I find myself trawling Facebook these days more often than when we first arrived in Gangtok and certainly more than I ever did when I lived in Beverly. On Facebook I find an entertaining mix of the personal (I have friends who jog and while they jog can get words of encouragement from me if I post the comment on Facebook!),
general knowledge (did you know there is a potential hurricane brewing off of the coast of Jamaica?)
and the political. In fact, I came to the realization that Facebook has become a tether line for me after reading the following post:
As President, Romney will tackle the bayonet shortage head-on.
This comment was posted by a beloved student from Meridian Academy, Sam Miller, who was referring to a point made in the most recent presidential debate. I of course had no idea that the debate was going on! Thanks to his post (and many others in the end) I went in search of information about and follow-up to the debate.
An endorsement for Scott Brown by a Facebook contact spurred me to check on my absentee ballot status. Come to find out, the US government never sent my request to vote by email to the Beverly Town Clerk, so now she is going to help me do it. That same endorsement led me to figure out exactly who that person was and contemplate blocking her from my friends list (I didn't go that far though).
I think Facebook has become a reverse blog for me. I am very out of touch with America -- no one in Gangtok ever talks about anything related to the US -- and we are wrapped up in coping with the environment in which we currently live. When I have visited Europe, people would ask me to justify some economic policy or explain an American cultural phenomenon, but here no one thinks about the US; The girls and I have spent most of our brain power figuring out how to adjust to the culture here.
Still, I/we have a growing desire to connect with the world back home (Corrina has started having chat sessions with a couple of friends that last for hours, after weeks of not even wanting to contact her friends in Beverly), an enormous desire to be home (and especially be with Glenn), and a strengthening understanding that New England is where we belong. We are counting the days until we come back home, not out of a dislike for our current situation (in fact I think we are very content here at Chanbari House right now!), but out of a desire to touch the life we had before we came to Sikkim. Imagine what it will be like when we come home only to realize that we have changed, and home has changed, in such ways that we will never go back to our old life. I am very curious to see what the new life will hold.
general knowledge (did you know there is a potential hurricane brewing off of the coast of Jamaica?)
and the political. In fact, I came to the realization that Facebook has become a tether line for me after reading the following post:
As President, Romney will tackle the bayonet shortage head-on.
This comment was posted by a beloved student from Meridian Academy, Sam Miller, who was referring to a point made in the most recent presidential debate. I of course had no idea that the debate was going on! Thanks to his post (and many others in the end) I went in search of information about and follow-up to the debate.
An endorsement for Scott Brown by a Facebook contact spurred me to check on my absentee ballot status. Come to find out, the US government never sent my request to vote by email to the Beverly Town Clerk, so now she is going to help me do it. That same endorsement led me to figure out exactly who that person was and contemplate blocking her from my friends list (I didn't go that far though).
I think Facebook has become a reverse blog for me. I am very out of touch with America -- no one in Gangtok ever talks about anything related to the US -- and we are wrapped up in coping with the environment in which we currently live. When I have visited Europe, people would ask me to justify some economic policy or explain an American cultural phenomenon, but here no one thinks about the US; The girls and I have spent most of our brain power figuring out how to adjust to the culture here.
Still, I/we have a growing desire to connect with the world back home (Corrina has started having chat sessions with a couple of friends that last for hours, after weeks of not even wanting to contact her friends in Beverly), an enormous desire to be home (and especially be with Glenn), and a strengthening understanding that New England is where we belong. We are counting the days until we come back home, not out of a dislike for our current situation (in fact I think we are very content here at Chanbari House right now!), but out of a desire to touch the life we had before we came to Sikkim. Imagine what it will be like when we come home only to realize that we have changed, and home has changed, in such ways that we will never go back to our old life. I am very curious to see what the new life will hold.
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