Well, THAT was a flop...
So, I failed miserably at keeping up with this blog over the holidays. I could give you a long list of reasons for this, but that would be boring, so I'm going to just apologize and move on instead.
It was really funny to stare at the flurries that fell on Christmas Day and think about my friends in Cape Town who were heading to the beach to celebrate the holiday. I always associate Christmas with cold and think about songs like "White Christmas" and "Baby, It's Cold Outside", but in the southern hemisphere, Christmas is in the middle of the summer and, as my contacts tell me, involves beaches and braais. It's amazing how much climate can affect culture, even when the holiday is essentially the same.
Back to School=BIZARRE
But to move more into the present, I have finally returned to school. It's strange to be on campus again after so long. Although time has passed, campus life feels the same, almost as though I never left. For the first couple weeks of the semester, I ran into people constantly and was bombarded with excited greetings and bunches of questions about my experience. Now, though, everything has settled down a bit and in a way, it almost feels like I made the whole thing up. I keep repeating to myself, "I lived for four months in Cape Town. I went to South Africa. I missed a whole semester here..." just to make sure the experience doesn't disappear from everyday life.
These return feelings, they tell me, are called "reverse culture shock" and happen to everyone, but I don't really think that's the case here. It's not "shock" so much as slight discomfort. Some of my skills from South Africa are coming in VERY handy, though. For instance, I'm living in an apartment off-campus and have to use those newfound skills that fall under the heading of "cooking". (I don't know that hamburger helper, oven pizza, soup, toast, salad, and macaroni and cheese count, but I'm giving myself credit.)
Life in an off-campus apartment with one person is really different from life in a house with 12 people. Living with just my friend Ashley (who just returned from study in Australia, by the way) is so much quieter than existance in the house in Cape Town. I like it, though. It's nice to have television and internet access whenever I want it, a safe neighborhood, and a bureaucratic system that I understand. Still, I miss the excitement and natural beauty of Cape Town. The view from my apartment of Memorial Union stabbing the cloudy sky doesn't even begin to compare with the view of Table Mountain silhouetted against the bright blue firmament that I had from the front gate of the house in Cape Town. *sigh*
Future Update
In May I'll graduate and go to seminary, which will put me in my third school in as many semesters. What campus will I be invading next? It's still up in the air, but I have three acceptance letters so far (St. Paul in KC, Garrett at Northwestern, and Candler at Emory) and I'm waiting to hear from two more schools about admission (Duke and Boston U). I'm also holding out hope for financial aid, since education has a nasty habit of being expensive. I'm starting to feel like my future is in a roulette wheel..."Round and round the wheel goes, where it stops? Nobody knows!" In a few more months I have to make a decision, though, so I'll keep you posted.
It was really funny to stare at the flurries that fell on Christmas Day and think about my friends in Cape Town who were heading to the beach to celebrate the holiday. I always associate Christmas with cold and think about songs like "White Christmas" and "Baby, It's Cold Outside", but in the southern hemisphere, Christmas is in the middle of the summer and, as my contacts tell me, involves beaches and braais. It's amazing how much climate can affect culture, even when the holiday is essentially the same.
Back to School=BIZARRE
But to move more into the present, I have finally returned to school. It's strange to be on campus again after so long. Although time has passed, campus life feels the same, almost as though I never left. For the first couple weeks of the semester, I ran into people constantly and was bombarded with excited greetings and bunches of questions about my experience. Now, though, everything has settled down a bit and in a way, it almost feels like I made the whole thing up. I keep repeating to myself, "I lived for four months in Cape Town. I went to South Africa. I missed a whole semester here..." just to make sure the experience doesn't disappear from everyday life.
These return feelings, they tell me, are called "reverse culture shock" and happen to everyone, but I don't really think that's the case here. It's not "shock" so much as slight discomfort. Some of my skills from South Africa are coming in VERY handy, though. For instance, I'm living in an apartment off-campus and have to use those newfound skills that fall under the heading of "cooking". (I don't know that hamburger helper, oven pizza, soup, toast, salad, and macaroni and cheese count, but I'm giving myself credit.)
Life in an off-campus apartment with one person is really different from life in a house with 12 people. Living with just my friend Ashley (who just returned from study in Australia, by the way) is so much quieter than existance in the house in Cape Town. I like it, though. It's nice to have television and internet access whenever I want it, a safe neighborhood, and a bureaucratic system that I understand. Still, I miss the excitement and natural beauty of Cape Town. The view from my apartment of Memorial Union stabbing the cloudy sky doesn't even begin to compare with the view of Table Mountain silhouetted against the bright blue firmament that I had from the front gate of the house in Cape Town. *sigh*
Future Update
In May I'll graduate and go to seminary, which will put me in my third school in as many semesters. What campus will I be invading next? It's still up in the air, but I have three acceptance letters so far (St. Paul in KC, Garrett at Northwestern, and Candler at Emory) and I'm waiting to hear from two more schools about admission (Duke and Boston U). I'm also holding out hope for financial aid, since education has a nasty habit of being expensive. I'm starting to feel like my future is in a roulette wheel..."Round and round the wheel goes, where it stops? Nobody knows!" In a few more months I have to make a decision, though, so I'll keep you posted.
posted by Lauren at
9:54 AM
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