorry, but I don't have an AIM account, but do you have facebook? I could talk to you on there..
You really should make the effort to make school friends and spend time with your host family. If you talk more in Spanish with your Paraguay family & friends, you will learn the language quicker. If you are constantly speaking English, you won't learn Spanish. My daughter went to Germany with no German and was speaking fairly well in 3 months! But, she was the only exchange student in her area and was forced to speak German.
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