Four Weeks

Four weeks left in the semester. In four weeks, I'll be computing final grades for my algebra II kids. In four weeks, I'll have survived the first half of what everyone tells me is the hardest thing I'll ever do. I'm starting to think I might make it.

In four weeks, I'll be home. Eating my mom's food. Curling up on the couch to watch something as brainless as law and order. I'll be waking up, putting on sweaters and crunching through snow, making tracks through the bare trees to all the spots I once roamed over at will. In four weeks I'll be at the neighborhood Christmas Eve party, which has become my favorite day of the year. I'll borrow my little sister's car and meet my parents' dog, both new arrivals. Sleep in my little twin bed. Lay out of the cool kitchen floor and repent of eating much more than my stomach has been accustomed to. It will probably freak me out; even thinking about it freaks me out now just a little bit.

I've started to realize how much I've actually been affected by culture shock down here. When I went to Russia, it was something I prepped for, something everyone warned me about, and something I accepted as natural and neccessary. But coming to Mississippi, despite the warnings, I never took the idea of culture shock seriously. After all, I was only making a 20 hour drive, not a 4500 mile flight. I would be speaking (essentially) the same language, and be surrounded by people whom, I suspected, had grown up with a set of experiences that I, more or less, shared. That was where I was wrong. The things that people experience here everyday, through childhood and on to adulthood, are radically different than those I experienced. These kids see more by the time they turn ten then I have ever seen. It was, more than the language or history, the lack of shared experiences that caused most of my culture shock problems in Russia, and I have found that same sort of blockage in my ability to relate to people down here.
This is all a long, drawn out explanation of why I am starting to prepare myself to be weirded out when I get home. Reverse culture shock. Being suddenly flooded with familiar sensations and faces, being immediately spoiled by having an exceptional support network (shout out to you all at home) and everything I need. I'm reminded of a scene from Hatchet, one of those fourth grade books I read upwards of 10 times. The kid (was his name Brian?) spent weeks (months?) living alone in the Canadian wilderness, surviving with only his (you guessed it) hatchet and his wits, but the scene I remember occurs after Brian is rescud. He's been back for several weeks, but when he enters a supermarket, and sees how everyone takes for granted the food that occupied his every thought when he was alone and starving in the wilderness. When I get home, I'm worried I might feel a bit like Brian in the supermarket, angry at everyone for taking for granted the amazing things they have. Because here, people never ask where you live, but where you stay - residences are ever shifting things, and though you might live in Greenville your entire life, you might stay in a different place every few months. You might stay different places different nights of the week, depending on who got their check, who got drunk, who was on the outs with whom. Read "A framework for understanding poverty" by Ruby Payne. I blogged about that book earlier, mainly because I was assigned to, but also because so much of what the book says actually comes true in real life. A friend just told me how surprising it is, in a way, that the world we've studied, been warned about, and prepared for really does exist. And it's true. In so many ways, it was just what I needed, because I was tired of studying, being warned and being prepared. But going back home, to a place where , at least among the circles I traveled in, everything down here is simply something to be studied or warned about, might be a bit off-putting. We'll see. At least I won't be stopping in for a visit at college, the ultimate place to studying and preparing for a reality that the institution of college is eternally striving to banish from the lush green lawns, ivy-covered walls and leather-couched libraries.

Four weeks. Four weeks and tehn I'll see if I react like Brian in the supermarket. I'm sure though, despite it all, I'll be glad to be home. Even if it only makes it harder to come back...