its a'hittin hard...

so i think the real culture shock is starting to set in. i realized it yesterday with the series of events that occurred.

first at work my boss told me that i was doing my work wrong and i wasnt putting enough information and social science material into the workshop ive been working on on learning environments, when the week before she told me i was putting too much information and that i needed to really simplify it, thought it seems like i simplified it too much because i missed all the other spanish around the word "simple". i had to basically redo all the work i had done that day (which was a lot...i was very productive) because of a language barrier.

then i got home and brought 2 friends (both male) home with me to cook dinner. mariana and i have been doing this for a while, but i hadnt told the señora i live with because before i had brought girls over without saying anything and she never seemed to have a problem. about an hour into cooking i get a call from the daughter of the señora who speaks spanish who told me that her mother was really upset with me for bringing home 2 boys without asking. i then immediately went to doña julias room to apologize because i felt horrible, and she explained that she lived during a really horrible time in medellin and that she doesnt associate outside of the people she knows because of the fear that was developed during that time. that is completely understandable and after that i felt horrible. she then continued on saying that because im from the US and havent lived through violence that i blindly trust people and shouldnt be bringing random strangers to the house because i dont know where theyre from (while adding that she trusted mariana's judgement more because she's also latina). after this comment im not going to lie i was a bit offended that she assumed i would be so dumb as to invite strange men into the house, but at the same time i understood where she was coming from and why she would base this thought off her stereotypes of americans because i never explained to her that i had known my friend since my first week in colombia and she had never heard about him nor spoken with him before he just showed up at the apartment with his roommate. when i went back to the kitchen they could tell i was really bothered, and when i told them what happened they immediately went into the other room and began a rather wonderful chat with doña julia. she actually later came up to me and ever-so-lightly apologized to me, but i told her wasnt necessary because it was my fault. that whole experience just shook me, making me realize that im in a completely different culture and that although i am living with just one woman and another foreigner, im still living with a colombian family, and in a family you have to follow certain rules. and no matter what, ill still always be the naive american in the room.

another huge culture shock component that hit me hard came at dinner. for those who know me, you know that my natural personality is a bit TMI, at times crude, and all-around really different from most other people. i dont know if it was the food coma or the excessive tiredness, but that version of sydney totally slipped out after dinner, evoking notable reactions from my friends. the worst part about it is i wasnt able to complete explain WHY my mind had landed on the subject because in the fast paced spanish conversation i just got lost and wasnt able to pounce upon the opportunity to explain myself. i dont think they minded as much as i did, but even if they did its really not worth fretting about, but i just dont like the feeling that im repelling people by being me.

i went to bed a bit unsettled with a tummy ache that night. but these days come and go, right?