4/7 Culture Shivers

Since today was relatively uneventful, I thought 'd share a little about my experience with culture shock.  In my case, its more like the shivers:).

Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia.  My experience is in brackets:

Culture Shock:
The process of cultural adjustment, which is also known as the U-shaped curve of cultural adjustment, encompasses five distinct stages:

• Stage 1: The feeling of excitement and eagerness. This stage occurs before leaving to go to the new culture. [just ask my friends/family.  Thanks for your patience by the way;)]
• Stage 2: The feeling that everything in the new culture is great. This stage occurs upon arrival to the new culture. [yes.  EVERYTHING was incredible.  I was in a constant state of awe]
• Stage 3: The feeling of everything in the new culture is terrible. [In the case of Saigon, everything is just "not as good as India"]
• Stage 4: The feeling of adjustment. The stage where the visitor begins to feel comfortable and takes steps to become more familiar with the culture. {I'm waiting for this stage ... hope it happens soon...]
• Stage 5: The feeling that everything is fine. The stage where the visitor has adapted to the culture and in some ways is embracing it as their own. [see above]

There are many symptoms of transition shock, some which include:

• feelings of helplessness and withdrawal [;( just a little]
• irritability [oh yeah, many apologies to my fellow classmates]
• glazed stare [definitely]
• desire for home and old friends [see below]
• physiological stress reactions [oh yeah]
• homesickness [more like friend/familysickness]
• boredom [yep]
• getting "stuck" on one thing  [and then when I was in India ....another apology to my fellow classmates;)]
• compulsive eating/drinking/weight gain [well we did go out a few times BEFORE the course began;)]
• stereotyping host nationals [no comment]

^{And for my friends and family, beware;)}

• Reverse Culture Shock (a.k.a. Re-entry Shock, or own culture shock^[7]) may take place — returning to one's home culture after growing accustomed to a new one can produce the same effects as described above. This results from the psychosomatic and psychological consequences of the readjustment process to the primary culture.^[8] The affected person often finds this more surprising and difficult to deal with than the original culture shock.