I'm moving, and we're moving!

Hello my readers!

For those of you who have been wondering where I went, I know I haven't been around much. I've spent some time on my tumblr and off the web.

Now though, I can announce two new migrations!

The first is to Ukraine. I will be moving to the city of Zaporizhzhia for a year as a Fulbright Teaching Assistant. That means more culture posts, more travels posts, and lots of stories from this foolish, mistake-making, cross-cultural kid.

The other is to wordpress. Since I am no longer out-of-state, but rather out-of-country, my new website and blog can be found at jenherrmann.wordpress.com. Please follow me there! If you don't have a wordpress account, you can subscribe to posts via email, or pull in my blog posts and the posts of other people you love using a feed reader. I've imported most of the posts from this blog there.

Thank you for sticking with me!

The Push-Pin World

Sometime in the long, boring stretch of being at home with little to do, I pulled out my world map, thinking of how fun it would be to color in all of the cities and countries that I've been to. It'll be even better now that I've traveled, I thought!

I don't think that I have ever, in my life, realized how huge the world is before. I mean, obviously it's big. We learn in elementary school that it's nearly 8,000 miles around, but what does that mean?

It means that there are scores of places that we haven't been. That's right. Scores. As in, four score and twenty. As in, way more than I have fingers and toes to count on.

I remain astonished by how huge and how diverse the world is, and also how I care about that. This is basically my one year anniversary of loving the world and all of the beautiful difference in it, and yet in all twenty of my years I have experienced so little of it.

Still, I'm blessed to have friends who can come and put in push-pins of where they are from and where they have been, making that map on my wall look far more interesting than if it were left up only to me. But even with their help, lots of it remains intact, without any holes going through the cheap, colorful paper.

I want to give so much of myself to so many parts that I fear I won't really be able to give enough of myself to all of it. I want a push-pin that says "I've lived and loved and will always come back to here for the people and places that I love" in every corner. I want to go to all of the touristy places and have a sticker suitcase, but, even more, I want to go to the places tourists never hear about. I want to know the people who aren't tourists, and I want them to take me to their places. To the spots that make their part of the world their own.

Or at least a part of me wants it. The other part of me wants to stay on my couch googling photos of places I could be on my laptop with wifi, in my apartment with electricity and air conditioning and a dishwasher.

I'm hungry for more of what I'm scared of. Give me a box of thumbtacks and send me to an empty corner of my map. Even if it's only so that I can come back, push one through the cardboard, and have another speck of cultural color on the wall of my home.

How We Remember

Yesterday, I went to the Holocaust Memorial in Boston, which reminded me of one of the most significant things I remember from Ukraine.

The Boston memorial is an incredibly powerful place. I remember going there as a child and being stunned. There is grief there, and remembrance, and a real mourning. But there is also a disconnect--not to invalidate the memorial at all, but to say that it is just that. A memorial. Something we use to remember.

While in Kyiv, some of the students took me to their WWII memorial and museum. As we were walking through the memorial, I was observant and a little mournful, feeling that strange looking-back-over-a-long-distance feeling that I always get at such sites of past sadness.

Then my friend came up to me and shuddered, saying, "I always get chills when I hear this song." Playing in the background was a song that, as she told me, was essentially the anthem of Ukrainians in WWII.

She was not disconnected. The pain that Ukraine endured, decades before she was born, was still raw and real for her, who never endured it. The wound is still open.

I realized this more and more as we entered the museum. In America, we go to World War II museums with photographs and shrapnel and uniforms, and a final room that celebrates our victory. You read quotes at memorials about Slavic peoples being considered racially inferior and listed for "extermination." In Ukraine, you go to a museum and you see the plane that crashed where you are standing. You see the gloves made of human skin and the barbed wire from the camp Ukrainians were sent to. It is real. It was there. And, although the Soviet Union won the war, it was devastating.

Frankly, I'm not sure what my point is here. I'm not sure that there needs to be one. I think that the contrast speaks for itself, and that neither perspective is invalid. But I think it's important to remember that there is a sense of incompletion and of continued pain for cultures that have been abused, even when it ends in a treaty of victory. The country can still get chills years later.

Double-U: Ukrainian Underwear, or How to Not Lose Your Luggage

Tired of introspective philosophical posts? Good, me too. So let me tell you a story.

As you might remember, though I arrived on-time in Kyiv, my luggage did not. Thankfully, I'd packed my somewhat respectable "city outfit" and some deodorant in a carry-on. Between that, and the generosity of the other girls on my team, I wasn't doing too bad.

When the team got to Kyiv ready for the tour, my luggage was still nowhere to be seen. I don't mean that it wasn't in Kyiv. I mean that no one knew where it was. The company hadn't tracked it down yet to tell me that it was stuck in an airport in South Africa. And while the sanitorium we were staying at had a laundry machine, and I was content to wash and rewash my two t-shirts until the end of time, there was one thing out of the bag I was really missing: underwear.

My leader had told our student tour guide that I would have to do some shopping if we hadn't found my luggage. (He was envisioning full-out shopping. I was envisioning a week of slobbery and as little money-spending as possible.) So, about five minutes after I had met her, Tanya pulled me aside and told me she was taking me shopping.

Now, apart from the awkwardness of telling this girl I barely knew that I didn't need blouses and shorts, as my leader had told her, but that I needed underwear, add this to the equation: Did you know that in downtown Kyiv, there aren't exactly stores where you can buy a pack cotton panties? Because she did. The solution: a lingerie store in the square.

Ten minutes later, I was trying desperately to do mental calculations of European sizes, while a kind storegirl tried her best to speak English to me as I went through racks of what I usually buy for other people's bridal showers.

As I handed over my grivna, I heard Tanya's cell phone going off. Sure enough, my luggage was found the moment that underwear became legally mine.

Now, this makes for a great story and some interesting souvenirs, but friends, let me save yourselves some of my embarrassment with this simple advice:

Do not pack cash in your check bag. Especially those fancy looking gold dollar coins. These ones.

I'm usually a pretty smart person, but for some reason all reason deserted me when packing my U.S. "souvenirs" for the Ukrainian students. Oh, I thought, these would probably be cool for them. In they went with the keychains and the peanut butter.

I really don't care a whit that they weren't in my luggage when I got it back. I was just glad to get it back! But I might have preferred making a different first impression on my dear friend Tanya.

But I suppose I should look on the bright side. They didn't steal my underwear.

Parlez-vous English?

I'm a dork.

(Duh, you blog.)

So sometimes I journal about my life.

(Duh, you blog.)

When I started my journal entry about France, the first thing that I wrote about was the language. I took enough French in high school and college to be able to speak to people, but learning it in American classrooms is completely different from being on the streets of a French city. What you don't realize in class is that the words you are learning, these strange formations of letters and sounds...they have...meaning.

"Well, duh, you stupid American."

Laugh if you want, but I'm serious. I didn't understand how these words can be used as keys to unlock the ideas flowing out of someone's brain and sliding onto their teeth and tongue until I had a need to open the lock.

Being able to communicate with a stranger in a way that is foreign to you but comfortable to them is simply wonderful. You feel as though you belong. You can sink into the knowledge that even while you stumble over words and phrases, what you're saying has some semblance of meaning to them. Even reading street signs seems like a treasure.

Not to mention that on a trip composed of Americans, you become extremely popular when it comes time to order food or ride the Metro. The very first night we were there, our trip leader went up to the information desk and asked, "Parlez-vous ingles?"

I almost died.

But speaking the language was one of my favorite things about France, because it kept me from being too much a tourist on my tourist trip. I was able to talk to people, make acquaintances, and get the information I needed when I needed it. I could keep from standing out too badly in a crowd. (Although being the, as the Russians call us obnoxious Americans, "americos" that I am, fitting in ended as soon as I laughed. /Squawked.) I got to tell all of my friends what the enthusiastic audience members were saying when they approached us after a concert to thank us and applaud us. And even though language barriers are miniscule for children, I was able to play with the French kids I met and teach them American games.

I felt...well...cool. Not to mention Parisian, which is almost the same thing.

Now, contrast that with getting off the airplane in Kyiv, with my luggage nowhere to be found, and being greeted by this:

потерянный багаж

Confession: I have no idea how to read that. I google translated "lost luggage." Not only did I not know the language, I didn't even know the alphabet. Standing in line at the lost luggage office, listening to strangers speak a language that I couldn't even separate into words, and having officials give me forms and point me to other desks with unreadable signs, I couldn't help but wonder what I'd gotten myself into.

Thank goodness I was working in an English camp.

Maybe it was because I had just been in France and connected so much to the country because of the language, but the first few days that we spent in Kyiv freaked me out a little. If I were to get off on my own, I would be done for. I felt impaired, as though I couldn't really connect to the city without understanding what was being said.

So, I did my sightseeing, and hung out with my lovely (English-speaking) tour guides, and enjoyed what I saw.

It wasn't until I went back to Kyiv at the end of the trip that I got the interesting perspective of being the translated-for instead of the translated. The students who had been working with me to learn English all week were suddenly taking care of me, ordering food for me, and getting directions for me--in Russian. (I think. It might have been Ukrainian. Shoot, it could have been Polish for all that I know.)

I was completely and cluelessly grateful. I did a whole lot of clumsy smiling and nodding. I wonder if that's how my tripmates felt when I ordered pizzas in France? Of course, they didn't get the cool experience I had of hearing my friends' accents suddenly "disappear" when they began speaking their native language. (Yes, that thought actually went through my pea-brained head.)

Forced dependency is humbling, but good. Because as much as I can speak bad French, I'm not French. If I had tried too hard to speak bad Russian, I might have started thinking that I was practically Russian enough and missed the point.

It was cool to have them order gelato for me too, but gelato is cool anywhere.

I missed having the connection that I had to France, though. It was incredible that I could sneakily insert myself into the culture's surface by saying "jambon" instead of "ham." If I go back to Ukraine, I'm definitely learning enough to order my own borsch.

I'm sad to say, of all my time spent in Ukraine, I really only used one word effectively: собачка. Sobachka.

Doggy.

Why?

At English camp, everyone you want to hug speaks English. But dogs you want to

cuddle with obstinately refuse to learn.

Where you are, but with who?

Tell me choose one major difference between my two trips. Go ahead. I dare you.

My answer? The people.

Now, what I don't mean is the people that I went with, or that the people I got to know on one trip were of some higher caliber than the other. For both of my trips, I traveled with a group of people, some of whom I knew and some of whom I didn't, and became friends with all of them. There is definitely a bond that comes with going to a foreign country together.

When I was in France, I didn't make a single friend who wasn't American, because the

trip was structured around simply seeing the country. Yet some of the best memories I have from that trip are of talking to members of the French choirs who hosted us, speaking bad French to enthusiastic strangers. Having conversations. Playing with French children and getting to know their names and faces.

I saw some of the most incredible sights I've ever seen in my life in France, and had some of the most unforgettable experiences. Not only to see the grand cathedrals of Europe, but to sing in them? Talk about something being beyond words. Or rather, don't. Because it's beyond words.

But the sights that I saw were just that: sights. I went there, I saw it, and I genuinely enjoyed it. I took photos, I look at them, and I want to go back.

When I was in Ukraine, though, I wasn't in Ukraine to see Ukraine or tour Kyiv. I was there to be with Ukrainians. To get to know them, to speak English with them, and to love on them. And I did. I left a little piece of my heart back there in Ukraine, because there were people to hold onto it for me.

You can travel to a city and google important sites to see. You can even get a tour guide, if you like. But there is no better way to see a place than to go with someone who lives there and loves it and simply say, "Show me your Kyiv. Take me to the places off the maps. Take me to your favorite spot, and it will matter to me because it matters to you, and you have come to matter to me."

Or say something like that, but in less vaguely grand terms so that you don't freak them out.

It's one thing to look across a river and see a skyline. It's entirely another to have your friend pull you aside, point to a building, and say, "That's where I live." I know because I've experienced both. I've already forgotten what most of the landmarks I picked out from the map in Paris look like, but I think I will always remember that building next to the smokestack across the Dnipro River, because it means something to me. It's connected to a person.

When I look at photos of my trip to Ukraine, I want to go back not because of the places, but because of the people who make those places meaningful for me.

So what does all of this mean? Well, mostly it means that I get to be full of wonderful memories. But it also means that for those going abroad, if at all possible, you should get out of your comfort zone and not just hang out with the people you went with. You should occasionally sit and talk when given a chance to go and see. And you should embrace the chance to get to know a country from the inside of its people's hearts, rather than from the outside of its buildings.

Maybe if you're lucky, they'll wave you off at the end.

Coming Home and Coming Back

If you were to visualize me guiltily sneaking my way back onto this blog, it would probably look something like this:

Ok, it's true. It's been seven months since I've touched this thing. But in my defense, I have kept up a bit with my other blog, justifying myself with the knowledge that this one was originally a themed blog for a class.

However, running a little bit with that theme, I have some interesting (well, at least I think they're interesting) things to say. So bear with me.

This was a summer of travel, and not just the travel that comes with the road trip home. Here's what the past three months have looked like for me:

Starting in Norman, Oklahoma after my semester ended, I spent a week in the hill country north of Austin, Texas at a conference with InterVarsity, the campus ministry I'm involved in. From there, I went back to Norman for five days of "downtime," which primarily involved mysteriously having no electricity for a weekend, hiding from a tornado, and doing storm cleanup for my cousins (who lost their house and barn) the day before I flew overseas to...drum roll please....France.

Yes, France, the place that I have always dreamed of going! I was there on a "study abroad"* with my University choir, touring the country from Paris to Nice giving concerts in grand cathedrals, seeing the sights, and speaking bad French to enthusiastic and friendly French people.

After two weeks in France, I flew home for two weeks, and then flew out again for another two weeks in Europe. (Are you sensing a pattern here?)

The destination this time: Ukraine. I spent two weeks there working with CCX (es-es-HA, for those of you who are like me and are Cyrilliterate), an organization like InterVarsity that ministers to university students. I staffed an English camp and worked with students, both Christian and non-Christian, to immerse them in the language, improve their English skills, and study the Bible in English to improve their reading. I also spent three days in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, before and after the camp with the staff and some of the students. It was such an experience that I really can't hope to capture "what I did" or "what it was" in a few sentences.

But readers, if you are still out there, fear not! What I want to chronicle here is more in keeping with this blog's original theme than simply a journal of my trips (although I would love to tell you all about them! If you keep an eye on my tumblr, I just might). I want to look at my two experiences abroad: so similar and yet so different. Look at the cultures, the places, the people I went with and the people I met, and how my perspectives have changed--or haven't.

In my mind, I hope to do a miniseries of posts on this, if only to get my thoughts down before I totally Americanize again. In reality, it may be one or two. But stay tuned (or re-tune?) for what is coming!

*study abroad: noun. Experience overseas for which one requires scholarship, and so agrees to participate in a purely perfunctory program to receive course credit for minimal effort.

TTFN!

Tata for now, readers! I'm taking a blogging hiatus until after the break. When I come back I just may have some more Bostonian advice to bestow upon you, complete with anecdotes of a visiting Texan. That's right--one of my friends is coming up for a reverse experience.

Of course, there's always the slim chance that I'll grow lazy and never update this again. On the offchance that you read this 5 months later and this is still the last post, feel free to go digging or snap at me to keep up another blog fallen by the roadside. (Er....the first actually...)

Until then, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Items may have shifted during flight.

Pay very, very close attention. I'm about to teach you a valuable lesson.

Acceptable things to put in overhead racks:

Small suitcases

Duffel bags

Coats

Purses which will shift around and spill all of their contents

The occasional guitar (only if accompanied with a smile while boarding)

Unacceptable things to put in overhead racks:

Your child

The flight attendant

Open drink/food containers (rude!)

The above lists are terrifically important for people who are flying home for Thanksgiving, because it's a short break. And to save yourself money and time, you should only bring one carry-on bag. Seriously, it doesn't matter how much stuff you have. Only having a carry-on means you don't have to pay for check bags, and even if they're free you don't have to wait at the baggage claim. If your flights get messed up, you can walk past a gate and board the closest, fastest flight home without worrying about your bags following you.

You really only need your carry-on and a personal item (read: two carry-ons in the form of a suitcase and duffel or backpack if you're a heavy packer. A carry-on and a purse if you're a woman). You'll be home for 6 days, tops. That's not a lot of clothes.

Last year, I fit all of my dirty laundry from about 5 weeks into one suitcase small enough for the overhead rack. You can too. That's all the affirmation you should need.

Just pray that, like one friend who took my advice, this isn't the one time someone stops you to go through your bag. You might consider a canvas laundry bag inside the suitcase just to keep incriminating clothing out of sight.

Happy Turkey Coma (whether you fall into it on your couch on in the school dorm cafeteria)!

"F" is for friends who do stuff together!

Let's look back for a second my earlier post in which my mother told me I wouldn't make any friends at college.

(Slight exaggeration).

Here's a slightly different angle on that story: The reason I was so upset was, of course, because I feared that she was right. I feared four years of Friday nights with nowhere to be, too much sleep, and a lot of weight loss because the gym is open when social avenues are not. I feared being plopped down alone in the middle of a strange place, and eventually leaving alone from it and not caring at all. I feared not hugging anyone but my family at graduation.

All of these fears are totally legitimate for anyone going to college close or far away--they're just a little more accentuated for those of us who know we won't have our high school friends close by to fall back on.

(Although let me clarify, by no means did I lose sleep about them during senior year. I wasn't too worried.)

Here's the deal: chances are overwhelmingly good that you will make friends in college. Personally, I lucked out--I literally walked around the corner one day during orientation, and there they were! A group of people who had just met, liked each other, and liked me. You might be lucky enough to get such a pre-formed family of friends, and if so then you will spend the year growing even closer to some of them as you explore the things you actually have in common that make you all work as a group.

Or, you might have to work a little harder to find them. I have friends now that I had to "develop," if you will (don't picture backhoes). Relationships take time and that's fine, but don't be terrified to ask someone to have lunch with you. Food is a good excuse to talk and bond and soon you'll be taking roadtrips and stealing laundry together.

How do you meet them, you might ask? Here's the answer you will hear a million times: get involved. Really. Find an organization that does what you love, and go to it, especially if it meets consistently. This gives you scheduled time to hang out with people who have the same interests as you, and gets you past some awkward small talk about what you might have in common. If a group that seems to do, in name, all the things you ever hoped and dreamed, but doesn't actually meet that often or have a setup open to conversation, then by all means still go to it. But go to other things as well. If it doesn't meet that often you have no excuse for time :)

Finally, don't stress about friendship. It may not be something you can check off on your college to-do list by the end of August, but it's not a checklist anyway. It's shenanigans and food and coffee and late nights in the dorms watching bad movies. And it will happen for you if you look for it.

Almost there

By some miracle, we are already less than two weeks away from Thanksgiving (and, for those of us going home, only about a week and a half). This is not only crunch time for the semester--ie, for me, two huge group projects, two papers, and an exam--but also the time when students are likely to go crazy and give up. We're so close to 5 glorious days of no school that if we can just barely survive until then, we'll be ok. And sometimes "barely surviving" doesn't involve doing homework.

Suggestion #1--do your homework. Seriously. These weeks are crazy, but you are in face here to work and it will make the break that much better. Especially for those of us going home. Don't rely on airport time to get your work done. Wireless is spotty and/or expensive depending on where you go, and electronics-less takeoff and landing take a big chunk of time out of anything you might work on. The last thing you want is to be looking forward to a good break with your family and then be stuck doing homework. Times at home are brief and rare, and actually taking the time to prepare for them will make them even better. Focus on your friends and family rather than your projects.

Suggestion #2--don't lose heart. Homesickness can get much more acute when you're close to being done with it, but rather than spending your days pining away for home-cooked pies and twiddling your thumbs, get some time with the people you love at college. Remind yourself of the good things here as well as looking forward to the trip home.

For those of us not going home for Thanksgiving, fear not! Christmas break is literally 3 weeks after the Great Turkey Day. That's eleven less than you have already been here! And honestly, two things will happen. Either you will have so little time with final projects and exams that you don't even have a chance to miss home, or you will magically have classes with easy/no finals and have tons of time on your hand. Finals-less finals week is my favorite time of the semester. You get time to relax, recharge, and hang out until all hours with your other lucky friends (plus the occasional meal with the sleepless unlucky ones).

Besides, cheer up. Christmas carols are coming soon :)

Another interruption

Again, I'm taking a brief hiatus from my usual pseudo-advice posts to lean towards a pseudo-anecdote post.

You might remember my post about missing Dunkin' Donuts. A short summary for the non-clickers or forgetful among you: basically, it consisted of a rant about Oklahoma having no Dunkies (whereas in New England you literally can't drive for 5 minutes without passing one). Somewhere in there I mentioned that I wanted hot chocolate and a double chocolate donut from them.

I made that post on a Tuesday night. The next Monday, there was a package at my door. With this inside:

That's right. My mother mailed me Dunkies. She put the hot chocolate in a mason jar, but sent me the original cup for the full experience. And she sealed the deal with a cutesy marketing-ploy trick-or-treat bag.

Oh the joy of donuts. And of having your mother care about you.

Which brings me to a somewhat relevant point: contact with people from home. Now, this obviously varies from person to person. Not everyone likes Dunkies, and not everyone's mother would mail them some if said person did. Shoot, not everyone likes their mother, for that matter.

But let me speak a moment for those of us who do. Yes, you will them; there's really no way around it. So here are the bright sides:

1. We live in an age of technology. You can skype, and get the full video effect of seeing their face. You can call when you're free, or text at any time. (Let's be real. You text in class).

2. We live in an age of technology. You can fly home fairly easily, and fairly cheaply. See my post on traveling for tips.

3. We live in an age of technology. So anytime you send or receive something not using that technology (say...a package of Dunkies), it means that much more :)

Abroad in the USA

While getting my daily fix of facebook stalking yesterday, I discovered something which deserves displacing my usual "how-to's" and cultural mockeries:

Domestic study abroad.

That's right. One of my high school friends, who is going to school more or less close to home, is taking a semester to do an "off-campus study." She's trying to decide between Ohio and Kentucky.

For those of you who may not be well-acquainted with the floor plan of the United States of America, Oklahoma is about twice as far as both of those states from Massachusetts (where we're both from).

This heavily punctuated post may seem like I'm bitter--not the case at all! I just find it terrifically ironic that my school is farther away than her big semester in a distant land it going to be.

I did some web surfing to find out if lots of schools offer this type of thing, or if she just went to some off-the-wall homebody college-for-the-culturally-timid. Happily, it's the former (and her college is entirely normal--they offer "regular" study abroad in foreign countries as well). A good number of colleges have specific exchange programs set up for students to spend a semester in other states or regions. You could even do your own domestic study abroad if they didn't, I suppose. As long as they accepted transfer credit.

I can see the benefit of the program. No currency exchange, no customs hassle, no fear of sudden coup-d'etats or language barriers.

So here's my question: Does this mean that I automatically get study abroad credits? I mean, we've talked about culture shock, that has to be worth something.

At the very least, I demand a study abroad stipend to help pay for the gas back home! Call it an educational expense.

America Runs On...

When it's 4:08 p.m., and you're just on the way home, and you're dying for something sugary or a hot sandwich or some caffeine, where do you go? What chain can you find on every corner? Where can you get a quick, completely unhealthy meal for under $5 without getting out of the car?

My own beacon of hope was pink and orange and every 5 miles:

Unfortunately, there was one thing I never anticipated in moving to Oklahoma: the loss of my comfort chain. The first hint at this tragedy was getting off of the airplane to visit the school. While waiting for my uncle, I instinctively went walking through the airport to search for something to make my life a little less jet-lagged.

I attributed the lack of Dunkies to the extreme podunkness of the Tulsa airport. Which is partially responsible. But also responsible is this:

See that one little orange dot in Oklahoma? That's the only Dunkies in the state. And it's nowhere near my campus.

Compare that to this:

This is the map of distribution of the Oklahoma version of Dunkin Donuts. The place everyone goes at happy hour. The original drive-in.

This, my friend, is a map of Sonics.

They're everywhere.

While Sonics now have a special place in my heart, and I even have reverse withdrawal for them when I go home (a little bit), I do still occasionally pine for rich hot chocolate and double chocolate $0.89 donuts.

It's not a bad thing really. It's not anything to complain about. But it's something I warn you about now, so that you don't go through the heartbreak I had to.

Call me a saint, I know.

A saint who goes straight for the Providence airport Dunkies when she gets off the plane at Christmas.

The Oklahoma Coma

The day I told my mother I had decided to go to OU, the first thing she tried to do was talk me out of it. Now, I found out later from her that she was trying to make sure she couldn't; she figured that if she couldn't change my mind, then I was certain and set and meant to move out to Nowheresville Norman. At the time though, that wasn't abundantly clear to me. Here's a small excerpt from the part when she told me about culture shock and I, already upset that we were even having this conversation, heard that I was going to be a social failure.

Concerned Mother: Jen, you know that life is different down there.

Headstrong Rude Daughter: It's Oklahoma Mom, of course it's gonna be a little different.

CM: No, really. It's a completely different way of life.

HRD: What do you mean?

CM: They have a different set of etiquette. Your sense of humor might come across wrong, rub people the wrong way. Someone as forward as you might have trouble.

HRD: Are you telling me there's not a soul in the whole state who understands sarcasm?

CM: I'm telling you that it's not really accepted there.

HRD: So you're telling me that I'm not going to make any friends.

CM: I'm just saying you might have to think about your words a little more....

HRD: So you're telling me I'm not going to make any friends without changing the way I talk?

CM: Sort of...

If I recall correctly, it was at about this point that I frustratedly left the room, convinced that my mother--who was trying desperately and lovingly to make sure that I didn't have a terrible college experience--was trying to keep me at home by telling me my personality wasn't compatible with anyone's.

Ironically, she went to college about as far from home as I did. And made lots of friends.

Since "culture shock" is so often talked about, both in situations like this one and when you come home for the first time, I figured it would be worth addressing.

Though there are stereotypes for each region of the country that speak for themselves, I think this issue still merits a post. After all, how can we navigate Southern belles and New York minutes if we cannot even understand that the two places are different?

I, for one, was convinced this would not be a problem. As a well-seasoned traveler (vacations in Wisconsin, a wedding in California, a dance competition in Tennessee the obligatory childhood trip to Disney world--the works), I knew that all parts of the U.S. were the same. I'd even been to Oklahoma before--twice! (Once when I was 3 and a half and once when I spent the entire time inside in the air-conditioning with my 86-year-old great aunt.) Other than a marked lack of tall buildings, nothing was different.

But people are not the same as buildings, and it didn't take me long to find out that life here is different. People live at a rate that I can only describe as The Oklahoma Coma. Want them to get that piece of paper for you? They'll do it with a smile and a 10-minute conversation and a complete inability to move at a comparable speed. Need to get something done? No you don't--why rush!

Now, I am happy to report that this is not the extreme that one might expect from the worst of stereotypes. And it is less noticeable if you stay on campus among the relative hustle and bustle of student life. But it still exists, especially if you run into someone who's been living in Oklahoma for 40+ years. (This probably intensified by the presence of so many Texans in OK. Apparently distance from the equator is proportional to speed of living).

I'm sure the reverse effect occurs for people migration the other way. Heck, even I get left behind in the traffic of Boston proper. Chances are good that if you're not used to that fast culture you'll get turned on your head before you know it.

However, for the most part things are the same. College kids are still college kids, and buying a piece of gum at the gas station is still buying a piece of gum at the gas station. It just takes a little longer here. Don't be worried about not understanding what's going on, but do be prepared for some small, often humorous differences.

Just something to be aware of when you're packing up your sarcasm and slow southern drawls!

Also, you'll be happy to know that I've successfully made friends here. And that's not sarcastic.

Did we mention the 50 lb limit?

Now that you know whether to put your stuff into winter hibernation (also known as summer storage) or have it fly south in the plane's cargo hold, let's talk about how to give it wings.

Other than, of course, pouring red bull on it.

Even if you're planning on driving, basic packing skills are necessary. Chances are good you don't have a whole lot of trunk space (and even if you do, you should fill it with friends and their stuff and have a fabulous road trip).

1. Roll your clothes! This will give you lots more space. Fold them longways and then roll them up and stuff them into your suitcase.

2. Fill your shoes with socks--don't waste empty places!

3. Spread out your heavy stuff. Having one suitcase full of textbooks and clunky heels and one full of fluffy sheets and pillows will mean that you have 100 lbs total, spread out 98 to 2. This is not ideal for your buff friend carrying the suitcase or for trying to get it into the air.

4. Use the corners. Suitcases are usually rounded, but socks, underwear, and belts make very good suitcase stuffers. Again, again, and again, don't waste your space!!

5. Don't pack children. They usually grow to over 50 lbs once you reach your landing location. It's also frowned upon in most civilized societies (Texas excepted).

6. If you're driving, snacks ride up front with you. This not only leaves room for more junk in your trunk, but also gives you easy access to the most important thing you'll have with you.

7. For car packing, treat the corners of your trunk like the rounded corners of your suitcase. Stuff in sweatshirts, blankets, clothes, lamps, and roommates.

8. If you have a choice, make rolling suitcases your heavier bags rather than duffel bags just for the sake of making them easier to tote around (make sure you factor in the weight of the wheels though).

Follow these rules so that your entire room can look like this:

Just find someone to carry it to your car/the airport for you and you should be all set.