Extension

Well. I have been back for five days now, and it's been sort of strange. Everything here is as before, and it frightened me a little at how easily I slipped back into a state of comfort with my surroundings. Not that I thought four months would completely erase over a decade of familiarity with one place. Still, I was hoping that there would be a somewhat foreign aura around everything. I will need to work at making it that way.

There have been plenty of adjustments, though. For instance, when I first got back I kept slamming things: doors, toilet seats, etc. And all the door handles in my house felt like they were about to fall off. I soon realized that I had grown accustomed to pushing around ancient, heavy wooden doors and cranking down on their handles. Things have less weight here, whatever that means. Also, why on earth is there so much carpet everywhere?

Food is kind of a major thing, as I'm sure you can imagine. Tomatoes taste like water, and everything has way too many ingredients. I looked at the ingredients list on a box of purchased Atlanta Bread Co. sweet rolls, and it's absurdly long...because of all the preserving chemicals. And why does color need to be added? (I would take a photo of it, if that didn't mean flipping it upside down and smooshing the sweet rolls) I was going to have a Yoplait yogurt last night, like I normally do when I'm hungry right before bed, but then I noticed that it contains high fructose corn syrup. Nevermind. I don't want to sound like some sort of radical organic activist, because I don't think I am (and I'm sure this sounds pretty tame to a lot of you); it's just that none of this makes sense to me anymore. How about we just make bread and sweet rolls the way they've been for thousands of years? Why does guacomole need to be processed and in a plastic bag?

So my dad and I are making something for dinner tonight.

But here's the big thing, why I'm not closing this blog off just yet. I expect the culture shock to continue, and maybe even get worse, over the next week, and...I want to write about it. While this page may have been helpful for some of you in following what I was doing, it has been extremely helpful for me in understanding what I was doing. I'm not normally one to journal, but I've discovered it's importance. But back to the point:

Jason (my 17 year old brother) and I are taking a road trip to Georgia.

He's been doing computer animation and graphic stuff since he was 12, starting with open source programs. This summer he landed a paid design internship at a local school curriculum press that is run by my old headmaster. Apparently, Georgia is conservative enough that the press, which comes from a Christian background, is able to make a bid for some Latin and other language texts to go onto the Georgia public schools curriculum list. But the catch is that anyone making a bid needs to do so with a physical representative in 13 locations over the course of next week. It wasn't cost-effective to send one of their secretaries, so they hired Jason and I for this job. Fortune falling from the sky!

Of all the places I'd imagined I could be going right after I got home (not many, really...um, Harrisburg? Hershey? Camp Hill? that's about all I expected), the Deep South certainly was not one of those! Now, we'll be pretty busy going from place to place to set up a book table and sit at it, so I don't expect it'll be a journey worthy of Faulkner. But it will be strange right after living in Italy. Now do you understand why I expect my culture shock to increase? I mean, what will I wear?

This week has been great, though. I love being back with my family, in my own (horrificly messy) room, and being able to slowly reconnect with friends. I went to Brian and Jolie's adoption party for Anna on Tuesday night, our family went to Mangia Qui in Harrisburg for a really great dinner Thursday evening, and Allison and Juliana Coleman had a welcome back to H-burg/graduation party last night; it was really nice to know that there were going to be things to do when I got back. Not having constant activity will be something I need to slowly get used to. The Orvietani thought their town to be sleepy and dull, but that's because they aren't in suburban Central PA.

So...all this to say, keep reading to see how I adjust. Will I once again settle into American routine and custom with a gentle sigh, or will I continue to feel weirded out every time I see Xanthum Gum on a label? At any rate, I know that the immediate future holds a lot of exposure to grits and twang.