I left Shanghai on a Wednesday morning and arrived on Wednesday morning, the benefit of traveling through time zones. It is quite odd that nothing has changed in San Jose after a year and there is some comfort in that. However, people seem to be moving on, as there are few friends left at home with the majority of them either interning or attending summer school.
Home
Some things of note after being back for two days:
My sister has really grown up, make up, short skirt and foul language to go with it. I flinch every time she curses because that is just not how I remember her. She swears as much as me, though far less creatively. Now it takes her an hour to get ready to leave the house because she has to put on her make-up, I do not remember that when I left. San Jose may not have changed much but she definitely did. Also, in the span of less than six months she has significantly scratched my car twice. I hope she outgrows this terrible driving stage soon.
My car...
...and the nice scratch my sister made
Driving is easy, I cannot believe I was ever worried about forgetting how to drive. After a few minutes of driving, I was back to expertly cutting people off like I did back in LA. I even drove my sister all the way to the SF airport, a one hour drive! Even my sense of direction has come back and I am remembering where everything is. It feels great to be behind the wheel again, crazy to think that just two days ago I was riding the metro everywhere.
Open roads and...
...white picket fences as American as it gets
What I wanted most was not to stay in Shanghai, it was time to go, but rather to take all my friends from Shanghai to the US with me. It definitely feels good to be back in the US, I missed the blue skies, sunshine and crystal clear air. Just wish I had all my friends to enjoy it with.
People talk to me and I understand them completely! That is quite the feeling, also strangers talk to me without hesitation, some even joke. It is a completely different feeling from Shanghai where I could go about sleep walking through my day and not talk to anybody even when they talked to me. I would just feel rude if I did that hear.
Adjusting back to English is actually tripping me up. When you have spent a year saying everyday phrases like “Sorry” and “Thank You” in Chinese, it is hard to get out of the habit. While deplaning in SFO I ran into an old lady, probably as a result of routinely pushing my through Shanghai, and I immediately thought to apologize by saying “bu hao yi si.” I stopped myself from saying it after remembering that I was no longer in China, but by the time I remembered to say sorry, the moment had passed.
I have a lot of cool stuff in my room which I totally forgot about.
Boxing gloves, Knives and Bullets
-muffinman
