Crossing that Border to break that mold
Taking yourself from a familiar setting and placing yourself in another is going to cause some cultural clash, whether or not you desire to see it. Dropping ice in a warm glass of tea will produce the same effect. Sometimes one is completely consumed, enveloped and assimilated into the culture of the tea, while other times it bobs uncontrollably, fighting to stay afloat while slowly coming to terms with its forthcoming acculturation. Each reaction is one of its own, each cube of ice reacts differently: clinging to others, cracking and popping, clinking against the glass, before accepting its fate. Depending on your tea, your country, and your own self standing will mold how your experience melts. Hot cold, your own icy temperature, each part comes into play, and understanding this will only prepare you more for the coming experience.
Myself? I am confident, somewhat unbound by my fears, that my experience will grow from how my tea shapes me, takes me and makes me grow. The tea doesn't change me, my chemical make up, my inner self. These cultures won't take the inner most parts of me and remove what I am and I become it. Instead, merely, It changes my form, it thaws my cultural boundaries and allows me to evenly fade into the culture, take away what I need, while still holding what I am.
My own life experiences ease my icy front, and allow a comfortable slip from one culture to the other. These ideas, values and examples are as follows:
I've been there before
My travels there have already melted some of my own outsides, allowing the tea to already eat away at the outer shell of me. Having had the ability to insert myself into the culture before I go is something that will allow for a bit of comfort while I am abroad. The ability to also have others I know there--if it is needed--also helps the acculturation. Giving myself at least one person that I can talk to openly, that I can open up to allows for the removal of stress.
My ability to ask questions
I love people. People excite me on a level that nothing else has ever done. So walking up to people and asking questions is easy for me to do. My years of theatre and public speaking have washed away any fears of being looked at strangely and putting my needs ahead of that.
Fortunately, this has already helped me and been put into effect when I went to Toronto a couple of years back. Dead winter, snowing, wind chill, I get lost in downtown Toronto after going to see the CN tower with my boyfriend. The Hotel we were staying at was not even a block away, but one wrong turn sent us ten blocks in the wrong direction and almost to Lake Ontario. Oops. Going up to multiple people, I asked where I needed to go to get to a specific address, best way to get there, and used their advice to figure out what we needed to do.
Lets just say I was not a happy camper to have been lost, but thankful I found my way out.
Low Context Personality
Thankfully, my own personal context level is close to the context level that I will be moving into. This does not in any means, say that I will completely dive in and have no effects of culture shock. Unlikely. Instead, it means that I can use my own sense of self, and my understanding of the world and know that there is some equality there and knowing that is helpful.
Bullheaded Nature
You could say this is a bad thing, but I also want to comment that it means I won't give in, and I will not allow for my own reservations to set me back. I know what I need to do, and I will make sure that an understanding of myself, and the mesh of others happens. Desire to grow within this adventure that life has given me won't be quenched by a fear that would hold me back.
----------------------------------
While there are good things, there are also a handful of things that I do need to work on. Keeping these faults in check, and understanding myself will allow for my transition from one place to the other to smooth itself, instead of seizing and shutting down.
My introvert typing
I like being by myself, I like having my time. Brittany time is good time. I like to have time to read, to write, to relax and de-stress. While I will refuse to let this get in the way of making friends, I know for a fact that it could get into the way of going out of my way to do something in my pre-scheduled relaxation time.
This could be easily fixed by making sure that the de-stressing time is framed in a time that no other conflicts arise and obtaining friends that understand the need to have alone time.
Lack of Exposure to Big Town Life
Okay, well you know, I have lived in places with 50K people or less. Brock University itself has 17 thousand students in Enrollment, St. Catherine's has 130K people, and Toronto has over TWO MILLION. Okay. Listen. I love people, but again, I like my space. As long as I can find my niche, allow myself to dig a little hole and watch from there I should be fine. The struggle between going to a school with nearly six times the students will be hard, and the relationships with people will change, but I plan on working through this.
----------------------------------
I hope to bring ideas of the states, I hope to make students understand that the sterotypes that are normally placed upon Americans are not true, and hope to grow the understanding between one country and another by placing comparisons for cultures within a class setting. I hope to bring forward ideas that aren't normally viewed and look at ideas through different facets. But until you take that dive in, envelop yourself in the warmth of the tea, you can't do anything but prepare.
No comments:
Post a Comment