Pots of paella

Editor’s be aware: This column was submitted by a member of the UT group. 

We stood within the misting rain, wanting down right into a valley of fall yellowed bushes and small household farms, straining our brains to translate a Spanish legend being informed to us by our enthusiastic tour information. Choosing up the phrases “ojos” and “amor,” we deciphered that he was talking in regards to the eyes painted on the aspect of the mountain in entrance of us and the way they stood as a testomony of a tragic, forbidden love story. What an ideal place to expertise heartbreaking love. As I stood on this small, unexploited city of Cuenca, Spain, I acknowledged that this sense of nostalgic bliss would stay in my thoughts without end after I thought again to my examine overseas expertise. Whereas my time in Madrid will without end be particular to me — the scent of rain rolling in off my balcony into my tiny one bed room house within the coronary heart of the town, the sound of busking opera singers on Gran Vía, the frenzy of metro air that rises up because the prepare brakes to a cease in entrance of you — the instances exterior of Madrid had been simply as memorable. 

The exaggerated, garish cathedrals peppered each Spanish metropolis, ones we knew had been constructed amongst an impoverished city providing all it needed to the reverence of the Divine. Standing on the aspect of a mountain at sundown within the metropolis of Chefchaouen, Morocco, the decision to prayer echoed off each little blue home. The home of Portuguese author, José Saramago, in Lisbon — a person whose novel “Blindness” would make me ache for a complete month after I learn it the following 12 months. A Christmas efficiency within the heart of Brussels, Belgium, listening to “La Vie en Rose,” the wind biting at our cheeks, as we snacked on the few items of Galler sweets we had been capable of afford. In every place, I left items of myself that I’ll at all times lengthy to reunite with. 

Again in Madrid, I studied arduous in small espresso retailers and within the college pc labs. Taking a mechanical engineering class at Comillas Pontifical College proved to be fairly completely different than my courses at UT. Our professor took two grades: a midterm and a ultimate. All of the homework we got was elective (and in Spanish), pushing me to adapt academically to a brand new system of studying and forcing me to ask the Spanish college students round me for assist. This taught me a lot about myself as a pupil, and after I got here again to Austin, I noticed my grades and my confidence in my communication expertise improve. 

The Spanish training system taught me what to prioritize when finding out and that finding out longer doesn’t imply finding out successfully. The worldwide college students I took courses with globalized my mind-set about faculty, as they repeated again and again that Individuals “work an excessive amount of and stay too little.” As I centered extra on the happiness of my life exterior of courses, I re-energized and reinvigorated myself as a tutorial, making me extra centered on studying whereas within the classroom. 

I imagine my expertise in Madrid taught me easy methods to successfully keep away from burnout by, properly, not burning out. Whereas working is vital and research must be taken severely, siestas and late, lengthy dinners with pals are generally simply as vital. Expertise the enjoyment in all of life, in each class and examine session, hike among the many bushes, solo stroll via a museum, in each pot of paella shared amongst outdated pals, and in each dialog with new ones. 

Meyer is a mechanical engineering senior and a peer advisor at Cockrell’s Worldwide Engineering Schooling workplace from Conroe, Texas.