Well, we booked our tickets finally! We decided to leave 4 June instead of 6 June, though, because it's cheaper to leave on a weekday.
I've been in this "culture assimilation" course for the past two nights (it's required). At first, I thought it would be a huge waste of time, but after finishing it, I realized that there's a lot of important stuff you should know before you go abroad for an extended period of time.
"Culture shock" is a term often used to describe a feeling of anxiety or helplessness when you're dropped in the middle of a foreign country. Last summer in Qingdao, I definitely experienced some culture shock, but not to the degree that Dr. Johnson thought we might. She talked a lot about the U-curve of assimilation: You're ecstatic for a little while, then you become disenchanted and then frustrated and then angry, and finally you start to rise back up to feeling content and/or comfortable. This definitely happened in Qingdao, but it was different. I was really excited about being in China for about two weeks and then I immediately started to hate it. It didn't take long, though, to start going back up. My U-curve was more like a curvy check mark - a rapid drop at the beginning and then a gradual climb back up to contentment. I think a lot of people feel this way.
It's important to experience other cultures and to experience a little bit of culture shock. Even places like New York or Chicago are vastly different from small-town Mississippi.
There's no excuse not to travel, so get out there and make yourself a more well-rounded person!
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