Was It All a Dream?

Hello, everyone!

Well, I have been back home in Phoenix with my mom, my sister, and my puppies for almost a week now. Besides the HORRENDOUS jetlag I’m still dealing with, the readjustment to home has actually been very easy. Actually, I’ve been worrying over how easy it really has been.

The only “culture shock” I got when I returned was during my layover in LAX. It felt really good to be surrounded by Americans again, who look like me, talk like me, and act like me. But it wasn’t a negative shock; I welcomed it and was really happy to be back in familiarity again. Everyone was able to speak with me, answer my questions in the airport easily, and I even was able to eat a salad for lunch (I’d missed Caesar salads a lot). And when I was standing at the curbside check-in for Southwest at LAX, when a man came up and started talking to me about giving me a free book for his bizarre religion, an employee came up and shooed him away for me (that never happened in Asia with all the beggars and salespersons).

At first those little differences between the US and Asia were striking (I couldn’t believe how blue the sky was in Phoenix, despite our pollution), but I was able to quickly get over them. After sleeping from 3:00 am to 5:00 pm the next afternoon (I hadn’t slept much on my 28-hour flight, give me a break), I began going out with friends, like going out to eat, hanging out at Desert Ridge mall, etc. But it’s all felt completely normal.

While some things have changed, like the new Chipotle restaurant nearby and hearing my friends’ stories, they are minor and nothing I feel I haven’t already caught up with. It almost seems silly that before I left five months ago I was feeling so anxious at the thought of being left behind by all the changes that would take place in my absence.

However, I’ve been feeling really disconnected from my Asia experience already. I remember what happened over the past semester, and I remember all the people and the experiences. But at the same time, they seem surreal almost. It’s not like looking back and thinking, “Wow, that happened so long ago,” but rather it feels more like, “Did that really happen to me?”

And I find myself not so changed, either. I expected to come out of this experience as a brand-new person. And maybe I am, but the changes aren’t so noticeable, at least to me. Yeah, I have different living habits that I picked up, like craving rice all the time and going for a walk every day, but on the inside, I don’t really feel any different.

Although I don’t regret my study abroad experience for a minute, it still feels a bit of a waste that I didn’t feel like I gained as much as I thought I would. While I was there, I could see the changes taking place within me, but now that I’m home I feel like I’m falling back into my old patterns and becoming the same person I was before I left.

But then again, maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be. You’re still the same person you are when you left, you just learned a lot of things and had a number of really cool experiences. But at the end of the day, when all is said and done, you’re still you.

Maybe I’m just still me. But I’m hoping that I'm a more worldly, experienced, mature me.

Just some food for thought,
Kati

P.S. Just because I’m home, that doesn’t mean I’m done with my blog! I still have a few more posts I’d like to do before I wrap this up, so keep on the lookout! : )