Student differences

So after our long voyage on the boat Saturday, at night, Jena, Pedro, Matt and I headed up to the school for a party at the journalism department. It´s so different than back home, because entire departments all hang out with eachother. If you asked me to name 10 people who were journalism majors at CSULB, I wouldn´t be able to do it!

The party was a theme party: Hicks! It was hilarious! These people went all out for this party. There were guys dressed up with overalls, they had straw hats, pitchforks, blacked out teeth, unibrows... the girls had pigtails, painted their cheeks with big freckles and a few of them had some really cool square dancing dresses that makes me wonder where they got them from. There were teachers there too, which I thought was really interesting, because there was food and beer at this party. I thought it was really neat that everybody in the department, students and teachers all meet up on campus to party together. They played many different types of music, a lot of older American songs (ie- Spice Girls) and a lot of samba too.

It was just so cool and so much different than back home. Many of the students spoke English, and when they found out that we were from California, they flocked over to us to practice their language skills. In talking to them, I discovered that Brasilians are so much more open minded than Americans are (at least, as far as I´ve seen). A lot of them have lived in the states at some point, either working or studying for extended periods of time, something that I´ve always wanted to do in another country. It´s just so cool to me how so many people are bilingual here. It makes me feel dumb that I only know one and a half languages, but totally inspires me to become fluent in Spanish ASAP!

A lot of the people that I talked to asked me if we had parties on campus back in California. I had to try to explain to them that California and Brasil are like two completely different planets in terms of the mentality of the people. People in Cali are so much more closed minded and almost self-centered. I thought it was so cool that the students all get together to hang out in such an open environment. They all danced with eachother and ate hot dogs and just had a good time. I had to try to explain that in Cali, you have your group of friends and you go out with them and stay with them and never really meet new people, because the mentality is just not open like it is here in Brasil. Personally, I like the mentality here much better. I love it how everybody is so open minded and so willing to go out of their way to learn English and even more willing to practice it with native speakers.

In trying to reflect on this, I can´t really comprehend why Californians are so much more introverted (for lack of a better word). I guess it´s just the way we grow up in the states, striving for independence and staying safe within your little clique. When I get back home, I´m going to try to be more open in terms of meeting new people and practicing my Spanish with anybody who speaks it, because coming from my experience here, I´m very grateful that so many people are so willing to speak my language. I refuse to let myself become a stuck up American who´s too busy in her own world to care about how the rest of the world lives. If there´s one thing I bring home from Brasil, I want it to be that.