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2004-04-19 @ 11:16 p.m. : >>
Reverse Culture Shock
I just found the following in an online handbook on cultural transition:
"As I stepped off the plane after an 18 hour journey back to the homeland, I reluctantly smiled for the second half of my mother's 'before and after' pictures. I certainly wasn't happy to have left my new-found independence in my host country Scotland, and return to my life here in the States....."
Whereas I am looking forward to shedding this most unwelcome dependence.
"I moved back to my college town - back to the same apartment, the same job, and the same classes I had eagerly left behind only four months earlier."
I left those things with sadness. I love them, miss them, and cannot wait to get back to them.
"With so many things the same as when I left, sometimes it was as if I had never been gone."
Good. That's just how I want it to be.
"My peers assumed that the person they saw before them was the same person who had left just a few months earlier, when in actuality nothing could have been further from the truth.",
Whereas I would hate to think that this new wooden, dull, studious me had replaced the girl with the red lollipop.
"Perhaps going back to classes here was the hardest task. Classes in Scotland didn't meet as often as they do here. It was expected that students would all take the necessary time out of class to learn what was required. This is what I had envisioned college would be like in the States, but it took a trip to Scotland to find it. Back at home, I find myself sitting through meaningless lectures, taking quizzes, and doing assignments that seem unrelated to class. To me, it was like going back to high school, and it's something that I'm still having a hard time dealing with."
I bloody hear ya girl! Many a time have I felt like I am back in high school. It drives me crazy.
So will I experience reverse culture shock?
Well, not in the way this girl did, it would seem. But I probably will inevitably to some extent. I think perhaps what I am most in danger of, is expecting things to be just as they were. Inevitably of course they won't be. I will be going back to the same surroundings and the same people but that does not mean I will be reliving the past. The past is, after all, gone forever.
Reverse Culture Shock
I just found the following in an online handbook on cultural transition:
"As I stepped off the plane after an 18 hour journey back to the homeland, I reluctantly smiled for the second half of my mother's 'before and after' pictures. I certainly wasn't happy to have left my new-found independence in my host country Scotland, and return to my life here in the States....."
Whereas I am looking forward to shedding this most unwelcome dependence.
"I moved back to my college town - back to the same apartment, the same job, and the same classes I had eagerly left behind only four months earlier."
I left those things with sadness. I love them, miss them, and cannot wait to get back to them.
"With so many things the same as when I left, sometimes it was as if I had never been gone."
Good. That's just how I want it to be.
"My peers assumed that the person they saw before them was the same person who had left just a few months earlier, when in actuality nothing could have been further from the truth.",
Whereas I would hate to think that this new wooden, dull, studious me had replaced the girl with the red lollipop.
"Perhaps going back to classes here was the hardest task. Classes in Scotland didn't meet as often as they do here. It was expected that students would all take the necessary time out of class to learn what was required. This is what I had envisioned college would be like in the States, but it took a trip to Scotland to find it. Back at home, I find myself sitting through meaningless lectures, taking quizzes, and doing assignments that seem unrelated to class. To me, it was like going back to high school, and it's something that I'm still having a hard time dealing with."
I bloody hear ya girl! Many a time have I felt like I am back in high school. It drives me crazy.
So will I experience reverse culture shock?
Well, not in the way this girl did, it would seem. But I probably will inevitably to some extent. I think perhaps what I am most in danger of, is expecting things to be just as they were. Inevitably of course they won't be. I will be going back to the same surroundings and the same people but that does not mean I will be reliving the past. The past is, after all, gone forever.