So here we are. It has been a long year, hasn\u2019t it? It\u2019s crazy to think that about 12 months ago I was just a university student studying and learning new things about the Spanish language, not knowing that those things I was learning would, one day, be useful in my life. I\u2019ve met amazing people throughout my time in Mexico and Spain, and I wouldn\u2019t trade this year for anything else. This is what languages do for you: they open doors, they let you find and live new amazing places and experiences. If we think about it, the chance of travelling gets a lot higher when we become polyglots. Who knows, maybe one day even someone that is reading this article might decide to take up the challenge and learn a new language in university, and eventually face a year abroad. Only time will tell.<\/p>\n
So here I am, almost done with my year abroad, one step closer to my final year at Aberystwyth University. A common question at this stage of a person\u2019s life is: what\u2019s your career plan? What do you want to do for the rest of your life? The answer, in my case, has been set in stone since the first time I entered middle school at the age of 11: I wanted to be a P.E. teacher. Now, about 10 years later, things have partially changed. I still want to become a teacher, but my dream of teaching students about sports and health has come and gone. As you might have figured out by the fact that I\u2019m writing to you about doing a year abroad, I want to become a language teacher. Just like the one that is probably standing right in front of you. I want to teach Spanish in a high school. Or maybe English, or Italian, who knows. My next step, right after I hopefully graduate, is to continue for one more year, get my teacher training done, and then start working. I don\u2019t know where life will take me, but I sure hope it\u2019s somewhere special.<\/p>\n
When you\u2019re going through a year abroad, not just the environment around you changes, but also you change. You go through the ups and downs of a new place, of a new job, or a new university. But you learn to deal with it. A person that spends a year abroad volunteering, just as I did, will learn to be patient, and persevere; to take every day as a different day, and that everything could change in a blink of an eye! I\u2019ve learnt to work in a team without overpowering the rest, or letting myself stay in the background. I\u2019ve learnt to participate in a consultation, to discuss and learn. I\u2019ve learnt to teach children about virtues and life, while still making sure I was being coherent and respecting all those virtues myself. I sure have so much more to learn, but I feel that, thanks to this year spent around the world, I\u2019m just a little bit closer to my goal.<\/p>\n
And as every Spanish person would say at the end of a year long story: Color\u00edn colorado, este cuento se ha acabado.<\/p>\n
Check out my Instagram for pics of my year abroad: essbi07<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So here we are. It has been a long year, hasn\u2019t it? It\u2019s crazy to think that about 12 months ago I was just a university student studying and learning new things about the Spanish language, not knowing that those things I was learning would, one day, be useful in my life. I\u2019ve met amazing… Continue reading Routes Lingomap: Letter from a language student<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13066,"featured_media":1063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[43,48,49,50,52,58,60,77,90,102,109,112,113,114,117],"class_list":["post-1052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-office-aberystwyth-university","tag-fun","tag-hacks","tag-happy","tag-history","tag-international","tag-life","tag-lifestyle","tag-politics","tag-society","tag-sun","tag-travel","tag-travels","tag-true","tag-truth","tag-university"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/files\/2017\/06\/18902087_10154881861308019_1393249392_n.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13066"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1217,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions\/1217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}