coming back (sort of)

Doodle: an older piece... for graduation presents I made all the students in the 6th grade class (all 13 of them) watercolor portraits. we put them up as a graduation exhibit and then the students took them home after the ceremonies. I heard their teacher framed them for them later, which was very very thoughtful of her.

Thought: I haven't been posting as often recently--ever since I've arrived in Fiji--and the thoughts that I have posted have been pretty sedate, unbiased observations on this new country. I haven't posted as much because, really, there's not as much to post. I may be in a country I have never been to before, but I'm in a big, quiet house with my parents, and even though its Fiji, its just not as rich a life as it was in Datong. My parents will live here for 4 years, but I'll never get to know Fiji as I have Taiwan, never feel like it is part of me, part of my blood (ok, I'm half Taiwanese, but I'm referring to two distinct living experiences). Perhaps that's the cause of my feelings of ennui lately. I can't say that I'm experiencing reverse culture shock because I haven't gone back to my old culture yet... Rather, its an attempt to adjust to similar changes that I can't define as easily. I'm coming from a moldy concrete dormitory with children peeping through the windows to a spacious, extremely neat, air-conditioned house. I'm coming from a tiny village where everyone knew me and my students would compete to see who could hug me tighter to a country where I know two people. I'm coming from having freedom--a completely independent existence, where I was tied only by the thread of email and phone communication to the love and, yes, obligation of the people I love--to chores and physical therapy and living at home. I now realize that as a one year stint, living abroad inherently became a break away from the real world, even though I despise the thought of young people living in other countries as a sort of vacation before grad school. But the fact that the Fulbright lasts a year means that it will always be an isolated experience, an experiment in freedom. And now I'm back (well, sort of back) and I have to rebegin a life that was put on pause while I was away. Or perhaps a better way to think of it is to begin another life... Does going abroad mean that life must be a series of stops and starts...? Whether a revivification of an old life or the beginning of another phase, its a bumpy start. But a start nonetheless.