The Roller Coaster

5 Weeks in the United States of America! I have only been here just over a month and I cannot believe number of emotions I have been through! At orientation the Loud American lady said that it would be a roller coaster of emotions and they may vary from person to person, but I do not remember her saying anything about the emotions varying from hour to hour!

Every roller coaster has its many ups and downs, twirls, spins, lurches and moments of anticipation! My roller coaster thus far has gone a little like this. . . You know that first moment when you're on the roller coaster? It starts going up really slowly, sometimes it clicks almost counting down the seconds until the first plunge. For now though, you're heart is pounding, your mind is racing, your adrenalin is telling you that you are so excited you just want the thing to start. Then you start to doubt your decision, was this really such a good idea? I have no idea what to expect, how long will it take? Will I make it through this? You feel like it's now or never do I scream and beg to get off or should I just hold on tight and try my best to enjoy the ride?  Your climb evens out and you stand still at the top for a moment. You either look down and scream to get off, or you think hey, things are going to be downhill from here. Downhill being ambiguous of coarse. (Either easy and free fall, or crashing and holding onto your last thread before the uphill starts again).

My point is no one ever warns you about the shit parts and the difficult parts that make this all so hard and that you'll experience emotions you've never heard of! Everyone just says, "It's such an experience, you'll come back a changed person with so many stories and you'll have seen so much" uhhhhh. . . It's like you go through phases, like you would in a relationship or just PMS. Honeymoon phase: I love this place, I'm going to learn so much etc. Culture shock: Kids back home, they would never do this, back home this would never happen, who are these people, another species? Then you get Home Sick: Missing home, missing your family, hating yourself for being so stupid to do this of all the things you could have done just a car ride away from home and then you reach denial where you tell yourself things are going to be fine or its just a phase or the other way around. You talk everyone around you, people you aren't even sure if you can trust. Then I guess at some stage you reach Adaptation: where you will realise you were so silly for ever doubting yourself and how stupid you were to have ever been so hard on yourself. Oh wait there's another twist in the roller coaster, and here we go again. . . phase 1!

Bottom line is nothing anyone says makes this any easier and no one actually warns you that it will get rough and that you will spend nights wailing to yourself and get addicted to TV shows and strange things like blogging to help the time fly until the next time you have reason to smile. Oh wait they do warn about this. . . when you're 12827km away from home! Luckily things do get better, it's just about waiting for the next straight or uphill on the Giant like PMS Roller Coaster, except there's nothing menstrual about it!