A year in the life…

Hello dear readers!

It’s been quite a while since I last updated you on life after returning to the USA. As of March 2, I have been home one year. It has been a year filled with reconnecting with family and friends.

Reverse Culture Shock:

term used to describe the feelings (of surprise, disorientation, confusion, etc.) experienced when people return to their home country and find they do not fit in as they used to.
https://webster-sa.terradotta.com/

This past year has been a rollercoaster of emotions – both positive and negative : doubting my decision to leave a steady job to return to no job prospects; missing friends I had made in my 3 years abroad; excited about seeing family and friends; feeling proud I had not lost the Spanish language; feeling embarrassed that I couldn’t complete a simple sentence in English, as I would forget words; forgetting what language I was hearing for a moment, and responding in Korean; appreciating the love and support my family and friends offered me; greatly missing hearing the Korean language in my day-to-day; trying hard not to sound like the “One time at band camp…” storyteller type…

I recall…

… sitting in the Incheon International Airport, mostly quiet, with local intercoms announcing the flights versus the Seattle International Airport where I felt there was never a quiet moment with the intercoms’ incessant, loud announcements. This felt quite jarring as I was fighting jet lag and feeling all sorts of emotions.
…one of my first visits to a Target, and wanting to try on some clothes, I pushed the shopping cart into the fitting room, then questioned my recollection of this process, decided against having a shopping cart in the fitting room, and returned the cart to outside of the fitting room while sure the security guards watching the CCTV would get a good laugh at this scene.
…meeting up with a Portuguese language social group while in Texas, and mixing my Portuguese with Spanish and Korean, then giving up and speaking in English.

In this past year I…:

…watch many K-Dramas just so I can hear the language…
…feel overwhelmed when there are many people, or the environment is too loud…
…greatly miss seeing random hanoks or Buddhist temples on my drive to and from work, or throughout weekend road trips
…really miss reliable public transportation, especially since I must drive 1 hour just to get to my part time job…
…think about my encounters with my students, and how they were so sweet and brave going through a pandemic…
…wish it was normal to sit outside a 7 Eleven drinking wine, beer and/or soju with friends while munching on ramyeon…
…dream of the two mandu shops on my street…
…wish noraebang (Korean private “Karaoke” rooms) was a thing in Raleigh…
…am still trying to figure out where I “belong” and what I want to “be” in this great big world…
…road tripped through: South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Tennessee…
…grew out my bangs, had thick, long hair, and then chopped it to a bob…

I take comfort in knowing I am surrounded by people who love me and continue to help mold and shape me into a better person.

In just a few weeks I’ll be off to Brazil for just shy of two weeks to celebrate some friends’ marriage. I look forward to exploring a very small part of such a massive country!

Please enjoy some photos I’ve taken during this past year. Many are from the farm, but some are from *some* road trips.