PI Day 74 -All My Ladies Independent

Brief rant. I promise -brief. Earlier in my entries, I talked about how my confidence in myself has waned while I'm here in this new place. Not much has changed, unfortunately, besides me getting more exposure, but I'm still feeling shell shocked at times. Still too slow to respond, still processing my grammar at a snail's pace, still looking around with new eyes -"hella brand new" as my Oaktown dudes would probably tease.

One thing that I miss about the confidence back home was the independence it brought me. I could talk to whoever, greet folks without the fear of a response that I will not know how to appropriately answer, go almost wherever I wanted, and do so much without worrying that I was burdening every family member or friend in the vicinity. Freedom!

What brought this on? Well, I think it's been building up and it blew up tonight when I was trying to figure out a way to get to the Immigration Office of the PI in Intramuros to extend my Visa. Intramuros is the old part of Manila and it's two hours away from our spot in QC with traffic (Without traffic, maybe half an hour, tops). I've NEVER EVER gone to Intramuros by myself and was trying to plot my way over on the map and take the metro down and cab it but it was proving difficult and honestly, a little stressful. My family didn't feel it was all that safe for me to do it by myself the first time. So my poor aunt and uncle are going out of their way to bring me over.

Can you see home (top right) to immigration (middle left)?

Every time something like this happens, which is painfully often, I think on my students who moved to the States and had to renegotiate their lives and their prior knowledge to fit a completely new place. Oh, how it hits me right in the middle of the eyes when I have those moments. The combination of my language struggle and lack of familiarity with the city is trying real hard to get me down. But I won't let it. Bit by bit, I will battle back and regain that confidence and ability by learning and making moves everyday.

But damn, I miss the days where I could jump into the whip and drive 4-8 hours away from home or 5 dang minutes for that matter; hop on the train, the bus, or in a cab and recognize where the heck I am going and not worry about getting so lost that I'll never find my damn way home; or walk into a salon without agonizing over how I'm going to explain what I want without getting my hair jacked up. Hella brand new.

Like I said, it's freshman year all over again. Daaaaag.