Reverse Culture Shock? Oh Yeah.

Hey all! So I realize that I kind of killed my blog for a while...sorry about that. This is my attempt to try and resuscitate it though so we will see if I can actually do this. I've had several people inform me in a very nice way since I've been back that I pretty much stink at blogging. Don't worry, I take no offense because it's true!

Well my first excuse for not updating this diddy is that I was packing and preparing to leave Korea...but most people in Korea know this is bunk because while my wonderful friends at the international school got up and went to work every day, I lounged around at home watching Biggest Loser pretty much all of January and February. After my summer camps ended, I was required to continue to go into school every day and desk warm but my co-teacher and principal required me to come in an hour to not at all for pretty much two months and I am so thankful for that! But there goes excuse #1. Excuse #2 is that I left Korea at the end of February and spent 3 weeks traveling around Thailand with my friend Anella before going back to the states. I think this is a pretty legit excuse because who really wants to blog when you're in the most amazing place on earth? Not Smashleigh. Here are a few pics so you believe me...





Excuse #3 is that since I've been back I've been busy...but that is just a flat out lie. I have been to Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona in the three weeks since I've been back but I've been doing things like going to Disneyland, sitting on my butt, going to baseball games, sitting on my butt, other various things, and sitting on my butt. Really though, it's been great to be back and be able to spend time going on bike rides with my youngest sibs, to Starbucks with my rents, my brother's track meets, hanging out with my sister-in-law, and just being with fam and friends.

I will say though, there definitely is an element of culture shock, or the reversal of, when coming back after having lived in a place like Korea for a year straight. I think a lot of that has to do with teaching in a Korean public school and being totally thrown into a culture that is so drastically different. Especially for my first few months, I was living in my little tuna can and was a deer in headlights for most of the time even when I didn't think I was. I was thinking tonight as I was driving home about how every day during the week, I would get up, walk 20 or so minutes to school, spend all day in an environment where I could barely communicate with anyone, would walk 20 minutes home, go for a run and dodge a million people, go meet some friends for dinner which took about an hour and a half round trip to get there using subways and buses, and then would go back to my tiny tuna can. Starting in August things changed a lot when I got involved with the international school and ended up pretty much living the remainder of my time there with my friend Kirsten in her enormous apartment. But still, things are so much different here. It's almost frustrating that I can't even begin to explain to you how different it really is. Just the daily routines, how you do things or get places, the way people interact, the way things look, EVERYTHING is so different. So I kind of anticipated having some sort of culture shock when coming back but it really didn't happen the way I expected.

First, it was kind of like my brain was working in two different directions when I got back to Seattle. Since I had been in Thailand for 3ish weeks I already missed Korea a lot. I miss my friends there and I miss the things I've gotten so used to without even realizing. At the same time though I was so so so happy to see people and be back in this familiar and amazing place. While I was in Korea I thought of Seattle all of the time and certain things that I missed. But driving back from the airport was amazing just being reminded of how crazy gorgeous that place is. It seriously is incredible. The day after I got back I went for a run and it was so incredible with the blue sky and totally fresh air going through neighborhoods and parks. That had become so foreign to me and I think it's little things like that, that I forgot and it was overwhelming to have everything be so different all of a sudden. I'm not going to be dramatic and say I had a total meltdown because of all of this, but it was kind of overwhelming. I think a lot of that had to do with coming back and seeing so many people that you've missed for an entire year and getting to see and do things that you've been waiting so long for while at the same time missing my friends and the familiarity of Korea. So I think I became kind of numb and for the first week I was back I pretty much just smiled and nodded. Haha.

Anyways, I'm sure that coming back after having been away is different for everyone. I just love that I can appreciate so many things that I didn't before. And I love that 14 months ago I was convinced I was going to die on the streets of Korea purely from culture shock and now I appreciate it enough that I've actually felt homesick. Kerzy.