Thanks for visiting my blog, whether you're new here or you've followed my blogging attempts for a while. I just have to say, I really appreciate it! :)
When I was a student in Utrecht, the Netherlands, my fellow students all around were going on exchange. I didn't go then. After my masters, I wanted to do an internship in the US, but for a number of reasons it didn't seem to be working out, which is when I began to think of going on an internship abroad, though not to the States, with AIESEC, the biggest international student organization in the world which makes international internships possible. With the thought of, if they don't accept me for the programme, I will go study Spanish in Spain or Latin America (I already checked out several options, seriously), I went to and back from the AIESEC admission interview. A couple of months later, I was in China, where I could not understand a word, spoken or written, and learned very little other than to say 'thank you', 'hello', 'my name is', and a few very random phrases, such as ''what are you staring at'' (I never did use that last one apart from with friends).
A few months after that, I was again in a new country, on yet another side of the world. I was in Brazil, trying to learn Portuguese. If I wasn't going to go the AIESEC way, I probably would have gone off to Spain or a Latin American country, to try and learn Spanish (again). I came back from Brazil in August 2010, and to this moment I am trying to learn Portuguese, and I believe that this new favorite hobby of mine will never leave me.
(Just for a laugh, here is something else ironic: before leaving to China, I took a beginner's class in Argentine tango in the Hague, and a few months later I was trying to learn samba... my life doesn't make much sense, does it?)
An international experience seems somewhat of a 'must-do' these days. Through Facebook, I can keep up with the traveling and internship/exchange updates from friends around the world, and what I've noticed lately is many people I got to know in Brazil during my five months there, are currently away in another country themselves, whether they've been there for a while, are half-way their trip, or just arrived. There are updates from Brazilians from Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Chile, Canada, Bangladesh, Thailand, Colombia and Russia ;) It's crazy in a way isn't it, how small the world is nowadays. I don't take it for granted that I've been able to have this experience myself, certainly not. Despite the increasing numbers of people who go abroad for an exchange experience, I still think it's quite a special thing to do. Once I was talking about it to a friend, and we were thinking, you know people are different in this respect, some feel like their local environment is enough for them, and a move to another city in the same country is a big step. Some go on exchange to a country next door, some within the continent, or some across the world, like me (I specifically wanted to). And some even go to countries where the challenges are even bigger than just going across the world, and I wonder if it really takes a certain type of person to do it, or it's something you may learn from traveling. Whichever the case, traveling and exchange experiences, though certainly not to be taken for granted, are exponentially on the rise these days, especially among young people and students. But I guess it's not just a hype, it's a sign of this world getting used to mixing up its cultures after all.
These days, the world is at your feet...They say an international exchange or work experience looks great on your CV. Sure, it does, it helps you stand out and proves you have that personal quality of initiative and sense of adventure, in most cases it also signifies that you've learnt much and grown from your international experience. And yet, the more (young) people go on exchange, the more competition there is, isn't there? Hahaha... how do you still set yourself apart then? How do you prove your uniqueness, enhanced by your international experience smiling at you (and your employer) from your CV (or online profile, etc.)? Aaah, the question of modern times, when just being international may no longer make you seem so special when trying to 'make it (big)' in our harshening society. But how thankful I am that there are organizations such as AIESEC, which made it possible for me to get to know two different cultures on the opposite sides of the planet. Because I know that every international experience is unique, isn't it, for every person, who can take from it something special for themselves, something that will most likely play a big part in their lives for a while after the exchange itself. And it's great (though I have to admit, I'm a little jealous too) to get a peek into the exchange experiences of your friends around the world, see what they're up to in all these different countries; striving to live the experience unites us, after all, it should certainly not be something to separate us. And though I am here in Holland, I've left parts of my heart behind in other countries, which connects me to the people I know there.
Ok, the last thing for now, something that I wonder about, and I'm sure would make the dream job for many people, what about travel journalism? Before I sat down to write my blog entry, I read an article about Lisbon in a travel journal, one of those you get on board the plane (going somewhere, so reading an article about traveling is just about the most appropriate thing for the occasion). But I actually have no idea who wrote this article, what relationship they themselves have with that city, where else they have been and written about. The life of a travel journalist seems to be a fairytale, you go traveling around the world, to all these exotic places, you write about it, and you get paid for it all, too! Can't say I wouldn't wanna do that, but what a killer of a competition this job must have then, because I can imagine many people who wouldn't even wanna be writers otherwise, piping up to say they're up for it. How do you even become a travel journalist? It's like a mystery to me.
At the same time, it must be a heck of a difficult job all the same. Especially if you do it freelance. Being sent out once in a while by the magazine you work for, coming back and writing an article, may be one way of doing this, but somehow it sounds... too easy. I have a feeling there is much more work to this profession than just having a chain of vacations in diverse places linked up one after another and the occasional work involved. What about all this online media these days too! For some inspiration I checked out the travel page of the Global NY Times before this, and it's full of articles on traveling, and sometimes I really wonder about the people behind these stories; who writes them, when, where, how many they manage, what else they might be doing for a living, what kind of home life they have. It's another mystery yet ;)
Then again, life is full of mysteries, and I'm not demanding any answers now, you live and you learn, and someday I may have the answer to some of my questions I raised here. The world is gonna keep spinning, and we all will do so with it, in our increasingly melting pot international society. But I guess the beautiful thing is, no matter how small the world is getting, there will always be - I hope - enough diversity in it, enough corners yet to be (re)explored, enough new things to see, try, learn about. And there will always be curious writers like me wondering about these things; and ever more people lucky enough to have their unique international travel-and-live-abroad experiences :)
Life will always be full of surprises and mysteries, and we have to manage it that way. After all, when I kept the option of learning Spanish in Guatemala, Peru or Barcelona (or wherever else) as a pretty good plan B to going on exchange with AIESEC, I didn't know I'd be trying to keep up my Portuguese a year later, did I? But that's how it goes.
Thanks for reading!
Beijos, obrigada mais uma vez pra ter lendo o meu blog!
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