It was like a switch just went off in my brain and suddenly I just felt like I was at home.
Perhaps it was last week planning Halloween, a holiday that was so wonderful in my youth but was a bit lost over the past couple of years. Well, not so much lost as there was always a party but I hadn't really dressed up and didn't EVER see trick or treaters.
And I just suddenly felt like a kindergarten teacher. Just that.
Perhaps this is weird to say (or read) because well DUH isn't that what you do?
But it was like I no longer felt foreign. I no longer felt out of place or amongst strange people. It was like I have this job as a teacher and in the evenings I go home and watch English tv and on Wednesdays I meet up with other foreigners and on Fridays I meet up with them again and life just continues on.
This is the first time in years I've been hanging out with North Americans and I forgot how much easier it is sometimes to just be with people that have grown up similiar to you - even if they are miles apart on the other side of the country, there is still a common bond that, as hard as I try, I don't know if I'll ever because able to articulate it.
It's not that I didn't love living in Leeds and Belfast. I did. There were so many amazing memories and experiences.
But I always just felt that little bit out of place. Well, not in the moment. I liked being a bit of an outsider, standing out a bit, Gemini attention thing I guess.
It was only in coming here that I realised that I really did miss my life in Canada.
And that I'll be happy and excited when we go back.
Perhaps I was always nervous that I wouldn't fit in back home. In some ways, I'm sure I won't. And realisitcally, the people I'm meeting here are well traveled and perhaps more than anything have so many common interests with me that maybe THAT's why I feel so comfortable and 'at home' around them.
I'm not sure but it was a pleasant curve ball in this experience that I wasn't expecting. I was so worried scary culture shock would last so much longer.
It is sometimes the 'giving in' to the universe. Just admiting that you are prepared for life to be difficult and then it becomes 100 times easier than you ever expected it to be.
Strange feel. Slightly philosophical today. And not many jokes.
But tune in again this week because I'm researching my thesis on 'the worst drivers in the world' and 'being a pedestrain among them'.
Perhaps it was last week planning Halloween, a holiday that was so wonderful in my youth but was a bit lost over the past couple of years. Well, not so much lost as there was always a party but I hadn't really dressed up and didn't EVER see trick or treaters.
And I just suddenly felt like a kindergarten teacher. Just that.
Perhaps this is weird to say (or read) because well DUH isn't that what you do?
But it was like I no longer felt foreign. I no longer felt out of place or amongst strange people. It was like I have this job as a teacher and in the evenings I go home and watch English tv and on Wednesdays I meet up with other foreigners and on Fridays I meet up with them again and life just continues on.
This is the first time in years I've been hanging out with North Americans and I forgot how much easier it is sometimes to just be with people that have grown up similiar to you - even if they are miles apart on the other side of the country, there is still a common bond that, as hard as I try, I don't know if I'll ever because able to articulate it.
It's not that I didn't love living in Leeds and Belfast. I did. There were so many amazing memories and experiences.
But I always just felt that little bit out of place. Well, not in the moment. I liked being a bit of an outsider, standing out a bit, Gemini attention thing I guess.
It was only in coming here that I realised that I really did miss my life in Canada.
And that I'll be happy and excited when we go back.
Perhaps I was always nervous that I wouldn't fit in back home. In some ways, I'm sure I won't. And realisitcally, the people I'm meeting here are well traveled and perhaps more than anything have so many common interests with me that maybe THAT's why I feel so comfortable and 'at home' around them.
I'm not sure but it was a pleasant curve ball in this experience that I wasn't expecting. I was so worried scary culture shock would last so much longer.
It is sometimes the 'giving in' to the universe. Just admiting that you are prepared for life to be difficult and then it becomes 100 times easier than you ever expected it to be.
Strange feel. Slightly philosophical today. And not many jokes.
But tune in again this week because I'm researching my thesis on 'the worst drivers in the world' and 'being a pedestrain among them'.
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