Let's Just Be Honest with Each Other, OK?

Hi there, my name is Braden and I’m a junior working towards a degree in philosophy, Spanish, and a minor in Communications at Seattle University. I’m currently on the SU-led program in Puebla, Mexico for the next 5 months, where I hope (and am so eagerly trying) to develop a fluency in Spanish and a deeper appreciation for Spanish culture.   

   Here’s a little bit about me, because we need to get to know each other better, and I could benefit from getting to know more about myself too. I am the guy that buys an inspiring book at Elliot Bay bookstore for $15, and then gets halfway through or doesn’t even open it because he gets too busy (I’m looking at you autobiography of Malcom X). I am the guy who, throughout much of high school and even college, would change his personality based on his current company to be well liked. And yes, I have been the guy that thinks he’s got something special going on and the world just needs to discover it. I’ll happily admit these character traits as if it were a sigh of relief.  I am guilty of having been those people, heck sometimes I still am those people. I could open this blog and tell you what I like about myself or my hobbies, but I’d rather orient these entries around a different theme. This is not an exercise in showing my fantastic adventures cavalcading around the beautiful country of Mexico, nor is it going to be a photo blog about picturesque vistas that I capture at salient moments. I want this to be a blog about growth.

   I have been those people I described and many others, and while they’re faults I jokingly expose, they are also qualities I would like to change. Throughout my time at SU I’ve been making changes in my lifestyle, my behavior, and my self-image to grow into a person that I can admire. Call it unsolicited youthful wisdom from a college junior, but it seems to me like life is a process of seeing what works and what doesn’t. I feel grateful to be living in a time where this search is my main focus. I know that Puebla will force me to grow and learn about life and myself in ways that I could not have imagined, and so taking this search into a different culture has been a thrilling leap of faith.

   I have been in Puebla about 1 week now, and it is a fantastic city. This is something that I want to get into detail about later on, in a depth and scope that only a liberal arts education could truly do (that was self-deprecation folks). I’ll save that prose for another day. For now, I’m starting this exciting yet short chapter of my life, and I enter it with a hunger for growth, challenge, disappointment, and elation. I am starting in a new country with a different language. Customs are different here, Spanish can sometime be frustrating, and every interaction is an exercise in the unfamiliar. I am learning this all, and much like the bigger scope of one’s 20s, I am actively figuring out what works, and what doesn’t. I do not know what awaits in these next coming months, or in the next 10 years, and that is what makes this all so exciting!

-Braden