1) I left Korea on February 28th and the culture shock of returning to the US was both easier and harder than last time (i.e. the time I ended up with my hands over my ears in line for security at San Fransisco because I'd lost the ability to tune out other people's conversations and was going into sensory overload). It was easier because I knew what to expect and harder because Korean habits had had two full years to form. It took me a few weeks to stop bowing at people and I'm still muttering in Korean. The one thing that I didn't have trouble adjusting to was having a car again. I still make sure to hand cashiers my money with both hands and slip my shoes off before entering a house, but I'm loving being able to drive again.
2) No sooner had I made it home than I left again. I got home Monday night and left Wednesday morning for Chapel Hill to go to a wedding and see friends from college. Unfortunately I didn't get to see much of my university friends, but the wedding was lovely and I got to meet my senior year roommate's new baby. I also bought a new computer. (In my first 48 hours in the country, I went to the bakery, the library and the Apple store. I have my priorities in order.) My old computer had been slowly dying for the past eight months and I'm loving having a computer with a working mouse again.
3) Being home has been really nice. I've spent a lot of time with my family, specially my little sister, who is now 16, holy crap, when did that happen? I've also been cooking a lot, taking advantage of my mom's kitchen, which has all sorts of fancy utensils I didn't have access to in Korea, like a blender, measuring spoons and an oven.
4) I've also been to the library at least a dozen times. I have a Kindle, which was easily the best purchase of 2010 and is great if you live in a country where English isn't spoken, but not so good if you want to build a fort out of books. I also have a new library card for the first time since high school. I've never been good at returning library books on time and by senior year, my fine had reached an amount so large that I stopped using my card and started using my mom's instead. For years, I've been convinced that the fine was eighty or a hundred dollars, but when I finally checked, it turned out I only owned twenty four dollars, which might have seemed huge to me ten years ago, but is easily payable now.
5) Being home has been nice, but also a tad boring, since I don't know anyone in Brevard anymore, so at the end of March, I left for two weeks of vacation in Costa Rica. I spent the first week with a friend who lives here, and now I'm on my own, trying to remember to speak Spanish instead of Korean.
