What Really Grinds My Gears

The title of this post is taken from a workmate's blog, which is, if you're interested in a good laugh, especially at the expense of America, a great read. Like me, he's a foreigner working here, but unlike me, he wishes to stay.

I went into work today and for some reason, was wondering about that show Doogie Howser, M.D. From what I remember, he kept his diary in computerised form. These days, I guess that computerised diary would have made its way into a blog. Lately, with the onset of homesickness and the near-boiling-over of long-building frustrations related to my work and wondering what the hell I'm doing here, maybe it's time for a non-Michael-Dwyer-related (where is he these days anyway?) vent.

When I first moved here, just over a year ago, the university's International Office that provides orientation for overseas "scholars" (ha!) suggested that when moving to a new country, the mover often goes through several phases. Like everything else I seem to go through in my life, I guess my phases have been delayed in their onset. I would often peer at the sheet of paper that talked about being homesick, getting angry with the culture clash, and wonder when I would start having to deal with these phenomena. With the benefit of hindsight, I can trace my path back to April when I caught up with several workmates from back home at a conference. And that's exactly when I started to realise how good I had it in my former lab, and how much I want to get back there. I've never been comfortable talking about myself, or my problems, and have never learned to stop bottling things up. A couple of days ago, during a training session, I was chatting to the guy instructing me, and wondering where my accent was from, he asked me, "Where is home for you?" Perhaps it was the way he phrased it that made me feel like I'd been king-hit.

The problem with uprooting yourself from one place and landing in another - no matter how warmly and openly you're received - especially when you know that the latter is temporary, is that you find yourself belonging to neither. Every day I find some sort of reminder of my alien status, whether it's my failure to complete orders over the phone because the automated system can't understand my accent, or still not being able to remember my social security number off by heart, or not having "sufficient credit" (why prove that you can get into debt successfully in order to be allowed to get into more debt???) to obtain a U.S. credit card. You can't afford to get too comfortable or attached to anything or anyone, because you know it's finite, and that you are ultimately in a state of flux. Time passes, and you realise that despite the huge leap of faith it took you to get all the way over here, you're going to come home and have missed out on an enormous chunk of your loved ones' lives. And what for? Is it really worth it? And I don't care what anyone says about time away not changing things, the reality is that it does. Perhaps not in the minds of those away from you, but certainly in your own.

I came over here thinking I would grow up a bit, but lately I think I'm actually regressing. Quirks about everyday life that initially made me chuckle, now get on my nerves. And of course, these are things that would happen back home, but are felt all the more acutely, simply because it's not home. I guess that what these feelings come down to is similar to the average course of a PhD project (I hate to bring it back to this, but it's a good analogy) - as a student, you'll hit a wall at some point. Whether it happens at the beginning, the middle, the end, or anywhere in between. But you're guaranteed to hit it. I've come to the conclusion that likewise, the average post-doc also goes through similar things. And no matter how "mature" (ha!) you think you've become, dealing with flagging motivation never gets any easier. But as a great songwriter once said, "No one can solve your psychological angst for you". You've got to be self-aware enough to figure it out yourself.

Dang!