Southwestern Magazine | Spring 2019

B Y S A M R A O ’ 1 9 A N D M E I L E E B R I D G E S I L L U S T R A T I O N S B Y R O B E R T L I N Southwestern staff and students share their humorous stories of studying around the globe. 29 SOUTHWESTERN Whenwe travel, we tend to romanticizeour destination and the adventures we’ll encounter while there. We have notions of who we will be in this new place, reborn in a state of wanderlust that carries our imaginations further thanour feet ever could. Butwhat happens when our idyllic study-abroad experience collides with reality? What do we do when our cozy accommodations, our meticulously planned itineraries, or the seemingly limitless bounds of our checking accounts don’t pan out thewaywe imagined? What follows are the stories of Southwestern students and staff who have experienced the joys of traveling while also enduring the growing pains associatedwith a few inevitable misadventures along the way. “Time waits for no one” TheU.S.ischaracterizedbywhatsomecalla monochronic culture . That is, becauseminutes aremoney and both punctualityanddeadlinesareaccordedgreatsignificance in the States, American travelers sometimes have to adjust to themuchmore relaxed, flexible approach to time that distinguishes polychronic cultures . TishaKorkuś, Southwestern’s director of intercultural learning, studied abroad inArgentinawhile shewas in high school. She knewvery little about the language— and even less about the culture—when she first arrived. Recalling her time inSouthAmerica, she notes, “While I soon learned quite a bit of the language and culture, one concept continued to elude me: the Argentine concept of time.” As anAmerican, shewas accustomed tomeetings starting on time and associating tardiness with rudeness; however, in Argentina, everyone arrives fashionably late. “The fact that my Argentine friends would continuously show up late to events even when I made absolutely sure that I understood what time we were to meet—and reiterated the time several timeswith them—was justmaddening tome,” remembers Korkuś. “MyArgentine boyfriendwas the worst offender. No matter how late I showed up, he was always later.” Fed up with perpetually having to wait for others, Korkuś made plans one day to meet her boyfriend at a café and went to great lengths to show up late. “I stopped in stores along the route, talked with people I knew, and did my best to waste as much time as I could,” she recalls. By the time she got to the café, she was 45 minutes late and feeling rather satisfied with her delayed arrival. “I walked inside, expecting to seemy boyfriend sitting at a table, waiting forme for once,” she says. “But, no. No boyfriend.Wouldn’t you know that the stinker walked in just a minute or two after I’d arrived?” Following her foiled attempt at lateness, Korkuś resigned herself to being the first to arrive. While she may not have mastered themysteries of theArgentine clock, Korkuś did, at least, learn that sometimes, relaxing, people- watching, and otherwise killing time are valuableways to spend one’s minutes—if not hours.