somewhere under the sky

being 1.a woman and 2. the minority

it´s good to have different experiences. i certainly don´t like the feeling of being a minority but i´m glad to be experiencing it. having short blond hair, green eyes, and pale skin does wonders to help me blend in. kidding. it´s painful how much i stick out. i´m getting a little used to it though. i noticed how much people look at me the first week and to me, it´s ok. i realize i´m different, and it´s just weird to feel the stares. i don´t think it´s a negative thing.
what i´m having trouble with is being a woman. i thought i was good at ignoring the catcalls and just kept on walking. yesterday though, i got upset. this is because i took a different route to school and had the bad luck of turning into a construction site. bad bad luck. i mean i´m good at ignoring them, but yesterday i couldn´t help feeling really angry. at lunch i asked my family about it. the three of them who were there all said ¨ahhh forget about it, it´s nothing, they do that to any women, just ignore it¨blah blah. to them it was no big deal. but my host mom knew i was still upset. on my way back into school i passed 3 older guys and one said to me in english ¨where are you from señora?¨ i felt really rude completely ignoring him so i answered in spanish ¨the U.S.¨ (as if it´s not obvious) and kept walking. he asked what part and i said ohio and kept walking and ignored the rest of what he said. anyway when i came home again, my sister told me she was waiting for the bus and some guy made a kissing noise at her and she thought of me. i told them the story of what happened. my mom joked saying ¨leah´s happy because some more guys gave her attention¨and my sister said ¨old ones-the best of all!¨ anyway i´ve decided not to let it bother me (although it probably always will a little). it´s something i don´t understand and i´m just going to keep ignoring it. my family made me feel better about by joking around and my sister was really funny about it.
it´s still weird to feel people´s stares but that´s the way it is.
next entry i´m going to expound on how much i love my host family.

posted by leah v @ 10:06 AM