Reverse Culture Shock...Hmm....

Well my supportive readers,

I have been back in the blessed USA for almost a month and my exchange trip seems like a distant memory. I feel as if I have just awoken from a long sleep and never really went at all. Some may ask, 'Why do I feel this way?' I think a large part of it would have to do with the plain and simple fact that life here at home, although six months in the future, is still the same. I am not implying that people decided to stop what they were doing and wait for my return...nor that I expected a huge difference in Hampshire County life when I got back. I guess, I had heard stories of previous IFYES and other exchangees who had such an experience abroad that they changed their whole way of thinking and their life's plan. I know that I have changed and grown as an independent, free-spirited youth into a more conscientious and mindful global citizen. I feel much more connected to the world as a whole, instead of how I used to look at things as only on the county, state and at most national level.

This is quite an interior switch, which I am sure is just as important, if not more so than the picture I had in my mind of me stepping back onto West Virginia Soil. I keep replaying the last 6 months in my head and all those distinctly made memories have become one giant blur. I look through pictures of my travels and have to stop and think for several minutes on the name of that town I visited in Styria or what was the name of my 3rd host sister again? Those details that, at the time, were spoken from my lips daily and used so often in that 3 week span I could almost spell them in my sleep. I almost feel ashamed, as though I have not done them justice or have failed at my experience in some way. But, as time passes and I am home, I know that it is just the usual order of life. I applied, accepted, planned, participated, returned and filed it away. Like a categorized album in my life's scrapbook.

I am glad to be working on a my West Virginia Tour presentation because it is allowing me to refresh some of those closed memories I made in the beginning of my exchange. I want to remember, I don't want to file this trip away like Senior Year Soccer Season in high school or Prom 2003. I shall bring those photographs to the forefront, so that I know that it was no dream. After all, how many people in their lifetimes are given such an extraordinary opportunity as I have just returned from. Well, not many by my estimation. Therefore, I will look forward to sharing my time and expressing the importance of such an experience.

As I look back over my life and remember those key moments that stand out above all the others, I find that most, if not all, of those memories usually begin with one of these 3 phrases..."Through 4-H , During 4-H Camp or when I was an IFYE..." That's a lot of moments, all with one unifying theme 4-H!!! Now that's some powerful stuff right there!!!:)