USA wtf?

6:32 pm. My bedroom, Brentwood, Tennessee.

Here's the thing. I'm back, but I still have a lot to say about being abroad. After being in the US for exactly ten days, I have noticed a lot about my home country. I knew re-adjusting would be interesting, and possibly even rough (and they were right; it can be at times), but this part of the experience has been just as rewarding as actually being abroad.

Earlier, I wrote about having difficulties hearing English all around me. I still take issue with that from time to time. As a culture, I find that we speak loudly (or the French are just that quiet), and sometimes, I don't want to hear you whine about the color your patio furniture actually turned out to be, or why he isn't calling you. Sometimes, I just want to say, "Hey! Get some perspective, because in the scheme of life it's JUST patio furniture!" and "If he isn't calling you, he doesn't want to, so stop binging on Sonic with your girlfriends and go read something intelligent!" I know, my inner monologue is harsh.

There is a very apparent lack of reality around me, as I understand it. Brentwood is a fairly nice suburb of Nashville with some wealthy families, so it's common to see sixteen year olds with cars that cost more than the down payment on a house, for example. Not only that, but when I tell people where I studied abroad, you'd think I told them I decided to donate my left leg for research or something. I know it's sort of a random far away place, but crazier things have happened. On one hand, it's like I'm in Reunion again, and I stick out and I'm interesting. But, the other side of being back is that you're no longer the novelty. It's like one of those movies where the main character just woke up or something and they time traveled or are actually still dreaming and no one knows them anymore and the world is not the same. Except less dramatic. Today is not my day for similies.

Some things, like driving my car and texting, I have recovered with no problems. I still don't immediately recognize my ringtone when it goes off, but I'm positive that with a few more weeks of operative conditioning, I'll be just as addicted as I was before. I must say that I dislike it very much that if I were to try to purchase something alcoholic, I'd be carded (the drinking age in France is 18), so, begrudgingly, I have a few more months to sweat it out until I'm free to purchase again. I still have a surprised reaction, if only for a second, when I find out that a store is open past 8 or 9 in the evening. The size of coffee astounds me. That in particular is funny, because I remember complaining so much that the espresso shots were so tiny in Reunion. Ha! Now, I can barely finish half a mug.

Tennessee's heat is slightly more oppressive than Reunion's. I attribute that to the humidity here that replaced ocean breezes and lots of direct sunlight there. While I'm on the topic, something that still irritates me more than it should is the absolute dependency in the US on central air conditioning. I'm freezing all the time, it seems. In the morning I wake up with a scratchy throat, and pretty soon, my dad will probably catch on to the fact that I'm the one who keeps turning the temperature on the AC up by a degree every now and then. I know I griped about the heat in Reunion, but after about a week, it was pretty easy to get used to it. Not only that, but Americans have a very strong aversion to seeing people sweat, being sweaty, or looking anything other than perfectly collected and well-deoderized 24/7. It's sort of possible here, but why sweating normally isn't an option, I just can't understand yet. It's damn near unattainable in Reunion, so pretty quickly I stopped paying attention to perspiring, because there was no use sweating it (lol, see what I did there?)

Yesterday evening, I talked to my friend for awhile about my re-adjustement. We talked about the food (thank God for the Mexican influence in the USA), and the language difficulties (every now and then I forget a word, can't structure a phrase clearly, or just say a french word mid-sentence). I think the most important bit of the conversation was that I was finally able to verbalize my biggest beef so far: the pieces of Americana that just get under my skin. I can't even definitively describe it, which is the funny part; I just know that there's something about home that I don't like 100%. He listened carefully to me talk about how Americans don't understand what they mean to the world, or how Brentwood really is a bubble of fantasy-money-land, or the problems of other nations that no one here even acknowledges (or knows about). Having spend about six months abroad himself, he just smiled and called me a bleeding heart. Yes, I know that these things are completely normal and anticipated for anyone spending time out of the country, but I didn't realize how weird it would make the USA seem. What's more is that I know I'll get over all of these things eventually, change my ringtone to something attention-grabbing, and possibly stop craving quesadillas every other day, but I know that this is why traveling changes people. Once you see how another part of the world operates, how another culture sees themselves (and you), you can't ever go back to that naive part of you who could afford to turn a blind eye to those things. Nor would you want to.

Everyday presents something new to me. One of the first days back I was guilted into attending my neighborhood's monthly bunco game with the local ladies. Picture: 11 suburban housewives and me, the 20 year old fresh from spending 5 months living a life completely opposite of theirs. It was interesting, to say the least. I recalled an evening in January back at school. It was about two weeks before I left, and I saw my friend Erin for the first time since she got back from spending her fall semester in France. Erin was uncharacteristicly quiet, and standing off to the side of the party with a friend. I practically skipped over to her and curiously asked anything I could think of. She only answered about three of my questions, and they were one word answers. Although I had never traveled before, I could tell she was trying to readjust; that her mind was elsewhere. That's how I felt at my neighbor's; like I was seeing my culture and surroundings for the first time. I was uncharacteristicly quiet and tried my best to observe everything.

I think about Reunion every day. I miss the ocean, I miss my friends. I miss speaking French to strangers. I want to go back to France someday. I want to learn more and see more and enrich my understanding of my piddly existence as best as possible. I have a long way to go, but as I move slowly back into the swing of things in my US life, I'm beginning to gain a different persepective on more than I ever thought I would.