Tag: buenos aires

Wise Words

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I’d love to say we read to Maya every single night before bed, but we do read all the time — just not always right before bed. Anyway, we always let her pick which books she wants to read and the other night she surprised me by choosing one we’d never read: Dr. Seuss’s Oh the Places You’ll Go, which happens to be one of my all-time favorite books.

It was a copy my mom had given me minutes before I boarded the plane for my semester in Buenos Aires my junior year of college (July 1999). As I opened the book and saw my mom’s beautiful handwriting on the inside cover, I couldn’t help but smile — I hadn’t looked at those words in a decade or more. Continue reading “Wise Words” →

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Seek Up …

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Hands down, Dave Matthews Band is my favorite group. And though there are several songs I’ve deemed my “anthem” through the years, “Seek Up” has always had a very special place in my heart.

When I lived in Buenos Aires during my semester abroad (fall 1999), I’d play this song on repeat play in my Discman … walking through the city, on the bus, in my room with the door closed … my time in Argentina (and South America in general) was an amazing and exciting time for me … but also a lonely time at times.

I often felt homesick, far removed from my friends and my life in the States. And at times I really struggled with my Spanish — and my host family  spoke no English. Continue reading “Seek Up …” →

Relishing “Me” Time

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Fave photo I took in San Telmo, Bs. As.
Fave photo I took in San Telmo, Bs. As.
In college, I used to dread the thought of doing anything alone: shopping, eating, walking on the quad.

It wasn’t so much a confidence thing as that I just wasn’t comfortable in my own skin. And by being surrounded by other people all the time, I couldn’t spend too many of my thoughts on introspection.

Like most freshman on my floor, my dorm door was always open so friends could pop in. I always made sure I had a friend or group of friends to go to T.D.R. (our dining hall at American University) with. And I’d never take the bus to Georgetown alone.

I didn’t have a boyfriend and so naturally, I did everything with my friends and was fortunate that I never had to worry about being “that girl” who spent all her time with a guy. I threw myself into my sorority (Chi Omega, for any sisters out there!) and built my world around my girlfriends.

I just never realized how dependent I was on them for my happiness.

Then I spent a semester abroad in Buenos Aires during my junior year of college Continue reading “Relishing “Me” Time” →