Reverse Culture Shock
6.02.2004 : 11:59
So I got this email from some of the people who made it possible for me to be in China about reverse culture shock. It was about 3 pages on how it's sometimes harder to adjust to returning home than it was to adjust to China. It had a lot of quotes from the Peace Corp Returned Volunteer Services to kind of validate what they were saying even though I know what they were saying it totally true. They also mentioned something about how the easier you adjusted to China the harder it would be to adjust to being home, which means it could take me years. I'd like to think I'm more flexable than that, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that they may be right.
I know things won't be the same. Everyone else has had a year's worth of movies, news, music, and Saturday Night Live that I've just missed out on. I've had a year of China that everyone else missed out on. People have moved on with their lives and I guess I've moved on with mine ( just in a weird direction ), so of course I won't be able to just pick up where I left off. The other thing is since I'm just out of college I would have went through this anyway. Moving of to some strange town while my friends move off to their own strange town and we all try to eek out a living and find jobs.
Mix that with all the other anxiety about "Have I done a good job?", "Did I do what I came here to do?", "Did I make a difference?"; and it's no wonder I feel a little depressed. You know, it could just be lack of sleep. Well all of this is just theories really. I could come home and things just be just dandy. The thing is I'm not really coming "home" at all. I'm going to Palatka. And for those of you who know me that's pretty much that place I spent the summer; where my in-laws live. It's never seemed like a home to me. And now that my parents are going to live there is going to have a whole new color of strange. If I have a home it's Searcy. And I know I'll visit there someday ( I'm hoping July ), but that's also going to be strange. I'm sure it will be like the feeling you get when you go back and visit your highschool a year of two after you graduate. Once you were well known and you fit it and you belonged there, but now it's just a building filled with a bunch of kids looking at you like, "who is the weird old guy?"
And I do feel old. In September I'll be 25. I'll still have no career, no kids, and probably no direction. I could be in Europe, Florida, the Caribean, Seattle, or the North Pole. I suppose the only constant in my life it God. I'm still a christian no matter what I do or where I go. I know that God is the reason I'm in China in the first place. And I hope God will be the reason that I go wherever it is that I go next. Or if I go at all.
Ugh. My brain hurts. I'm sure your's does too after reading all of that. So I'll say good night to those in the western hemisphere, I hope you're all having good dreams.
_Nathan
So I got this email from some of the people who made it possible for me to be in China about reverse culture shock. It was about 3 pages on how it's sometimes harder to adjust to returning home than it was to adjust to China. It had a lot of quotes from the Peace Corp Returned Volunteer Services to kind of validate what they were saying even though I know what they were saying it totally true. They also mentioned something about how the easier you adjusted to China the harder it would be to adjust to being home, which means it could take me years. I'd like to think I'm more flexable than that, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that they may be right.
I know things won't be the same. Everyone else has had a year's worth of movies, news, music, and Saturday Night Live that I've just missed out on. I've had a year of China that everyone else missed out on. People have moved on with their lives and I guess I've moved on with mine ( just in a weird direction ), so of course I won't be able to just pick up where I left off. The other thing is since I'm just out of college I would have went through this anyway. Moving of to some strange town while my friends move off to their own strange town and we all try to eek out a living and find jobs.
Mix that with all the other anxiety about "Have I done a good job?", "Did I do what I came here to do?", "Did I make a difference?"; and it's no wonder I feel a little depressed. You know, it could just be lack of sleep. Well all of this is just theories really. I could come home and things just be just dandy. The thing is I'm not really coming "home" at all. I'm going to Palatka. And for those of you who know me that's pretty much that place I spent the summer; where my in-laws live. It's never seemed like a home to me. And now that my parents are going to live there is going to have a whole new color of strange. If I have a home it's Searcy. And I know I'll visit there someday ( I'm hoping July ), but that's also going to be strange. I'm sure it will be like the feeling you get when you go back and visit your highschool a year of two after you graduate. Once you were well known and you fit it and you belonged there, but now it's just a building filled with a bunch of kids looking at you like, "who is the weird old guy?"
And I do feel old. In September I'll be 25. I'll still have no career, no kids, and probably no direction. I could be in Europe, Florida, the Caribean, Seattle, or the North Pole. I suppose the only constant in my life it God. I'm still a christian no matter what I do or where I go. I know that God is the reason I'm in China in the first place. And I hope God will be the reason that I go wherever it is that I go next. Or if I go at all.
Ugh. My brain hurts. I'm sure your's does too after reading all of that. So I'll say good night to those in the western hemisphere, I hope you're all having good dreams.
_Nathan
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yeah, I'm stilll in China
6.01.2004 : 00:29
hey everybody.
well, it's time to go home. And I guess when I get there this site might get updated. I guess it comes down to I don't like talking about being in China as much as some people.
But anyway, for those of you still interested I'll be back in the US on July 4th around 6am. I'll stay there for at least 6 months. From there I'm not sure. I could end up anywhere I guess. I would still like to be a programmer eventually, but that wouldn't stop me from doing anything else. I suppose I'm at the point in my life where I roll the dice every 2 months or so and say, "what should I do now?".
Well at this certain moment in my life I'd like to go to bed. Later.
_Nathan
hey everybody.
well, it's time to go home. And I guess when I get there this site might get updated. I guess it comes down to I don't like talking about being in China as much as some people.
But anyway, for those of you still interested I'll be back in the US on July 4th around 6am. I'll stay there for at least 6 months. From there I'm not sure. I could end up anywhere I guess. I would still like to be a programmer eventually, but that wouldn't stop me from doing anything else. I suppose I'm at the point in my life where I roll the dice every 2 months or so and say, "what should I do now?".
Well at this certain moment in my life I'd like to go to bed. Later.
_Nathan