It’s not yet Christmas . . . and already I’m thinking about June. There is a reason for that.
Where I live people come and go . . . a lot. That’s the part that they don’t put in the brochure when you move abroad . . .
“Adventure of a lifetime — Explore exotic lands! Learn new languages! Say goodbye to 20% of your friends every summer and random others throughout the year!”
Sign here.
It is a big painful part of the expat experience though. Transition that is. Not the expected ones like “culture shock”, bumbling language mistakes and system conversions. We saw those coming from a mile away (1.60934 kilometers). We read books and blogs about those. Some of us even went to seminars and conferences about how to “transition well”. There is no small bit of attention paid to the beginning phases of life as a foreigner. There is also a growing bit of attention surrounding the ending phases — leaving well, saying goodbye, repatriating, reverse culture shock and so on.
Not knocking that since . . . you know . . . I wouldn’t have a job without it.