Once more, the economist makes me more awesome:

ANECDOTAL evidence has long held that creativity in artists and writers can be associated with living in foreign parts. Rudyard Kipling, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Paul Gauguin, Samuel Beckett and others spent years dwelling abroad. Now a pair of psychologists has proved that there is indeed a link.

…

Merely travelling abroad, however, was not enough. You do have to live there. Packing your beach towel and suntan lotion will not, by itself, make you Hemingway.

It’s hard for me to tell if I’ve become more awesome in comparison to my peers, as I still live abroad.  But I have no doubt my eurotrashy traits (cheek-kissing, stupid british spelling, saying ‘ciao’) will irritate the hell out of anyone considering hiring me, leaving me almost unemployable in America.  But at least I’ve developed the ability to make intuitively understandable and beautiful excel spreadsheets.