A Strange Sensation

            Even though there were good things that happened this week that I could spend my time sharing in this blog post, I am going to instead reflect. Because something very interesting happened during this week and it wasn’t exactly a good thing…

            Coming off one of the best weekends ever at orientation (read prior post) I came back to the real world on Tuesday. Only the real world wasn’t real for me anymore. It was foreign. It was lonely. It was confusing. For the first time in over two months I spoke English and I spoke English constantly—during the orientation. Upon returning it was like I arrived all over again. I was thinking in English. I wasn’t understanding what people were telling me. Simple things that I was slaying 5 days before were now incredibly difficult to formulate and say. I was incredibly home sick, or at least I thought I was. Then I realized what the route of the problem was. I had become so accustomed to not understanding what people were telling me and not having the words to say what I wanted that it became incredibly normal and didn’t bother me anymore. Then for the first time I understood EVERYTHING. I could say ANYTHING I wanted to. Honestly, it was incredibly overwhelming. At the same time it was amazing. It was refreshing and it became natural again during those two days. If you know me well, I talk a lot—a LOT. I had my voice taken away from me for two months and then all of a sudden it was just there. But just as fast as it came, it was gone again and along with it the naturalness of my life here in Patagonia. I was very depressed the first two days back and I turned to my grandpa when my counselor here wasn’t in his office and had a very good hour long conversation with my grandpa, Tom Muench. Although he himself has no experience with my specific situation, he as an abundance of knowledge and experience in about every other thing you can think of in life. He gave me very wise and helpful advice and upon hanging up with him I went for an hour long walk, followed by basketball practice, and finished with going to the gym. It was like all the toxins in my mind were freed and now I really feel like I am living normal once again. It was a very peculiar thing that happened to me and I really hope that it doesn’t happen again.