me llamo shiwani, y me gusta tenis

Have you ever walked into an interview and off the bat known it was going badly? Sometimes its the questions the interviewer asks, or sometimes its just a vibe you get from the person sitting across the table from you, but in my case, I just had no idea what the hell my interviewer was saying. For twenty minutes, my interviewer from Bairexports in Buenos Aires, Argentina spoke to me in the fastest most complicated spanish I have ever heard (and by complicated I mean anything more than me llamo). I came to Argentina thinking my spanish was pretty decent. In high school I made alright grades, and in college I made an A- without doing much work so how hard could it really be right? Wrong. I literally think I understood every 17th word Diego was saying to me. I attempted to piece them together as I nodded my head and said 'si'.

I never really understood what people meant when they said they froze when taking a test, or dancing on stage, but I for sure get it now. Diego asked me my interests and I just froze. U would think after years of writing in diarios about my interests in every spanish class since my freshmen year of high school, I would have a pretty good idea what to spit out. But instead I totally blanked and decided it would be a good idea to talk about tennis. If you know me at all, you know that I have not picked up a racket in 2 years and sucked even when I played every day. Maybe its because I had just read about the French Open, or maybe its because I know how to say tennis, team, and game in spanish, but there I was, rambling about being a tennis pro to my internship coordinator.

I actually think after I stick everything into google translate, it will be a pretty interesting internship. My job is to research differnet companies in Buenos Aires and the goods that they produce. Eventually I will attend company meetings and propose an exporting project plan (or at least I hope thats what he said). The work hours are not too bad and I don't even have to wake up early or dress professionally. The two greatest challenges are: 1. getting there by myself (I won most likely to get lost in a room with one door at the Sangam picnic) and 2. saying more than just 'si'

They say when you go abroad people get to know you for who you really are, removed from the environment that usually defines you. According to Diego I am a pro tennis player who speaks fluent spanish...glad BA is getting to know the real Shiwani Kumar