Sometimes I feel like everything I know in my life changed overnight. Right becomes left and left is now right... literally.
In a car, the driver seat is now on the left instead of the right where it always has been for the past 30 years. Making a gear shift now requires the right hand. When crossing the streets, I would now need to look left then right. Well occasionally, slipping back to the old habit of right then left. Not an easy habit to break, totally opposite from how my world used to be.
It is not university that I had gone to, it is college. It is an elevator and not a lift, sidewalk instead of pavement. It is a shopping cart, not a trolley. You are a baller if you make it big in life, things are bad when it blows. It is terrible when you are hosed. It actually means something to end a sentence with "word".
It is still English, albeit American English. Strangely it is the same language that I grew up with, my first language. It might as well be Greek now. I swear it is a whole new world out here, one that I am trying to grasp and fit in.
How ironic life can be, all these while, I always wanted to venture abroad and chase my dream. 30 years passed, I finally land myself in this country, bundled with a whole new strange culture. It is what I always wanted. All is good except for a minor point, I underestimated the difference in the culture.
A good friend in a similar predicament worded it perfectly, "I'm not even funny in this country". Bizarre but how true. A social handicap, that is what it feels like at times. Some people are nice and will try to explain to you what certain slang means. Some simply give you an odd look. I mostly find myself unable to utter a response. I am not dumb, not stupid neither am I incapable of witty, funny remarks. But over here, the cat has got my tongue.. the humor is different, what is considered funny to me would probably be odd to them. So sometimes, i simply shrugged. LOL.
Sure I can be more pro-active and ask questions but after a while, it gets tiring. It almost feel like you are a retard. It is more than just the accent, the can and the can't. The difference in the culture is beyond the burgers, fries and bagels. It could just be my timing. College is an important phase in this country and perhaps if I have done my college here, the experience might be totally different.
Coming from a country where it is death sentence for smuggling any form of drugs and doing drugs is unheard of amongst my peers, this is totally a 360 change. It is almost a part of the culture. I do not judge or condemn it, it is just not a norm where I come from.
It is not all bad and frustrating. Every single day I am learning new things. Sometimes good, other times, you just ask yourself why. Half a year ago, I would never have biked to work, never had to look for an apartment or go to a park. Sure it did not help that somewhere along this journey, I had a bad fall and had to pick myself up. Things got bleak for a while but life goes on. Always.
It has been a life-changing half year. I embraced the change, it is a challenge I never had. Good or bad, it has definitely been an experience. Whatever the destination, the journey rocks.
Word.
What others think
Jeffrey
Apr 24 2008
I found out that a big part of humour is about timing. I think we're pretty much of out of sync in a culture not of our own.
Took me a month to be able to listen and catch what at the rate they speak.