Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Friday, February 7, 2014
A new year
Hello! A very belated Happy New Year!
Right before Christmas I went to Sayulita, a little fishing town turned surfer's haven just north of Puerto Vallarta. It was heaven.
It also reconfirmed how important it is for me to go to the beach. During the fall, an old roommate of mine who did a Fulbright ETA in Brazil a couple of years ago got in touch with me. When I asked her for advice about how to make the most of the experience she said "stress less, go to the beach more." It took me nearly four months to get to the coast and the moment my feet touched the sand, I felt like me again.
The fall was hard. Leaving home, adjusting to living without Jamai for the first time in 7 years, leaving behind the puppy I had spent most of the year raising just at the point when he was growing out of puppyhood, moving away the same month about 8 friends moved back to San Francisco, and saying goodbye to the friends who have been like my family for the last 7 years, it all hit like a ton of bricks once the initial newness and excitement of Mexico faded away. I also experienced culture shock more profoundly than I had expected. While studying abroad in Spain, I was surrounded by other U.S. Americans my age and we were taking classes. Here, it was just me and Robert and I was working in a professional environment.
Working in another culture was probably one of the biggest adjustments to living here. Mexicans communicate much less directly than U.S. Americans and I constantly feel confused by conversations I have and emails I receive. I usually feel like my questions were not answered and am left frustrated and unsure of what is expected of me. They are also less rigid in terms of time tables and any number of things can take much longer to do here than in a work environment at home. And all of this is ok; it's normal, and it's simply the way things are done in Mexico. Coming from a culture where we prefer to get down to business and get things done quickly and efficiently, it is hard to adjust to how another culture that is focused on personal relationships operates. When we arrived, they told us that American directness can be perceived as rude here and that it is important to spend time talking to colleagues at work, start emails by asking how the other is doing and generously express gratitude. I am getting better at all three, but at the beginning I had to literally interrupt myself as I was about to blurt out a question or request and ask how the other person was doing. I have also gotten better at turning away from my computer for a few minutes while a co-worker tells me a personal story and now enjoy these encounters instead of feeling irritated by the interruption. Slowly, it is becoming more natural, or at least less forced. I feel less self-conscious about what I am saying and how it will be perceived and sincerely engage in lengthy conversations that have nothing to do with work. It will be very interesting to see how I readjust to working in the U.S. again, if I will hold onto what I have learned here or if I'll fall back into the communication patterns I developed over the last few years.
My New Year's Resolution was to take things less seriously. I decided I am not going to worry so much about my correctness when speaking Spanish. It's my second language, always will be, and will never be perfect. I am not going to stress over communication confusion at work anymore. I would need to spend far more time in this culture to be fully fluent in the nuances and subtleties of their communication style. And I am going to go to the beach more. In fact, I just got back from 5 glorious days in Zihuatanejo, more on that to come.
Right before Christmas I went to Sayulita, a little fishing town turned surfer's haven just north of Puerto Vallarta. It was heaven.
It also reconfirmed how important it is for me to go to the beach. During the fall, an old roommate of mine who did a Fulbright ETA in Brazil a couple of years ago got in touch with me. When I asked her for advice about how to make the most of the experience she said "stress less, go to the beach more." It took me nearly four months to get to the coast and the moment my feet touched the sand, I felt like me again.
Working in another culture was probably one of the biggest adjustments to living here. Mexicans communicate much less directly than U.S. Americans and I constantly feel confused by conversations I have and emails I receive. I usually feel like my questions were not answered and am left frustrated and unsure of what is expected of me. They are also less rigid in terms of time tables and any number of things can take much longer to do here than in a work environment at home. And all of this is ok; it's normal, and it's simply the way things are done in Mexico. Coming from a culture where we prefer to get down to business and get things done quickly and efficiently, it is hard to adjust to how another culture that is focused on personal relationships operates. When we arrived, they told us that American directness can be perceived as rude here and that it is important to spend time talking to colleagues at work, start emails by asking how the other is doing and generously express gratitude. I am getting better at all three, but at the beginning I had to literally interrupt myself as I was about to blurt out a question or request and ask how the other person was doing. I have also gotten better at turning away from my computer for a few minutes while a co-worker tells me a personal story and now enjoy these encounters instead of feeling irritated by the interruption. Slowly, it is becoming more natural, or at least less forced. I feel less self-conscious about what I am saying and how it will be perceived and sincerely engage in lengthy conversations that have nothing to do with work. It will be very interesting to see how I readjust to working in the U.S. again, if I will hold onto what I have learned here or if I'll fall back into the communication patterns I developed over the last few years.
My New Year's Resolution was to take things less seriously. I decided I am not going to worry so much about my correctness when speaking Spanish. It's my second language, always will be, and will never be perfect. I am not going to stress over communication confusion at work anymore. I would need to spend far more time in this culture to be fully fluent in the nuances and subtleties of their communication style. And I am going to go to the beach more. In fact, I just got back from 5 glorious days in Zihuatanejo, more on that to come.
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