that has 50 states instead of 16.
I've been here for 4 days and already my fears have been realized: I'm freaking confused.
Today I went for a drive in a car that, by American standards, was small, but it felt freaking huge next to the cars and cycles and scooters I drove in India. It was my first drive since almost going headlong into a huge ass bus on my last cycle ride from my host home to the SITA program, and the following things were strinkingly missing:
-Aggressive drivers (In the south, there's something called driver courtesy. In the south of India, there's something called "I need to get to where I'm going. Get out of my way." This quote is dependent, however, on the vehicle size).
-Speed Limit Signs: yes, there are speed limit signs in India, but does anyone ever look at them? Going 30 in a 25 zone seemed far too slow for a car of my size.
-Hand Gestures out the windows of cars or off the sides of autos/motorbikes/cycles saying "get out of my way" or "hey, I'm cutting you off, slow down" or "hi you're barreling straight toward me, I'm going left (cue hand gesture) and I'm gonna hope that you're gonna go right"
-NO BEEPING?!?!U()#_*@*!_)*(@$ (IT WAS FAR TOO QUIET TO BE ON A ROAD)
-No pedestrian obstacles: India has sidewalks, but they're more like guidelines really. As such, people end up jaywalking the crap out of the roads and making large bubbles of crowds that often stretches far into the street
-No random rallies that shuts down the entire block, regardless of whether convenient or not
-I was driving on the right side of the road, only allowed to take a right on red and having to glare at oncoming traffic for lefts. I almost drove on the left when there was no middle line, and a garbage truck beeped at me. He had it right, of course, but man it sure tells you a lot about how engrained your thinking is there.
-No divots in the road. And with the excess of shocks on American cars, I was really surprised at how not blistered my butt was by the time I got out of the car.
The list goes on, but I feel like you get the point.
In a word, it's too easy to drive here. I'm not saying I'm gonna start a police chase down the wrong side of the road on I-40 (huge highway near Chapel Hill), but man it would be really great if there was a little bit more chaos. It was awesome driving in India because you were focusing on it so much that you were totally engrossed in what you were doing: just living in the moment and using your driving and awareness skills to own the road ahead of you. So it was disappointing getting in my manual car (which, as I've told a lot of people, is a lot funner than automatic) and driving here for the first time.
In 5 days, I set off again for an excursion up the atlantic to see a bunch of friends I haven't seen in a while. One I haven't seen since my junior year of high school, but we have kept in touch since then. I'll end the adventure at Colby, where I'll be singing/learning music in a week for the a cappella show during senior week. I can't wait to get back to Colby.
I have a lot of dead space here in NC, and it's really getting to me/eating me away. I just had way too much to do/a lot to look forward to/a lot to experience in Madurai/India as a whole that I have found that the little things I have to do (aka, clean my room for an upcoming guest, book train tickets and activate my visa check card) really unmotivating and not very fun at all. Coelho would say that I should value the little things in my life, but on a grander scale, my life here is at a standstill until I go to visit Asheville in 3 days and take that Atlantic trip. Maybe I'll arrange some music just for fun, cause I haven't done that in a while.
I kind of expected this to happen actually, but I didn't think it would be this draining. My jetlag is almost through, but I'm still struggling when it comes to the later parts of the night (and if I get through those points, then I'm wired and awake, like I am now; note the 2:00 AM post time).
I used my cell phone for the first time today since I left, and it was freaking weird. But I hadn't forgotten how to T9-- that mechanism is permanently engrained in my memory. I texted like a madman and often didn't really know what to say to people when they responded. It was like I had just been handed the handbook on social skills and told to relearn everything I had learned before I went to India. I suppose that means I really engrained myself there, but that seems to be having some lovely repurcussions on my ability to transition back here.
YAY REVERSE CULTURE SHOCK!
Love and miss you Indian folk. I'll be back soon and I'll be sure to email you all individually when I stop being so incoherent!
Hasan
