Living in a foreign country is supposed to be.... what? What is it that we think will be so great about it? I remember thinking how cool it would be to go live in another country - I think all language majors go through this. I even had one former classmate from SPN 400 and something who had found me on facebook tell me she was "trying not to be jealous of my life." We have some kind ideal in our heads about learning another language, living another culture... And those of us who actually get to do it are left trying to remember why we were so obsessed with it in the first place. When I lived in the States, I couldn't get enough Mexican, then Argentine, and then Brasilian culture - I listened to "native" music with all my windows rolled down in the car at top volume, singing in another language at the top of my lungs. I read things in Spanish and Portuguese as often as I could, I listened to radio stations online, I went to chat-in-fill-in-your-language-of-choice-here groups.

And now the farther I am from my own culture, the more closely I cling to it. I enter my iPod world every day on the way to and from work; the music I listen to is mostly what you'd hear on the radio in the States. I cling to American friends online more than I do to Brasilian friends I see everyday day. I NEVER read Portuguese by choice anymore - I am desperate for things to read in English. I spend hours online each weekend reading up the profiles of people I have not had much contact with since I rowed with them on Crew in 2004, yet somehow this is more interesting to me than watching the weekend specials on our antenna television. I would rather wait for a YouTube video of part of a Simpsons episode to load than watch a full program here.

There is nothing to be jealous of in terms of living in another country. I don't know why I thought it would be so glamorous....