ESL with Jannah

You guys. Making friends as an adult is HARD. It’s probably harder than any other challenge I’ve encountered in my adult life. I would sooner date than try to navigate the dynamics of a new female friendship. How soon after meeting someone is too soon to ask them to hang out with me? How often can I ask them to hang out without seeming clingy (is twice in one week too much)? If we had a nice chat at a party, will they actually remember me the next day? How do I balance on that impossibly-thin line between unapproachable and desperate? I struggled and mostly failed when I moved to Kansas City, and struggled again when I moved to Santiago. Thankfully, this time around I found some workable solutions for me that’s kept the insecurity at bay and resulted in several dear friends. Although I’m living abroad, these ideas aren’t exclusive to being an expat: I would repeat the same formula wherever in the world I live next.     Get a hobby and join a club . It’s a low-risk env...

...Suddenly, life is normal. Mundane, even. You walk through the same neighborhood to work every morning. Days pass and you forget your other world exists. You forget to call your family; anyone you’re not confronted with in your routine is pushed deep in the recesses of your mind. Even things that were very abrasive to you when you arrived as an outsider have gradually been worked into this new normal. Struggling to communicate still happens, but subsides, becomes less frequent, and no longer feels difficult. You’re accustomed to converting Celsius to Fahrenheit, pesos to dollars, kilometers to miles; more often than not, you don’t need to convert at all to get the gist. Even among other foreigners you stop using words that are strictly American, like grocery store and college and automatically use supermarket and university instead. The things that were initially special have become commonplace. You get used to taking the bus to the beach every weekend to see your boyfriend...

I’m sitting here in a creaky wooden chair in one of my favorite coffee shops in the charming neighborhood of Barrio Lastarria in Santiago. January’s summer breeze is floating in lazily from the open door. I’m enveloped by a humming marriage of fellow patrons’ Chilean Spanish and British-accented English. I’m picking apart the remains of a bagel that they loaded with salmon, but really skimped on the cream cheese. And I’m reflecting on my first 6 months of Chile.           Living abroad in Santiago has not been glamorous, and don’t believe anyone who tells you it is. What you see on social media is a curated second in a day filled with 86,399 other seconds (source: Google) of sore feet, under-caffeination, over-priced restaurant lunches, lack of air-conditioning, homesickness, loneliness, insecurity, and more miserable things I can’t think of right now. Without a doubt, this has been the most emotionally and mentally challenging 6 months of my life. It’s...

Hi. Welcome. This has been a long time coming, I guess. I'm a "writer" who doesn't write, like a lazy, inflexible yogi. I don't know how to think about writing anymore. I don't know how to give words to my thoughts anymore. But here I am, daily both tested and inspired whilst suffering from an overly-caffeinated, overly-stimulated brain. I think it's time I train myself to be more intentional with my thoughts. By this point in the post I had probably already written several paragraphs, then deleted them because they're too serious. I actually just want to be this person who makes you laugh with her snarky remarks and then you realize as you're crying real laugh-tears that, wow, that was actually really deep and poignant. That's a good aesthetic to have. People seem to like it. You see, I suffer from cool-girl syndrome. I just want to be hella chill and endearingly quirky, but in reality that's not me. I have screwed up too many relation...