Culture shock, the second time around...

So, I awoke this morning to check email (as I do about once every ten minutes when I'm awake) and had some IS-generated "Your mailbox has been closed" message, apparently because I had too many emails. Okay, so I try to keep encouragement from friends back home in my inbox so I can re-read them when I feel like doing so. Apparently, this wasn't going to work. I went through and got rid of most of them :( but did manage to 'reopen' my email.

While doing so, I found this email Dr. Laughran had sent me about a month ago about culture shock. Yeah, if I had read that BEFORE this afternoon, I wouldn't have felt so utterly alone for those first few days. I know that someone somewhere did some sort of research on the topic, but I do beg to differ on at least one thing it mentioned. It said "Another phase of culture shock is regression. The home environment suddenly assumes a tremendous importance, everything becomes irrationally glorified. All difficulties and problems are forgotten and only the good things back home are remembered."

Uh, yeah. Nice try, but, um, I don't think so.

I do I think that this idea is on the right track, though. Yeah, I've felt an indescribable sense of patriotism and of course I want to go home, but I don't think I'm being "irrational" because I have a newfound appreciation for people and places back home. I've always loved my country, that sure as heck is NOT a new development. Simply being away from familiar things makes me see how much I had taken them for granted.

I mean, it's not like I've never been culture shocked before. Albeit nowhere near the same level of shock as moving to Europe, moving to Maine was indeed a challenge in itself. At the time, I didn't think anything else could be as bad (I was 18, and I've recovered, gimme a break). At the very least, it was a sort of practice experience for me. I hated Maine at first, just because it wasn't Central New York. And it seemed like too many people were forgetting to pronounce their "r's." (I sincerely do not mean any offense.) For someone who had just graduated from high school, something so petty as an accent threw me for a loop. I can now say, I see that for the trivial first-time-away-from-home homesickness.

I got over it, and more often than I'd like to admit it, I feel more at home in Maine than in Utica. The fact I pretty much dropped off the face of the Earth in September 2003 and didn't talk to anyone but my family and exactly 3 friends in Utica is completely my fault. I have a feeling I will feel something like that here, but at least I know to some extent that it's normal. I spent three and a half years in Maine, with a single non-vactiontime trip home in all that time. I also spent quite a few long weekends at SJC when everyone else went home. Now, I'll be spending Easter here, but my butt will certainly be home for the Fourth of July. That, I made sure of months ago.

Stupid me, I had known Dr. Laughran had sent me the link, but simply forgotten that the email was in there... but certainly I did not delete it. :)

Finally adjusting, at long last...

Okay, so good news. I'm doing a lot better than I was say, last week. Being able to talk to my mom on the phone, and most of my friends online, I'm finally getting used to being here. Maybe it's because I only wake up about once a night now due to the noise of the city, maybe because I'm wandering around with other people more. Who knows, but then again, it doesn't really matter. I think that I can do this now, which means...


That I'm no longer a TOTAL basket case. (Funny story- it makes me think of a sign I saw a while ago outside the Protestant church in New Hartford, between Zebb's and Dove Eye Center. It said "When things go wrong and everything looks bad, just remember that Moses was once a basket case." Hahahahaha still cracks me up years later...)


Anyways,
So we found out what classes are being offered in English this semester. And boy, is the way classes are taken here different than in the States. Each of your classes are held once a week, for an hour and a half. That's it. Also, you attend any classes that you might be interested in taking for the first 2 weeks, and if you decide to stay in them, you've gotta sign up with the professor to register. AND, if you don't feel like taking a final or writing a term paper, you still get half credit, just for having shown up for the class. Nice...


Thus, I'll have a lot of free time, and if I take the 3 classes I'm looking at, will have class once on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, which just 'happens' to leave loooooong weekends for travelling. :)


I'd still probably want to take the Polish for forigeners class too, which adds a class on Monday nights and another to Wednesdays. Not too bad at all...


Here's a picture I took of one of the hallways of the University. The gate is wrought iron, I believe. Wandering through its corridors, I'm amazed that this insitution has been in existence longer than our entire country. Wow.

13 days down, 129 to go...

Eeek. That's another five months.

So I know that it's not helpful to think about how long I'll be here in the grand sceme of things, but its simply a fact that I do and probably will. I've finally settled into a routine that keeps me somewhat stablized until classes start. I can't begin to function when I have no class, no job, no friends to meet up with, no grocery shopping to do with my mom, no dog to go home to. I think that it's something that we'd all go through if we ever left our homes and moved somewhere completely new.

It's not so easy making new friends when you have so little in common with the other students, but I know that's what studying abroad is supposed to be all about. I regret to say it isn't all that comforting... I think that the alcohol factor in the 'nightlife' here is more than asking for bottled water without gas (carbonated water= quite gross) at a pub. It's also the notion that staying out late- while other people are consuming mass quantities of alcohol- is normal. Uhhh yeah so I don't like staying out late. It's just not the kind of person I am. I'd rather stay in and watch a movie or read a Stephen King than have to come back by myself. And half-mile stretches of roadways being constructed, where you must walk them, in the dark, alone, with no street lights sure as heck do not make me comfortable. Not that it has that it's-unsafe-to-be-out-alone-at-night feeling. Give me a country road, pitch black night without a moon, and I'll walk it alone. In a big city... I don't think so. Anyways, I'll stop complaining right now, otherwise I can rant for a long time.

Change of subject.

I'm coping with not only missing my family and friends, but the US as well. My God, I never knew how patriotic I was until I came over here. Please, do not misinterpret this as a negative comment against anyone or any place. I can miss anything and everything I left behind, and I do because I never knew how much these people and places and things back home meant to me. I know that I'll spend my time being miserable and alone if I dwell on these things, and that's not what I'm trying to do. I've found completely new appreciations for the little things in life that I'd taken for granted. I'll list them at some point, just because it is something that I think will help people back at SJC or in Utica or wherever understand a little bit better the differences between Wroclaw and the States. Just for starters, McDonald's supposedly does not have breakfast food... not that I eat there anyway, but I surely will as soon as I can learn to order stuff, I mean the place is right outside my window. No Egg McMuffins? Oh no! :P

I want to post more pictures on here, but it takes sooooo long that I've just put them all up on Facebook, for those who have it. If I'd exercised a brain cell or 2, I would have brought a couple of blank CDs with me to burn these pictures on, then mail them to people. Yeah, well the idea failed to strike me until recently. Oh well...

Enjoy another picture of the city... :)

Braving the popularity of booze... or trying to at least...

So I've really been losing it over here. It's not like this isn't a beautiful place (at least in part), its just most discouraging that my choice not to drink is clashing 100% with the norm for students here. In a city of 600,000-- what-the-heck-was-I-thinking moment--, with 10 public and 10 private universties, for a total of 720,000 people, a country girl like me is like a trout in the Sahara. Literally.

There are pubs everywhere, and most of the students that I know go out clubbing every night.

I wouldn't go down the hall in Feeney to hang out with friends who happened to be drinking when someone I didn't know well was down there with them.
So, being in an overwhelming place, with unlit streets, construction everywhere, where I don't speak the freaking language is a complete and total nightmare on its own. Throw the fact that I've never changed who I am as a person just to 'fit in' with others into the mix, along with alcohol being served EVERYWHERE and I have become a total basket case.
The reality that you can get sick from drinking the water is probably some factor in the popularity of drinking beer all the time (heck, that's why they drank wine back in the day- it was clean and safer than contaminated water supplies), but that doesn't make me feel any better. When a barmaid walks by with an eight liter beaker of beer-complete with spigot- I'm simply at a loss for words. I mean, the alcohol content of beer here in Polska is like 7%.

Ugh, I feel that I can walk into any given bar back in the Good Old US of A without a problem now. And I'm not so happy about that.

I did not come 5,000 miles to drink. I came to look at museums, old buildings, and travel. I want to see Prague, maybe Berlin (they're both like 2 hours from here), go to France and visit Nancy, and stop by Venice on the way back and see Drs. Laughran and Vianello. I mean, when else will I happen to be in Europe and have a chance to see these places? I don't want someting as trivial as beer to get in the way of my plans, but it's hard to try and get to know people when they get upset that you won't come out clubbing with them until 4am. I just want to be a student for the learning, not for the "nights I can't remember." Back in the States, college life isn't complete without the random partying on weekends or for special occasions. Here, it seens to be the reason for attending a university in the first place.

Anyways...

Thank God for the internet, now that I have it I can at least listen to FRANK online while talking to my friends and feel like a normal person again. Except for the six-hour time difference. When I'm heading to bed, my SJC-ers probably haven't been to Bon Appetit for dinner.

Aww, I miss the Caf too... :(

More than mixed feelings... :(

I've been feeling really moody... hating Europe with a passion one minute, then being alright with it, then actually being able to picture myself here in the summer two seconds later.
My friends have been emailing and messaging me advice, and thanks guys, it means SO MUCH. Really, it does.
I have to say that what has been the most helpful so far is that, thanks in part to that number one addiction among American college students-Facebook- which I'd shunned for oh so long, I've been talking with an old friend who was in the same situation not too long ago. His advice honestly makes me feel like this wasn't the dumbest thing I'd ever done. Remember, I left my friends, family, Senior Ball and Graduation from Saint Joe's behind to spend a phenomenal amount of money on flying halfway around the world to take this opportunity.
During my I-hate-this-place-what-the-heck-was-I-ever-thinking moments, I can't see that this is the chance of a lifetime. I simply stop caring about what I'll have to look back on, and just want to go home, hug my mom, argue with my brothers, pet the dogs, eat pizza and drive my semi-speakerless Saturn 6 hours to Maine to crash on couches and futons.

I guess you can never realize just how much the people who love you really mean to you. Until you're too far away to hug them and tell them that you'll never forget them, it's something you cannot even begin to fathom.

Thank God for the Internet.

Wahooo :)

Yay! I got the Polish equivalent of a Go-Phone today. For a total of 300 zloty (Polish dollars, pronounced zuh-waty, soon to be replaced by the Euro) which equals out to about $100 American dollars, I got a snazzy 'candy bar' phone, referred to as such because the phones here are freakishly tiny and rectangular-ish. Flip phones are extremely rare, and I'm reminded of that old SNL skit where Will Ferrell is working in the Mod fashion store and has the little Barbie flip-phone... Ahhh... cable... TV in general...
Back to the phone. It has free incoming calls, and about 100 zloty of prepaid money on it. That means I can talk to my mom- about 4 zloty for me to call her, and when she calls me- for just the 39 cents it costs her to call international. :)
If you have an international plan... and miss me... check out my Facebook and call me, just remember that anything after about 6pm is actually after midnight here...

Though any calls are greatly appreciated...


hint hint ;)

Doing better...

I am doing better, mainly because I have found other English speaking people and a couple places where they speak English- like the pub across the street (me in a pub, go figure) and Pizza Hut, which here is more like a less gaudy Olive Garden, believe it or not.

We have started our Polish intensive class, so we can introduce ourselves now and say some numbers, etc.. We have a ways to go.

I will finally get a Polish cell phone, so instead of $2 a minute to talk to my mom it will be 39cents. Whoo hoo.

I hope to have my own internet soon, then I will be better at keeping up with this...

I'm here and alive...

I'm here, and although my bags were a day late thanks to the big disaster of my flight plan at Syracuse.
Unfortunately, the people here who were supposed to all be speaking English are definitely only speaking Polish. As a result, I need people to translate everything for me. If I don't learn the language soon, I really will starve. I'm hungry now, but can't get groceries because 1) I don't have a stipend yet and 2) can't read the packages, signs, or speak to the cashiers.
I can't use my computer yet because I need to be registered, but instead of SJC's super-easy (really, it is very convienent) registration online, I need to send a request to someone and they'll supposedly have me on in 2 days. (!!!) Remember, I don't speak Polish, and very few people appear to speak English.

I am more homesick than ever, and being away at college for the first time is nothing compared to this. I'm 5,000 miles from home, and can't go anywhere in the building, let alone leave the building, or go out into the city alone because I'd be helpless. I want to get on AIM to talk to my friends, but again, everything is such a process here (I'm on my roommate's computer). Oh, did I mention that there is only one Internet connection in each room, as well as only one key for each? Oh yeah, 2 roommates and 1 key. Here, if your key isn't at the desk downstairs- where you're supposed to leave it- you are outta luck, buddy. No one comes to let you in. No security, no Student Affairs, no Facilities. Nada. It's already happened to me.

I cannot express how very much I miss SJC, New York and the States right now. :'(

Tomorrow's the day...

Okay, so tomorrow's the day. I leave from Syracuse, then fly to Dulles then Munich. I just found out that my seat won't have an outlet so I can't watch movies on my laptop, just in case the in-flight ones are crummy. :(

Having been home for a month seems to be making this harder to pack up and leave... I mean, this past summer I was at SJC for 4 months straight, and we all know how THAT stint ended ever-so-tragically when I finally made it home. Stupid raccoon.

Oh well.

Wish me luck. :)