Relax/Culture Shock!

Taylor King

Blog 6: Intercultural Competency

One thing I will do to ease my transition into a new culture is to relax.  I have experienced culture shock before and didn’t realize I was in culture shock until a few days later when I had time to adjust and become acquainted with the new scenery.   When I experience culture shock in Argentina, I plan on doing what I did before when I experienced culture shock and relax.  I can try my hardest to feel normal and like I felt at home but in the end it will be better to go with the flow and let things fall into place so that I don’t worry myself and cause myself more stress and shock.  There will be changes in eating habits in that I will have “a forth meal” in Argentina.  There is breakfast, lunch, then tea/snack time around five, then dinner around ten or eleven at night.  This means I will be a night owl and will be having some late nights out!  However, I am pretty excited about this part since I stay up late anyway in the US.  There is a possibility that I will get homesick and I will have access to a phone and internet that I can use to contact family and friends back home.  Again, if this happens I believe that it is best not to sit around but to go out with friends somewhere to surround you with social people.  Hopefully I will not get to the point of depression if I get homesick.  I plan to not let this happen!  I have a goal of making as many new friends and social networks as possible so that I will not have time to be sad that I have left my family and friends at home for four and a half ish months.  I tend to get frustrated fairly easily; however, I have a method for relieving my anger which is food!  Whenever I get frustrated, I treat myself to a little something to calm and distress myself.  Whether it be chocolate, a small snack, or a soda, it always seems to help me focus.  I do expect myself to experience a sense of failure here and there during my expedition.  Even though I can speak Spanish, I am not 100% fluent so I do sometimes not understand Hispanic people occasionally.  When it comes to illness, I plan on going to the local clinic since it is close and convenient.  I am planning on NOT getting sick but it is a different country with different surroundings so nobody knows.  My last note is that with my method of relaxing and going with the flow, I do have a restriction.  When the time comes, which it will, when I get so overwhelmed with school or other activities, I plan on stepping away  and withdrawing from the situation so that I do not become so frustrated it ruins my experience.  I will have to deal with adjustments I know, but occasionally one needs a few moments of piece to sort out thought and convince oneself that they can do it!