So it’s 10:30, otherwise known as 22:30, and I am sitting here, getting ready to embark on a mission to go to sleep before 3 am. You wouldn’t think it would be too hard, but I’m finding it challenging over here.
My roommate made a good point to me this afternoon that I’m still turning over in my mind. I told her I stay up late usually because I start talking to people back home and it pushes back my bedtime. She pointed out that I should try to do that less since it means that I am “here” less.
As I sit here thinking about it, I can’t help but worry that she’s right. I mean, not just about talking to people back home, but the amount of time I spend missing people and things about Berkeley and home, and just generally speaking English, can’t really contribute to broadening my cultural horizons.
I think part of the challenge for me is that all the people I work with, although some of them are European, are English-speaking and are also foreign in France. But I don’t help myself either, I seek out things that are familiar or comfortable. For example, today, I walked to an English language bookstore. I get together with my American friends frequently, seek out bars where they play American music, and avoid restaurants where I am afraid I will have no idea how to order.
I have been thinking about this for a while now, but I feel like technology also limits how much cultural immersion you can receive. I can listen to American radio stations through iTunes, I can call friends for free using Skype or talk to them online, using gchat. I can read American papers and watch American TV on the internet. I guess it just makes immersion a choice, rather than a necessity. I should try harder to make that choice, but it is a difficult one to make when everything else is so much more comfortable.
Don’t get the wrong impression, (you’re just catching me at a bad moment) I do interact with French people and have been learning a lot of cultural lessons. Sometimes it can just be overwhelming to realize how much English I speak, listen to and read, even though I’m in France.
Par contre, it is also amazing how it is possible to continue talking to someone regularly when you are thousands of miles away from them in another country and time zone. The internet is an amazing thing. An amazing but oddly, potentially limiting thing.
