I reentered the country known as
the United States of America last Friday with an initial stopover in NYC. I instantly knew I was in my home country
when I was no longer the loudest person in the room. This was a surprisingly refreshing experience
for me. In Yangon where I spent the
summer, I was always the loudest person in the room by a long shot. There were other Americans there to be sure,
but I tend to be loud anyway, even for an American. The Burmese are generally a quieter group of
people overall. In spite of this, I
think even they grew to love my loudness.
American culture is different,
one of the main things I’ve noticed is our reliance on meat for almost every
meal. One of the first things I did upon
my return was to go to two different barbeques on Labor Day. Granted, this was a holiday and as Jim
Gaffigan put it so eloquently, “I don’t normally have a hot dog, a hamburger,
and a steak, but it’s the 4th of July. It’s what the founding fathers would have
wanted.” Needless to say, there was a
whole lot of meat at these get togethers.
Probably more than I had seen all summer as a matter of fact. We had meat in Myanmar of course, just not to
the extent that it is within the American diet.
In addition to cookouts, I have
eaten more meat this past week than I have probably the entire summer. I eat it when I go out to eat with friends or
even when I go out to eat by myself. Yes,
I go out to eat by myself because I generally don’t like to cook all that much,
at least when it’s just for me. I find I
end up eating the same thing for four or more meals in a row if I cook for
myself because of all the leftovers. All
this meat consumption can’t be good for my health, at least according to some
documentaries I saw before I left for the summer. My loving girlfriend even got me a cookbook
that goes along with one of the movies with a bunch of vegan recipes. I have yet to open the book, hopefully this
next week.
On Sunday morning, I informed my
friends that I hadn’t missed at all their endless discussions about guns. That seems to be a fairly prominent
discussion on Sunday mornings before we all go in to the theaters to help set
up for church later that day. My friends
seem to be obsessed with guns for some reason; I have yet to figure out
why. It is a common topic of discussion,
one that I’m usually left out of due to my ‘liberal’ views on the matter.
I’ve been jet lagging pretty
badly this past week too. I find myself
sleeping almost all the time it seems like.
I’ve always told people if you go east to west that jet lag isn’t as
bad, but I’m finding it particularly difficult to adjust to this time around
for some reason. It started on Friday
night in NYC when I slept for 12 straight hours. I thought surely after that I’d be fine but
as it turns out I’ve been catching up seemingly all week. I’m finding it difficult not to stay up too
late and sleep in the next day in particular.
Sometimes I even take 4 hour naps; which aren’t really naps at that
point, are they?
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