Sweet Home...Illinois

Whoa - I completed!

Tomorrow it will be three weeks since I have been home in the USA. Staggering to think that a year and a half is over, a new year has dawned, and the next chapter in my life is underway...

Enough of the gross cliches, though in all honesty I am floored by the fact that the program is over already and I am back in my parents' house, making family dinner every night and tripping over the family's 19-year-old, deaf cat. This is going to sound like the ramblings of an old lady, but it seems that time is moving faster than ever - is this just one of the symptoms of getting older/growing up?

Christmas this year was so nice! I enjoy my parents' house, but this year everything felt so warm and cuddly - flannel pyjamas, fireplace, proper tree, presents I got to open and keep instead of sending back in the suitcase with Mom and Dad. I hope everyone else had pleasant holidays.

What has been most interesting about returning to the US after 16 months is the reverse culture shock. It's not debilitating, but over and over again I find myself feeling just a little muddled or amazed, much to the amusement of whichever present friend or family member. For example:

Portions are huge. Like, I have a stomach ache every time I eat anything, because portions are unbelievable. When I've eaten out with my family, plate sizes are out of control. Walking into a gas station convenience store for the first time, I walked up and down every aisle marveling at the array of snack options, then stood in front of the sodas and waters shouting at my mother, "But everything is so BIG!"

Everyone speaks English here. Like, English that I can understand, with slang that I understand. I have now picked up so many new British slang words and weird verbal pauses and foreigner's syntax that I now sound like the weird one.

Food tastes funny. I'm nearly over it now, but I swear I can taste the artificial sweetners, preservatives, flavors, and chemicals. It's in chocolate. Canned vegetables. Cheese. Taco Bell. I can't explain - it just tastes funny.

Byebye, Thailand

It takes FOREVER to get anywhere. I live in a subdivision a mile from the interstate and five miles from the nearest town (population: 5,000). There are no bike lanes. No public transportation options. No people on the street. No traffic noise, or neighbor noise, or any kind of noise, for that matter. It's both calming and eerie.

Where are all the people? I have so much space here, it confuses me. And all the comforts of the modern world, right at my fingertips. After I unpacked, I realized I have more clothing options, three sets of tweezers, more than two towels, a pile of DVDs that would take a week to watch.


I get excited because all the channels on TV are in English! Tragically, there is still nothing to watch!


Everything is so dang expensive! I spent $15 on a diet coke and a salad in the Chicago suburbs! I keep calculating things in my head: if I was eating out in Bangkok, it would be $5. If I was getting a manicure in Ko Samui, it would be $5. If I was getting a beer at the Family Mart outside my old apartment building, it would be $1.50. Ridiculous.

No more of these things outside shopping malls.

When doing activities with my friends and family, I continually imagine what I would be doing if in London or Bangkok, and although I am enjoying my US-based activities, I miss being abroad. New Year's US: dancing with the girls at a "classy" northern Illinois restaurant/party hall. New Year's London: drinking champagne on the street at Trafalgar Square with newly-met friends on the street. Saturday night US: drinking a beer with friends in a terrifying townie bar that poses as upscale. Saturday night Bangkok: jumping up and down to LMFAO at the RCA club, while the Europeans drank outside and the Thais sipped their drinks and stared at the idiot Americans making fools of themselves dancing. It's all relative, I suppose.

Driving, surprisingly, has been easy to adjust to, and although I still get confused what side of the road the oncoming traffic is coming from, I have not yet turned onto the wrong side of the road. I am, however, frustrated with the fact that I have to drive and can't hop on public transport and open a book.

And lastly, everyone laughs when I say it's cold, because it's been unseasonably warm for an Illinois winter. I came home with a tan - that's gone now. During after Christmas shopping, I keep going for the summer clothes because I'm so trained to, showing them to my mother with my teeth chattering. 


How is it that I often felt so American when abroad, but as soon as I get back to my country of origin, I feel like such an outsider? I had to have my friends explain the Kardashian saga to me yesterday, and all I could think about was how much more interesting the political and economic drama in Bangkok and the EU were. What has happened to me?!?