{"id":6772,"date":"2016-06-25T08:00:19","date_gmt":"2016-06-25T13:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scquest.org\/?p=6772"},"modified":"2016-06-25T10:42:29","modified_gmt":"2016-06-25T15:42:29","slug":"cultural-adaption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.scquest.org\/?p=6772","title":{"rendered":"Cultural adaptation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Remember those golden years of Jr. High? Can you relive in your mind that glorious feeling of approaching a group of \u201ccool kids.\u201d The stomach in knots, the beads of sweat on the forehead, the fear of saying something stupid. Ahh the bliss.<br \/>\nJr. High was a time of awkwardness, at least for me. Very few people I have spoken with have said, \u201cOh for the days of Jr. High!\u201d (Read \u201czero people\u201d). In Jr. High I was never safe. If my voice didn&#8217;t betray me, my words did. If my words didn&#8217;t, my clothing did. If my clothing didn&#8217;t, others did. I was a mess.<br \/>\nI think my Jr. High self is the closest comparison I have found to cultural adaptation. I am awkward. I have yet to learn the social norms and colloquial phrases. I look like an outsider. As soon as I open my mouth, everyone knows I am different. During nearly every interaction I run through the possible ways I could fail:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Will this person remember me?<\/li>\n<li>How do I greet this person?<\/li>\n<li>Do I shake hands or use the Spanish kiss?<\/li>\n<li>How do I say ____?<\/li>\n<li>Is it culturally acceptable to talk about this?<\/li>\n<li>How long should I talk?<\/li>\n<li>Did I say that correctly?<\/li>\n<li>Oh no! I wasn&#8217;t paying attention to what they just said because I tuned out their Spanish. Now they are looking at me waiting for a response!<\/li>\n<li>Did I say their name correctly?<\/li>\n<li>Why are they touching my arm?<\/li>\n<li>Should we really be standing in the middle of the sidewalk\/isle\/car lane talking and making everyone wait?<\/li>\n<li>Oh no! They asked another question and I didn&#8217;t understand!<\/li>\n<li>Etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>With all this, it may sound like it is torture. Well, was Jr. High torture? Yes. Yes it was. So you would be correct in assuming that.<\/p>\n<p>However, there are a couple redeeming factors.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>My voice doesn&#8217;t crack\u2026as much.<\/li>\n<li>I have mastered the use of deodorant.<\/li>\n<li>I am already married and very secure in Crystal&#8217;s love for me no matter what I wear. And I make sure to test that regularly.<\/li>\n<li>I am a little more mature.<\/li>\n<li>And I can smile.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I have found that smiling is a secret weapon. I can say nearly anything I want as long as I say it with a smile. People take what I say in the best possible way if I am smiling, and they know I care, or want to learn, or am genuinely lost.<\/p>\n<p>And I can smile. I can smile because I am secure, not because I have the slightest notion of what I am doing, but because I am eternally loved. I have been accepted into the family of God on the merits of Christ by the work of the Spirit. So I am free to love. I am free to mess up. I am free to learn by trial and error because I am free from the shackles of people-pleasing.<br \/>\nSo, it doesn&#8217;t matter if I goof up my verb tenses, or botch a greeting, or accidentally say a curse word that sounds really, really close to an ok word\u2026again. I can smile, because I am loved.<\/p>\n<p>To all my Jr. High fears I say, \u201cBring it on!\u201d (In a slightly squeaky voice)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Remember those golden years of Jr. High? Can you relive in your mind that glorious feeling of approaching a group of \u201ccool kids.\u201d The stomach in knots, the beads of sweat on the forehead, the fear of saying something stupid. &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scquest.org\/?p=6772\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-living-abroad"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p34kFn-1Le","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6772"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6782,"href":"http:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6772\/revisions\/6782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scquest.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}