One major thing I'm learning on this trip is the importance of suffering in silence. At times. For a while I was thinking that I need to be assertive, even aggressive, or be taken advantage of. But sometimes, being loud and opinionated and complaining comes across as being rude, argumentative and whining. There are times when it's better to just swallow things down and keep it quiet. It's something I'll have to get the balance of before people start forming negative impressions of me, because things have been pretty rough and I've been shooting my mouth off quite a bit. =(