Holy Crap! Photos!

Finally got around to posting all of the photos I had left on my camera. They pretty much encompass everything post-Spain, except I was way less zealous about taking pics in general because I started to feel like everything was looking the same. Still, they are up on the Flickr page if you are interested. You can see pics of the kids I was in charge of in Oxford, among other things. I forgot to take pics of the kids in Cambridge... oops.

So I've been home for about a week now and I'm honestly not feeling any great amount of culture shock. Maybe a little, I suppose, but it could be something else. As originally predicted, England proved to be a really good buffer between Spain and America as it has many American-like qualities (insatiable appetite for junkfood and mindless reality television), yet still manages to be quite European (small houses, small cars, diversity). On the whole, however, I find England to be so much like America that I've found myself just comparing all the details between the two since I've been home. Sure there are some big differences, but when looking at the surface, it's mostly about the details. Some stuff I prefer in England, some stuff I prefer here. For example: I prefer pubs in England to bars in America. They are just a hundred times better, hands down.

When pressed to think about it, there are some things that I feel negative about that really do get my goat. Yet I'm not sure how much of this can attributed to culture shock, or a generally heightened awareness towards the quirks of American society as a result of getting a slightly fresh, quasi-objective view of it.

I forgot how much flag waving us Americans do. It's a little ridiculous how many I've seen since I've been home. That's been slightly annoying. What is everybody trying to prove? Yeah, I know it shows support for your country and promotes solidarity, etc., but what does hanging a flag on our porches really tell our neighbors? It seems like an overblown symbol that nobody actually knows the meaning of. Which sort of leads me sideways into my next idea:

Europe really is old and it's easy to forget sometimes that America isn't. I definitely got desensitized to all of the old beautiful architecture and the history connected to it while I was in Europe, but it's crazy being back here where absolutely everything is modern. It sorta feels like things have less individual character because so much was built in a shorter period of time (less diversity in style). Our lack of history in general seems more evident as so many facets of European life are derived in some way, shape, or form from something that happened hundreds upon hundreds of years ago (if not over a thousand). We have no old history, so to compensate we create thousands of symbols that we prescribe meaning to (many times forcefully). We haven't learned all of the same lessons our European predecessors have, yet we have so much military and economic might. Kinda scary, I suppose. Onward (and this might get ranty)...

Televised news, and indeed all journalism in general is truly horrendous in America. I mean it's abysmally terrible. It's totally impossible to overstate what a complete and utter shambles the Fourth Estate is here in the States. While I'm not saying European news is perfect, I would say any American who gets all of his or her world information from watching televised news (any network, doesn't matter) will be totally disconnected from reality. Almost to prove this, the BBC -later at night- will show a 15-20 minute clip of ABC World News Tonight from here in the States and it's absolutely appalling how huge the gap in professionalism between their reporting and ours is. American news constantly, inappropriately editorializes, rarely offers multiple relevant viewpoints surrounding an issue, distortedly/unevenly presents facts, and blatantly fearmongers to the point of driving a viewer insane. One could be excused for thinking the Lebanon/Israel conflict on English news television is an entirely different war than the one being shown in America. I really could go on about this for pages but I won't since it will get me off the point.

While none of these ideas are terribly new to me, I was reminded of all of them going away and then coming back. At the very least, I do think American televised news has gotten much much worse since the last time I was in England (two years ago), since the difference in quality was so noticeable this time around.

Slight feelings of resentment can be thrown back towards Europe as well, however. I find it annoying that so many hold themselves to be morally superior to those in the US because they live in Europe. I won't try to argue that Americans aren't self-centered and ignorant, but it's ludicrous that this accusation should come from a European's mouth. Europe strikes me as being just as self-centered and high on itself as America is. While they aren't quite as ignorant as we tend to be (because of a functional newsmedia and the side effects of straight up geographical inevitability), they still have an equal share of racial intolerance and social injustice that is prevalent in the US. Spain is a particularly xenophobic country, I've found, being much less welcoming to outsiders (especially the ones with darker complexions) than I originally assumed it would be. I guess my bitterness relating to this subject stems from my being singled out as a verbal pin cushion for anybody who felt the need to voice their dissatisfaction with our administration's foreign policy. Regardless of how much I would try to nod, agree, and reassure them I didn't vote for this wreckless gang of psychopaths, they still felt the need to dump all of their ideas out on me, barely letting me get a word in edgewise. I mean, I'm American, so I deserve a good talking down to.

That's not to say this happened extremely often, but it easily came up at least a dozen times in my 7.5 months being abroad. I was told honestly by a good deal of Europeans that, despite our "elected" officials, they still held quite a high opinion of Americans based on the ones they had met personally. At least we make a good impression when we travel.

Well, I didn't mean for this post to be so vitriolic, but I guess I was in the mood to bitch. I think the moral of the story is, no matter where you go, there is plenty to be unhappy about.

I'm still happy to be home and excited to get on with life. I am also grateful and appreciative having been able to travel abroad for so long, see so many places, and have so many different experiences. The idea that I could have made it through college without doing what I did seems almost preposterous at this point. People always say that they know when they missed a huge oppotunity and then regretted it for the rest of their life, but I can say with certainty that I grabbed this one and am very happy I was able to take advantage of it.

Since I've been home I haven't done a whole lot really except start to tie some loose ends up. I cleaned a bunch of my room, although there is still more to go. I went into Boston last Friday and stayed the night. The point was to see as many friends as possible, which I did. Since then, I've been sorta hanging around the house all day (being without car and all). Most of my friends that are around Foxboro (and there aren't many) have day jobs, so I have to wait til night to do stuff. I've been chillin with Steve lately like the good ol' days which has been refreshing. Hoping I can see more of my friends in the coming weeks, especially the ones that don't live in the area anymore.

I'm supposing I'll keep this blog updated on a somewhat normal basis, although what I write about, I've yet to figure out. Hopefully interesting things will happen to me. I'm once again in need of a title change, so I'll take suggestions... or just think of one myself. The address will remain the same, despite my decidedly domestic setting.

Bye!