Writing introductions is a bit tedious so....just take a look at my first post if you want to know more....

....and if you get curious about the name of this World or my posts, check out the second one.

Second Contact (it was beyond the scope of our understanding)

I went home for Christmas. That's what they called it at least. "Coming home for Christmas." I'm not really sure what I'd call the trip. I went to Gainesville, Florida. My once, twice, and (perhaps) future home. But not my home of now. The home of now is filled with riceballs and mountains, cold and colder and coldest, and the anticipation of hanami in 4 more months.......therefore, Japan=home, Florida="home". Which is better, I don't know.

At the suggestion of my dear "Mokuba-niisan", who, being German, has been going through this all his life in the States, I'm going to make a list of all the once-ordinary-now-insane things about my "home". The first thing he said after he hugged me hello was, "Are you having culture shock?" and I had a new appreciation for him. He knew, like nobody else could what I was feeling that first morning after the 26 hour journey and 8 hour nap.

Niisan's farm

Even before I saw him and his crazy wife and active, blond, doomed-to-a-too-full-life sons I knew I was having a hard time readjusting to the US. The first signs came in the Minneapolis airport.
Sign #1 - I had no idea what to order at any of the fast food restaurants, and was hysterically afraid of even walking up to a counter so I ate a riceball from my backpack.
Sign #2 - despite my nearly dead iPod battery I turned it on in the waiting room in order to block out the sound of the CNN lady speaking English. Unfortunately her overly made up face was still visible. That and the proximity of 3 portly old men who I could almost hear forced me to move seats so I could be one of the first on the plane despite the freezing blasts that issued from the boarding door every time it opened.

After niisan suggested I write the list and flew off to Germany with his artist family I foolishly thought it was perfectly fine for me to hop in the car he'd loaned me and drive over to Publix, the "local" grocery store. Publix might be Florida's biggest corporate icon, right after Disney of course.
Problem with Publix #1 - I forgot where everything was
Problem with Publix #2 - the shelves were so tall I felt claustrophobic

Darwin doesn't mind close-ups

By the time I'd left Publix I spent nearly $100 without even realizing it, but I had started to notice 2 definite patterns in my shock-freakout.
Pattern #1 - I'd forgotten how to use American money
Pattern #2 - I was petrified of people speaking to me b/c I didn't know how to answer them

That evening I went out to eat Mexican with two girls I used to teach preschool with. I'd been looking forward to this meeting for over a month at least but it turned out both embarrassing and disappointing.
Embarrassment #1 - I couldn't read the menu, the letters just kept swimming in front of me. This was probably more due to residual jetlag than any loss of English ability, but made me panicky nonetheless.
Disappointment #1 - Angie and Amanda didn't seem to care much about my pictures and stories of Japanese life, just if I had a boyfriend.
Embarrassment #2 - I answered the waiter in Japanese when he brought the food.
Disappointment #2 - My two friends now seemed closer to each other than they'd ever been to me, even though it was me who introduced them. I couldn't really understand most of what they talked about. It seemed really small and trivial just like the cliched "reverse culture shock" essay in the JET manual.
Embarrassment #3 - They were rude to the waitress. She was a bitch, but still, they were rude.
Disappointment #3 - I couldn't finish my food. And it, at least hadn't let me down. Damn good Mexican.

Really.

After that I felt like I was running around town the rest of the trip. It was nothing but unexpected expenses and misplaced guilt.
Unexpected expense #1 - 2 cavities $404
Unexpected expense #2 - eye doctor $150
Misplaced guilt #1 - I slept through an "international potluck" my second day in town where I could have seen a bunch of old students.
Misplaced guilt #2 - I neglected my brother, my mother, my best friends, there was always someone....

There were a few contradictions laced into that crazy blur that made it sometimes easier, sometimes more surreal.
Contradiction #1 - I could drive. Well. Without a second thought.
Contradiction #2 - all my friends had warned me, "the first thing you'll notice when you go back to the US is everyone is fat & loud" but I mostly just noticed them being tall. Some were fat, I gradually began to see, and some were loud, but mostly they just talked about inappropriate things in normal voices.
Contradiction #3 - the cats I'd left behind years ago, 1 with each of my parents, were far more excited to see me than the 2 with my aunt who'd spent their entire lives with me until I moved to Shizuoka. Damn Egyptian priestess...

Like chickens with our legs cut off.

I'd like to say more about the trip, and maybe my New Year's Eve but not now. It wasn't all bad. This was just the bad post. The list of why I'm glad to be back in Japan in reverse. Looking forward to 3 months of not running around.

Casey: The rest of you are all out there running around like chickens with your legs cut off.
Jeremy: You mean heads.
Casey: What?
Jeremy: Running around like chickens with our heads cut off. If our legs were cut off we wouldn't be running around at all.