Good morning Madrid.
Summer is ending and with it all the illusions begin, or perhaps quite the opposite. But starting a new stage like this. After this small temporary closure, I return to small texts. As a partial resident in Madrid, my life also undergoes changes and I am excited after the summer.
I live in a university residence, although not as a "rookie" but as a resident of one year. Therefore, my change will not be as drastic as those who come to the big city for the first time. September is the most active month, you could say, for Madrid university students, both those who live in university residences and those who do not. When you arrive at university, you see all those well-dressed people, with incredible aspirations that perhaps you didn't even know could be considered, those who arrive prepared with even half the syllabus after the summer? Then you feel small, you think it will be very difficult to integrate into an environment that you are not used to, at that moment is when friendships intervene. I consider a friendship fundamental when you have just arrived to settle into a new life. You need someone to trust, with whom to share both hobbies and uncertainties, help with class notes, to cover for you at university when you are not feeling well or at school when you need them to pick up a package. But it is clear that these friendships are not only fundamental in our present, but for the new future that we are creating practically from scratch. Because, it is when you move away from home, when you learn lessons that make you change your ideas, inspirations or goals. Meeting people can open your mind, learn new opinions, exceptions to the rule.
This is how you can welcome your new life, not by visiting super "cool" places that didn't exist where you lived, but by welcoming new people into your life. How nice it is to meet, get out of the established routine and evolve. It is not about a change of personality, much less, but about a new source of nourishment for our brain that will allow us to continue growing as people, students or whatever we come looking for outside our comfort zone.
After this short summer break, we cannot start hoping that the next summer will return, but with the illusion of starting that adventure that affects most Canary Islanders in non-capital islands who want to be brilliant, do great things, that satisfy that thirst for curiosity. But it is not aimed at students like me who are in Madrid, but for all those who have dared to leave home and who have been able to financially, because I can assure you that living in a condition of distance, none of these changes come cheap.
I only ask that you never close yourselves to the new opportunities that changes offer. That looking towards the most impossible goals, they achieve a path together with society, with new relationships and objectives. With some sections more difficult than others, which will help us to advance and overcome challenges that we had never thought would arise. Enjoy and above all, never stop increasing your curiosity for the new, the different or even the strange. Our world is big enough to never stop learning from others and from ourselves.
"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever" (Mahatma Gandhi)
By Teresa Fajardo Negrín
