What I Learned From My Spanish Exchange Student, Nanda
By JANA AMIN ‘21
It was a Thursday night. I had a ton of homework and was tired from a long day of school. Above all, I was worried. I had spent a total of five hours with my Spanish exchange student over the preceding week, and I was about to leave her for an entire weekend for a speech tournament. I kept thinking back to the long days she had spent with me in Madrid, happily taking me shopping on a Wednesday night even though she had school the next morning, and I felt horrible. She had been an amazing host, and while I was trying my best, Milton was more boring than Madrid was, and I had a lot more commitments than she had.
“Nanda!” I exclaimed upon seeing her and giving her a hug. “Cómo estás?” She updated me on everything the exchange students had done that week that I missed. My smile eventually faltered to a look of self-disappointment as I relayed my weekend plans to her. I was already thinking about what I could do the coming week to make this time up to her when she grinned at me and said, “perfect!”. I was immediately caught off guard, but I realized that she really meant what she had said. The quiet, hang-out-with-friends weekend that I had planned for her actually seemed to satisfy everything she thought a good weekend needed. Intrigued, I wanted to ask her more about what made this weekend so perfect, but I had a mountain of homework to move on to before packing for my trip.
A couple of days later, after returning from my speech tournament, I sat down for breakfast with Nanda and asked her about her weekend. What conspired, both over breakfast and later over dinner, was a long conversation about the merits of our vastly different lifestyles. Not very much unlike myself, Nanda loved to learn, read, play music, and practice tennis. And yet, her extra-curricular activities were just that: activities. While here in the US, colleges evaluate students on their holistic profiles, in Spain, a student gets into college if that student’s grades are above that college’s grade cutoff. Thus, in the US, activities slowly morph into resume bullet points and unfortunately lose most of their original allure, while in Spain, activities remain pressure-free, and even provide an outlet for student stress. As much as I wanted to throw up my hands in the air and forget about the countless expectations that suddenly surrounded the clubs I had signed up for at the shop-around freshman year, I knew it was not so simple. For Nanda, her activities were not the only “calmer” aspects of her life. To Nanda and her family, life was about family, about being in good health, about thriving for the little moments. As I sat there, listening to her passionate remarks about the merits of a more tranquil lifestyle, I understood what she was talking about. Whether you are a junior like I am, a senior, a sophomore, or even a freshman whose grades “don’t matter”, take a moment to reflect on your lifestyle. Is it crazy? I’m sure. Are you stressed? Probably. Is that okay? Yes. However, in order to fully respect ourselves, we must incorporate the values of Nanda’s life into our own lives.
So play tennis just to play tennis. Use your activities as an outlet for your stress, not as the creator of that stress. Push yourself every day while still remembering the importance of taking a step back. Thrive for the little moments, even if these moments simply involve a laid back weekend with your friends as Nanda’s did.
Image courtesy of the Spanish Exchange