It’s been about three weeks since I left Chicago. In reality, it’s not that long of a time– some people even go on vacation for three weeks– but it has felt significantly longer. When I first got here, it was like entering a new world; I was an alien trying to figure out how to be. Culture shock is real. I remember doubting that I’d ever feel it when we talked about it a year ago in my TEFL course, but sure enough, it happens to the best of us. It feels isolating. It feels like an anxious knot in your stomach. You question why you’re here and what you’re doing. I looked at plane tickets online and thought about returning home. I know the feelings of culture shock aren’t over yet, and I’ll probably go through this again, but at the current moment I am doing a lot better. Having started teaching has given me more of a schedule, and I’m using this change to form new habits, hopefully with time for productivity and relaxation. All in all, I’d say it is helping me handle the differences and build a temporary little life here. So yay! Assimilation and positive changes! But we’ll get back to that later.

Heading to lunch the other day, I saw one of the school staff sitting on the side, absentmindedly popping a piece of bubble wrap. For whatever reason, it struck me as odd. Do they do that in Honduras too? I didn’t even consider that they had bubble wrap here! In the states of course, bubble wrap has been given an almost funny rep for being something semi-addicting, of the self-soothing type. To see something I considered wholly American here, or at least first world, gave me a second of mind opening understanding. I can’t really explain it; it was more of a feeling, but it was essentially that we are all just people trying to get by in the cultures we grew up with and in the times we live in. Or, maybe just that a lot of people worldwide like bubble wrap, who knows? I find it comical that I had such a reaction to a piece of plastic, but to have something catch me off guard like that, in reverse, was so new. Anyways, I quickly averted my eyes so as not to stare, and went on with my day feeling strangely comforted.

Now, back to what I was saying in the first part of this: new schedules and new habits! In a 1994 study, over 100 people were given a questionnaire asking them to detail a time they made a major, sudden life change or about a change they wanted to make but haven’t been able to. They found that one of the biggest factors involved with success in such departments is to be also going through a major life change. As they put it,  “change seems to beget change,” where someone either hits rock bottom, has intense peer pressure, goes through a move, or essentially experiences extreme, often negative, emotion. Actually, the study sorts the different criteria they used for coding into broader groups, which were their sense of control, focal events, emotional aspects, interpersonal aspects, methods reported being used, and meaning and identity issues. Each one was broken down further of course, but it seemed that the stronger emotional pieces of feedback were more likely to come from changers than the nonchangers. They admit that since the information they receive is in the form of micronarratives (narratives that only focus on a specific time or event), they can’t guarantee everything is 100% veridical. There are inherent biases that affect how we tell, and even remember, events to cast us in the best light. The authors weren’t even upset with this either– if someone who successfully changed describes their pre-change hardships as worse than they were, it helps further disassociate their post-change selves from their pre-change selves who still partook in those bad habits. Essentially, major life changes require us to alter how we identify ourselves, and one part of sticking to those new habits is to avoid falling back into our old identities. Hence, moving provides a physical disconnect. The authors go into much more detail of course, from how ambivalence trashes progress to how our relationships can prevent or support change. If you want to read it for yourself, here is the citation:

Heatherton, T. F., & Nichols, P. A. (1994). Personal Accounts of Successful Versus Failed Attempts at Life Change. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20(6), 664–675. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167294206005

Anyways, before I go back to lesson planning, I wanted to mention some of the habits I am currently working on. I’ve found it helps me to jot them down, so feel free to either keep reading or check out now if this isn’t your vibe.

First, I’ve found that I typically have time in the mornings before class starts. Depending on the day, it ranges from about 15 minutes to an hour. With that, I’ve started doing at least one lesson of DuoLingo and reading at least one news article from BBC Mundo. This not only helps me practice my languages, but it also is keeping me a little bit more updated on the news. I pretty much mentally dipped from the whole “keeping up with world events” thing since my taste of academic burnout in winter, so I figured it is a good time to start being proactive again. I also bring a couple of toffee hard candies with me to positive-reinforce those habits in me, operant conditioning style. Additionally, I have been working on having a daily yoga practice in the evenings. Since getting myself to start a workout is like pulling teeth, if I can just get myself to do some feel good stretches, I typically find the motivation to work through a quick YouTube workout video as well. Plus, one of my fellow volunteers at the house is the one who brought me to the city to show me where to buy the yoga mat, so I feel like I can’t not use it? Yes, the double negative was entirely necessary. Finishing my lesson planning before returning home is also freeing. This gives me the entirety of my evening to relax without worrying about what to do next. Why? Because it is all done. Everything is set for tomorrow and I have until bedtime to talk with the others, practice guitar (another new hobby I’ve taken up), or listen to music. There are other habits I’m working on as well, but these are really what I’ve had difficulty making a part of my daily life prior. I hope to expand on them as they become routine, for instance, writing a daily Spanish journal entry or getting back to reading a book a week (oops, I am definitely failing my goodreads challenge this year), but for right now I am content with not overwhelming myself like I usually do. Let’s hope psychology is right and see how this all goes!

Happy reading,
-Beppa