Over Ohio and High Water

After teaching a two week intensive English camp for Fulbright, I returned back to the United States for a 3 week jaunt around the life I left a year ago. Throughout this year I never really thought I would have trouble adjusting back to life in the United States -- doubting I would get the "reverse cultural shock" that everyone seems concerned about on returning -- and, truth be told, I didn't. What I did go through, however, was the strange realization that I have been gone for an entire year from my family, friends, and peers. I'm realizing now that having full interactions with people (ie. speaking the same language and having some common understanding about where each individual is coming from) has helped me throughout life to take a mental note of time while I was living in the United States. Time seems long when there are a lot of these interactions and short if there are few. Without them here in Korea, the past year flew by as if it had only been three months.

Coming home to see how time had changed my family, to hear how diseases have developed or been eased, and how people have gotten married and moved into a much different stage of their life, has made me realize how long I have been gone. But, that is a feeling I would have had even if I was still living in the states, even as close as a state like North Carolina.

All of that aside, it was nice to come back to an environment where I don't have to be as conscious about my etiquette (not that that was a big deal here, but something I did have to pay attention to), to wear my old worn-in clothes, and to eat salads in the grass. My friend Elaina also got me into seeking out wild herbs and greens: my personal favorite being Mullein, which has helped clear up my constantly-blocked sinuses. And I had a chance to go sailing, bike alot, go to a drive-in, catch up with lots of people from in and out of town, and just generally bask in those things that have come to seem genuinely American in their absence.