While I've Been Away...

I was once told by a professor of mine that people who leave their home country for two years never quite fit in again in their home country. They can be natives who have followed domestic happenings while they were abroad, but there will always be the little things that they just do not get.

Well, I was away from the US for two and a half years, and have only been back for five months or so. Besides the face-on culture shock of moving back to America (I still often feel like an immigrant), there are myriad things that I just "don't get". Here is a Top Ten List (a la David Letterman...if he even still does this...)

10. Christmas now begins before Halloween. Need I say more?

09. Hats. I remember back in school, if you wore a baseball cap, the rim needed to be broken in to be "cool". Then people began wearing baseball hats backwards. Then sideways. Now the cap must be worn facing frontwards, but on an off-angle of about 45 degrees. And the rim should be cardboard-straight. I and some other volunteers first noticed this one running into student travellers in Thailand, and we knew American culture had begun to pass us by. Where did this one come from?

08. Elastic bands are now a fashion item to be worn on the wrist. I have seen this one, and I really do not understand it at all.

07. Television. It is even worse than it used to be. And I just am not even bothering to get back into the loop. What the hell is "Lost"? Its like a scripted Survivor or something? Whatever...

06. Pop-tarts. All of 'em. How is Britney Spears still popular? I know a lot of it is morbid curiousity, but still, she's younger than me and already looks 15 years older than she is. Granted she had two kids, but she's also a millionaire. And just why do people pay attention to Paris Hilton????

05. Internet society. Yes, I am being a little hypocritical as I am writing on a blog, but still. I see many younger coworkers of mine writing on Facebook and MySpace and YouTube and whatever other combined-word-name websites are out there. And I don't get it.

04. Organic food is now everywhere, and it basically just means its the same old food but at more expensive prices. There do seem to be a lot more farmers' markets, and that is the one good unknown that I've encountered on my return to the States.

03. iPods. I know that people had them in 2004 before I left, but really, it has become a new staple good. I guess its better than people playing their cellphone ringtones for entertainment, as is common in Asia. But still, what is up with people's newfound worship of Apple?

02. Another fashion unknown to me: Men's hairstyles. What is with guys styling cowlicks into their hair? You know what I mean: the hair sticking up on the front of men's heads. It seems like this is the new power-cut for men, the more "relaxed" style being the 70's-esque jock overgrown mop. Someone just needs to call in the Paris Island barbers, please...

01. Politics. No, even though I keep up on it, American politics still baffles me. Why are people now all of a sudden tired of Iraq? What makes it more of a disaster now than in 2003-2004 (granted its not much better, but to be fair it's not that much worse). I said it before, I'll say it again: if Americans are tired of the war now, then they shouldn't have supported it in 2002-2003 and then reelected Bush. You made your international obligations, deal with them. I find it insane that the political world has pulled a complete reverse: Thomas Friedman and Fareed Zakaria, who supported Bush and introducing democracy into Iraq now say its a bad idea that won't get anywhere, and Paul Krugman who once so decried the future bankruptcy of Social Security wrote vehemently in 2005 about the lack of a need to reform it. Apparently people went from being gung-ho pro-Bush in 2001-04 to being anti-Bush since then. Where does this all come from? And speaking of politics and society, why does it seem now that everyone in America either speaks Spanish or hates people who speak Spanish?


Number one wasn't much of a Letterman punchline, so here we go: Boston Teams have won championships in their respective leagues. Wow.