Packing

I was starting to doubt the wisdom of emptying my dresser onto my bed.  At first it seemed like a great way to organize what I wanted to take, what I was going to leave, and what had somehow found shelter in the corners of my drawers.  The latter being my style from a couple years ago would be donated so the the poor could laugh at my former "Fashion sense" then burn the fabric for warmth.  All this had been sitting where I normally sleep.  It was there for two days and never showed any intent of packing itself.  The couch has proven a comfortable substitute but with only a week left in the states I decided that my clothes were lazy and would not be ready in time.  Today my bed is empty after a half hour of decided what would stay and what would go.

In high school Spain was a year away and seemed like a distant commitment that I didn't need to worry about like the apocalypse or a doctors appointment.  I could make plans to make my transition easier then never had to follow through with them, the rationale being "I have plenty of time."  I don't have plenty of time, in fact I am about to power through Spanish 202 in six days.  Now this would seem impossible to most people, but I'm not most people, I am a champ of Bullshit.  I can look over a lesson, get the general gist, then make up the specifics as I go along, if whatever I make up is wrong I can claim that I'm using Spanish from a different part of the world and you a clearly not as cultured as I am for not understanding that.  Unfortunately being so well versed in the subject of BS makes it impossible to listen to it from anyone else.  This hurt me in school, when I tried to replace to teachers made up information with my own I lost points, but I refuse to stand down because, after all, I am an expert.

My room has been emptied of my clothes and my head has been filled with Spanish.  It is not light work deciding how I want to be seen in a foreign country.  I have to worry about every White American stereotype ever conceived.  I can't be fat or aggressive or arrogant or ignorant.  Perhaps BS is not the best way to got in Europe, people in the United States love it, but Europeans tend to be better informed according to a fact I just made up.  So I have to appear as if I have no preference or dislike to anything around me.  If I tell positive stories about the US then the older generations think I am closed minded and unwilling to try new things.  If I adore everything around me the young generation sees me as a typical tourist weenie.  Thus I have been working on a contemplative nod, the perfect medium between willingness to participate, but to cool to really care if I do or not.

I'm feeling one more step to being prepared, with all the clothes I like ready to go.  My wardrobe available for the next few days consists of  two pairs of shorts, twenty pairs of underwear(The Christmas gift you can give your children every year!), and whatever shirts I steal from my dad.  Y ahora yo will be prcaticaring un poco del espanol, Ariba! Idios Mio! Madrid, Sangria, Soccer futbol!