It's funny, being in Italy I feel like a totally different person than who I am at home or at school. I consider myself to be a pretty chill person, easy to get along with, open to doing whatever other people want, with a pretty calm and go-with-the-flow disposition.
Boy, how that has changed.
Have you ever wondered about what you'd do if you only had a week left to live? The American me would be content to spend every last second with my loved ones and just be happy. The Italian me would go and do whatever I wanted, when I wanted it - I've got the rest of eternity to spend with my loved ones! Isn't that weird??
I'll explain my thoughts on this. I still hold to the fact that I'm a pretty chill person. I rarely get irritable and catty. However, I've discovered the fatal combination to change this about myself. If I am tired, hungry and hot all at the same time, prepare for my diva to come out. In the US I'm rarely ever in all three of these states (pun intended) at once. Unfortunately for my fellow study abroad students, this happened to me basically every day our first week in Rome. The cosmos aligned and the Dormant Diva in me was unleashed upon the poor, unsuspecting vitcims of my wrath. You've seen that Snickers bar commercial with the guy who turns into Arethra Franklin in the back seat of the car? Yeah, take that image, transform her into a skinnier, taller, Polynesian version and voila, you've got my Mr. Hyde. I have no idea why it is the combination of tiredness, hunger and heat/sweat that transforms me. If I'm only hot and hungry or hungry and tired or tired and hot, I'm totally okay. In fact, I've had those times in Italy and I've been totally fine and under control. I just have to eliminate one of the three, usually hunger, and I'm fine. Isn't that bizzare?
I feel like this discovery was poorly timed. My first week in Italy was also my first week getting to know the other study abroaders. I can't even imagine what kind of opinion they have of me. Yikies. And it's not only this first impression that leads me to believe that I'm not who people think I am here. All of my habits have changed. I eat twice my body weight in food every night at dinner, I eat straight up chocolate every single day, I drink cans of soda at least once or twice a week, my sarcastic remarks are openly and publicly expressed, I listen to catchy, up-beat pop, dance and hip hop music and I am with people all day long. In Provo I don't eat nearly as much, I never eat candy bars, I drink a diet coke maybe once every two weeks, I keep my sarcastic comments to myself or only tell one or two people, I listen to my unpopular iPod music and I spend mostly all day by myself in my apartment with my cats. Among the other students here I feel like I've developed a reputation of being very upfront, blunt, no-nonsense and probably high maintenance and bossy. I mean, I've always been pretty blunt and borderline rude, but never on such a public scale! People find that out about me only after having known me too long for them to back out of our relationship. The high maintenance thing really gets me crazy. I'm not high maintenance! But when I look back to our trips to Florence and Venice, I can't help but see myself, in retrospect, as having been bossy. No longer was I the agreeable "Oh, I'll just go with you guys and do whatever" person. I was the "I don't want to do that. I'm going to do this other thing and you can come if you want but I couldn't really care less what you want to do" kind of person. I try and justify it in my mind by telling myself that I'm in Italy for a limited amount of time and if I am not vocal I'll end up doing stuff I don't want to do and not doing what I want to do.
Perhaps the greatest contributing factors to this attitude are 1) that I am ALWAYS with all the same people all the time and 2) I don't have any time to think by myself, both of which are things I do almost excessively in opposite. I consider myself to be friends with everyone on this trip, to varying extents, of course. I have made some really great, close friends, and yet I've only know them for what, 7 weeks? Accelerated friendships, as I've heard them once described. I love it. I love having friends (another divisive factor of my life here and in the States). It's weird though because my friends and roommates and classmates are all the same people and we spend all of our time together every day. I love it, but at the same time everyone needs a little "me time." As for the second point, I always have plenty of time to think and reflect upon my day when I'm home. But here, not only am I with people all the time, but when I'm not with them I'm doing homework, trying to communicate with my host family and just generally busy. I usually like to think before I go to bed, particularly before I fall asleep, but I'm out like a lamp within 10 min of my head hitting the pillow. Sometimes before my head even hits the pillow. I thought it'd only be like that at the beginning, but every night, without fail, I fall asleep really fast. For one who has had many a night of insommnia, it's a great feeling. But at the same time I'm missing out on some crucial think/me time.
I've talked to a couple of people in our program and I fervently believe that we are at the point in our study abroad where the honeymoon is over and everything that bothered us at the beginning that we thought we could overlook is coming back to bother us. Everything from personality traits and habits to our frustrations with the language to the food and culture are no longer a novelty, but now an inconveniece or annoyance. We're truly at the hump. Rome and Venice are long gone, Siena is old news, and the other things we have to look forward to are just a bit too far away for us to get really excited about. We all miss our families and friends and the comforts of home. However, I am equally fervent in my belief that once we slog through this marsh, we'll come out at the other end the same way we entered. We'll feel like our time is almost up and will want to pack into our days as much as we can, much like we did when we all got here, because who knows when any of us will get back here? Italy has become part of who we are, whether we like it or not, and that will never, ever change.
Call it culture shock, the seventh inning slump, the doldrums, call it whatever you want. It's here, and we're all feeling it. I still love Italy, I'm not upset or angry or anything, just kind of in a funk.
And it's probably the most growth I've had since I've been here.
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