It is not the critic who counts

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Theodor Roosevelt, "Citizenship in a republic"- April 23rd 1910

This is a quote that really has inspired me, especially in my current situation.

Me, as well as many of my fellow exchange students, every once in a while receive one of those comments that can take you down. "Your spanish is still very bad", "they speak better than you do" or "You aren't adapting very well".

These comments are always delivered by someone outside of the arena.
Someone sitting at a safe distance from the discomfort, exposure, risk and vulnerability. By someone who has no idea what it is like, being stripped of all you call home, all you call safe, who has never felt the enormous exposure and risk of coming to a culture a mile away from your own, to a language you've never spoken and without knowing a single person.

But hey. I could not care less about these people, unless they are giving me something constructive, something substantial to work with.
Because I, as well as alot of exchangers all over the world, am in the arena. If someone is to randomly criticize, they better step down here first. Otherwise I don't value their opinion.
We try, we risk, we succeed and we fail, but at least when we do, we do so daring greatly.

Stay strong, stay safe, value life and SMILE

Paraguay, oh Paraguay....

I'm getting the impression that either the world has changed drastically this year, or that Paraguay is a slightly ill-adapted country.
It's like Paraguay is unused to be Paraguay. Like someone moved a country from another climate zone to south america, but forgot to tell its citizens about it.

It is raining today. In fact, in some parts of the country it's storming. Pretty badly. Here in SanLo? Well, you're alright if you possess a boat.
Every time it rains more than 15 minutes, it makes up 70% of that days news-reports.
I feel this is very odd. I mean to say... This country must have been situated here for a pretty darn long time. One would assume that it would have gotten used to rainstorms. One would assume that there existed some water draining system in the cities (in San Lorenzo there's one: the whole city is tilted. My friend Charline knows this, because she lives at the very bottom and occasionally have to exit her house in swimsuit, which is possibly the reason she nowadays takes swim classes).
Actually, I cannot speak for the whole Paraguay, there might be cities with excellent water drainage... But I yet have to see them.

Also, and I feel that I have raged about this before a couple of years ago, but anyhow: CHRISTMAS.
I cannot possibly get into my head that Christmas is not even two weeks away.
Something else I don't get? Why, Christmas decorations?! Why are you snow and ice- themed?! In a country with 40°C in December?
Why? Who? How?

Listening and thinking

These are things you learn very well when you don't have words to speak and barely understand what is being said.
You listen, and think.
And I've noticed that three months of this changes not only the way I interact and discuss, it changes my way of thinking and opens my mind.
And I think this is rather amazing.

I consider it a social skill to be able to listen to someone saying something that I would usually just beat down as "bullshit". Not only swallow down my actual words, but also temporally bring down the mental wall and actually listening, for real. Seeing all the sides of a subject, not only the ones I've considered bad, but also the good sides and then selectively build up my mental walls again.
I might be very out of there of me to conclude anything from only my own experience, but guess what?
It costs. It costs you mental energy, and alot of it. You can actually feel how you get more and more mentally drained.
The other day, I read that when you think very intensively, the brain uses up to 50% of the oxygen and nutrients. Wether this is true or not I cannot be sure about, but it seems very legit.

Why all this deep-ish jabbering, you might wonder? Well, I had one of these moments of braindigging discussions about a week ago. And I actually needed to hibernate mentally afterwards. About 4 days. Mind more of less completely blank except the subject discussed. To the point where my family got a little concerned, because they thought I was totally silent because I was depressed. And guess what? I still don't have the subject figured out... It kind of impacted hard on my worldview and I'm not sure if I'm okay with that. My scientific way of explaining things all of a sudden did not completely add up. Well darn. That will probably be a topic for further discussion.

Other things I think many people could consider: don't argue topics you don't really have a clue about just because you want to seem clever. If you have the facts, go ahead. And don't discuss if you aren't open to change your view. When you close your mind, you don't discuss anymore, you're just trying to convince others why you are right.
Guess what? Sometimes it does not work.... As an evolutionist who has been in discussion with creationists... I have first hand experience on this subject.

And when you don't really have anything to say it's mostly better to stay silent.

Just some reflections from an exchange student. Take care.

Not the most successful pilgrim the world has seen

The 8th of December is a huge deal in Paraguay. This day, in fact the whole of December, people from all over the country pilgrim to the church Virgen De Caacupé in honor of its upcoming on this exact date 1765, as well as Virgen María.
All in all, so far this year 3 million people have pilgrimed to there and so, we thought, should we.
The plan was going on Friday night, like most people do, and all of Friday it was all good. Until three hours before we were due to depart. Then there was a fair amount of thunder and a little rain. Rain and potential storm was also on the forecast for the night.
Still having the last horrendous storm in mind, we felt a little squeamish and decided not to go on Friday night but instead go on Saturday morning. At 6.
Putting it this way: I'm mostly that person who annoys the shit out of non-morning persons by calling at hours one could consider cruel and wanting to do stuff. Even so, the prospect of walking at the very least 16 km in at the very least 30°C with, I'm not exaggerating, at least half a million other people did not thrill me to an exploding point, although I really wanted to do it for the experience.
However, it was not with the biggest sorrow that I received a text from a fellow potential pilgrim, Alicia, reading "maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all... Unless you're all up and ready"
So. Yeah. No.
Not a single pilgrim step was taken that day. Although we still are thinking about doing it nighttime the upcoming week.

On another theme: The Friday night I experienced my first football game where my team wins!! I, let's call it pilgrimed, with my fellow Luqueños Natalia and Joël (all in matching shirts since I'm nowadays also the proud owner of a REAL Luque one!!!) to the Estadio Monumental Feliciano Cáceres ("El Chiquiero") (there, have a fancy Spanish name, it's the stadium in Luque).
And HELL YEAH carajoo we won that game!!! (1-0 against Independiente) Meaning Luque stays in the first division next year!!

LADY GAGA!

I haven't actually been to a concert in my life- before Monday the 26th of November. Imprint the date, that's the day I lost my concert-virginity spectacularly and grandiosely at Lady Gagas 'Born this way'-tour.

I've said this before, but every so often, I'm struck by the thought "this is the most awesome thing I'll ever witness or experience". And this country is just all like:



How brilliant is my life??!!

So I actually wasn't going to this concert, since I really couldn't justify the money spent on it to myself.
But turns out, when my family got the ticket for my hostsister, that there was an offer where you could get two tickets for the price of one. So the night before they just casually tell me that "oh, you've got a ticket to Lady Gaga too". Oh get outta here carajo!! Gosh, that is just too kind of an act! 

So we went. At 3 pm. The show began at 7,30. That is, some random band began playing at 7.30. The concert began at 9.15... Basic math gives that we were standing in wait for 6 hours.
Not that it was just boring.
So in line, before we could enter, we were standing with the first transvestites I've actually seen in real life. And some gay people. It was hilarious. I mean, they are a little more than just "normal people", let's face that. But it doesn't bother me, since it is really widely accepted in Sweden and the major part of the west world. 
However, this country in general is not used to it. So those couple of hours before we could enter the actual arena were majorly spent watching outher peoples' reactions to seeing these people. And I wasn't sure if I should be sad about that a majority here are still very narrow-minded or amused by how horrified some people looked....

So then we got in. And got a reasonably good spot, with our realtively cheap-ass tickets (150 SEK, 15 Euro or 23$). Next to a group of gay guys. To be fair, I was standing in the middle of them, and they were REALLY nice to me, and too goddamn funny. I was on several occasions during our 4 hour wait together just literally laughing my ass of at their jokes and remarks... 

My little portrait of this fascinating woman

 Your could also say that we got unvoluntarily close to each other. This had nothing to do with attraction or flirting, but was merely due to the HUUGE crowd of people pressing on everyone from all sides. In some moment during the hours we were squeezed together a kind of cooperation merged and we kind of kept track of each other to make sure so one got lost in the crowd, and also we alteriorated the resting moments where one would sit on the ground while at least one person was keeping check so that they weren't run over in the dark. 


The reason I get so explicit on this subject is that it was so fascinating to me, I mean, there was this group of gay people, two other girls they didn't know before, me and another guy, with Lady Gaga-inspired eyeliner. This guy is, btw, one of the persons I could have considered befriending... Only that I did not have the presence right then to ask his name to track him on facebook. Well Shit. I do need some more friends down here.  
And so the show started. And from that point onwards... my mind was just totally blown away by how awesome it all was. How Grand it all was. I wish I could have described it all exactly how it was, but honestly, it was beyond words. 
And so, I mean, I've always liked Lady Gaga, her music. I have been very natural towards her as an individual so to say, I've never been this fan who knows everything (or anything for that matter) but neither have I been negative. Just neutral.
But the feeling... we were at least 5 000 people in the crowd. EVERYONE was singing along, jumping and cheering. I was sharing one experience with a huge crowd of people, united. And the feeling of that... you cannot simply describe. I think it calls on something within you, your instinct to be connected.


And the love! EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. Was just oozing of love towards Lady Gaga. Whatever she said was recieved with agreement and love. Even if some people didn't understand her as she spoke in english, everyone was so excited that she actually was speaking. Everytime she said Asunción, everyone lost it.
And let me say this: If every one of my attempts to speak spanish had been so warmly cheered, my spanish would be SO DAMN GOOD by now :)

And I was really touched by what she said. We all were. At one point, more of less every person present was crying. Me included. What was I saying about connection?

So a bit that I loved about the show. It was SO rightout. She was showing so clearly, that we are all people, regardless of skin color and sexual preference. She had a black, gay dancer whom, if I'm not confused, also kissed at a point. At another point of the show, she basically had sex with one of her female dancers. but with clothes. And it was no big deal. I think this country needs that.

All in all, and you can tell I'm absolutely awestruck bu this show. And you would have been too. I promise.

Take care, Stay safe.