{"id":1583,"date":"2023-01-27T16:02:14","date_gmt":"2023-01-27T16:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.atu.edu\/studyabroad\/?p=1583"},"modified":"2023-01-27T16:02:15","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T16:02:15","slug":"finally-being-independent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.atu.edu\/studyabroad\/2023\/01\/27\/finally-being-independent\/","title":{"rendered":"Finally Being Independent!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi! My name is Jasmine Gonz\u00e1lez and I’m a Spanish Education major at ATU. I have a cat that I love with my whole heart and I really love shopping. I chose to study in Spain because I think it would help me improve my grammar when speaking in Spanish. I’ve been here for three days now and I’ve honestly really enjoyed my overall experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think it’s been hard for me to adjust to the culture here, it’s very different from Arkansas. People tend to keep to themselves here and don’t really try to make any small talk, which is okay. The food here is AMAZING! I hope to be able to try more food that is central and important to the Spanish culture. <\/span><\/p>\n

I had an entrance exam today at our university, Universidad de Le\u00f3n, and I thought it difficult. After that, we took a small tour of Le\u00f3n and I made some new friends. They are so sweet, I hope to be able to become close to them! <\/span><\/p>\n

I’m feeling kind of homesick already, I’ve always been close to my mom and being an only child only makes it harder for her. I’ve called her every day since I’ve been here and I cried on the phone with her last night. I love her so much, but I know that this time apart will only make us grow closer. I’m glad to be leaving behind the part of me that was scared to become independent. I’ve relied on my parents for a very long time and although I’ll miss them, I’ll always be grateful that I was given this opportunity. <\/span><\/p>\n

I tend to lean left on my political views\/ideologies and I would like to keep those with me as I travel in Europe. I hope that people in Spain and all over Europe accept the way I think and see the world. I’m not the type of person to be judgemental, so I hope that the new friends I make are also open to telling me how they feel about certain topics. <\/span><\/p>\n

I don’t have many preconceived notions about my academic program, I don’t know much about Spain in general so I’m going in with an open mind and an open heart. The professors that I met today were very nice and I believe that they will help me reach my academic potential. I hope to learn more about Spanish culture in general, but mostly I hope to learn more about grammar and sentence structure in Spanish! Although I am a native speaker, I struggle sometimes because I grew up speaking a very informal version of the language. I’m always so amazed by people who can hold such elegant and well-spoken conversations with others in Spanish. It’s such a beautiful language, and I hope to be able to master it one day!<\/span><\/p>\n

My roommate and I live in an apartment and although it’s small, I think it’s perfect for us. We aren’t the type of girls who need much so we were very lucky to be able to find such a beautiful place so close to our campus. I would like to keep my mind open, I don’t want to judge anyone before they have a chance to make an impression! It doesn’t cost anything to be nice, so I hope the Spaniards feel the same way toward us. \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n

I look forward to writing more of my thoughts and experiences on this blog and I hope that you enjoyed reading this if you made it this far into my post!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\".         \"\"<\/p>\n

Talk to you later,<\/span><\/p>\n

Jasmine. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi! My name is Jasmine Gonz\u00e1lez and I’m a Spanish Education major at ATU. I have a cat that I love with my whole heart and I really love shopping. I chose to study in Spain because I think it would help me improve my grammar when speaking in Spanish. I’ve been here for three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-atuglobal","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.atu.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.atu.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.atu.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.atu.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.atu.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1583"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.atu.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1587,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.atu.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583\/revisions\/1587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.atu.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.atu.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.atu.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}