Tuesday, June 3, 2014

I might should give up on the dentist thing.

So I'm getting ready to leave the country in less than a month, and doing a terrible job of it if I do say so myself.

I feel like if I were doing a good job then I would have everything finished by now and would just be enjoying my time left in the states with all my friends and family.

I'm still doing that now but I'm also desperately trying to get stuff done like work out how to make student loan payments from the other side of the planet, get a visa, and possibly my wisdom teeth removed.

And by try to get stuff done, I actually mean try to try.

It's like writing a paper, I'm not at the point where I am actually working on these things yet.  I'm at the point of thinking about working on it.

The stress is the same but the progress is that much less. (Except on the visa thing.  I'm actually working on that one, but everything else seems to have been put on a standstill.)

Anywho, I feel like I ought to write an existential blog about the changes coming in life, about how I am facing this massive change with courage or what have you but I am extremely...unmoved.

This is the direction my life has been heading.  It's completely not shocking or really scary to me that I am moving to China for a year.  The things I'm scared of are the exact same things that I'm scared of on this side of the planet.  I'm scared that I won't do a good job and they'll get mad at me because I suck/somehow misrepresented myself and my capabilities.

Which I do not believe I did because I was very clear about what experience I had and didn't have and was told also quite clearly "that's okay, we're training you."

I'm scared I will go hungry not for lack of food or money or provision but because I won't know how to grocery shop in a foreign country and will be too scared to ask for help.

I'm scared that I will be super awkward in this new little community I'm entering into and that I won't know how to connect with any of them.  Making friends is not as easy for me as the world assumes!

Just because you're an extrovert doesn't mean that it's easy.  It just means it's more urgent.  Everyone needs friends and such but the degradation for extroverts without friends might be a tad quicker.

Here's how it all goes down in my mind.

Me-*enters into common area*
Them- *talking among themselves.*
Me- Hey...
Them- Hey! *to other person* So like I was saying (insert anecdote here.)
Me- That's like (insert obscure pop culture reference)
Them- Oh...I don't really know that...
Me- Well, (explains it.)
Them- Oh...hehe well (continues anecdote like nothing happened)
Me- (laughs too loud)
Them- (smiles and makes badly veiled expressions at one another)
Me- (insert panicked nerd joke)
Them-...
Me- (nervous laughter)
Them-...
Me-...
Them...
Me- Well see ya. *retreats back to room where I spend the next year.*

Now as you can see, the people aren't being rude or unaccepting per se, but I am just failing to connect with them, and they are unable to connect with me because I'm not giving them a whole lot to work with.

I'm also scared about not learning Chinese quickly enough.  Like...I don't expect to become fluent.  But I'm super shy when I"m not speaking English.  Moreso than usual.

So in short my life changing doesn't scare me any more than my normal life does.  In the meantime I just want to get all this stuff done so I can stop worrying about it.

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