I know it is not New Years yet, but this is not a year in review post (I will save that for later). This is about the affect the this season in life has had on me. It just happens that this season correlates nicely with the calendar year.
Some of the biggest changes are from my girlfriend. She has taught me so much. A major thing is feminism. Guys, we are sexist. We don’t do it on purpose, it just happens. As I have grown closer to a girl I have learned about this embedded sexism. Also, I have drifted slightly from my absolute scientific worldview to add some more gray areas, but this change is only partially due to her.
Massah also changed me, so much it reshaped who I am at the core. How much? So much that I feel like people who don’t know much about Massah don’t know much about me (or at least the most current me). Massah taught me about God, people, myself, and the world. It reshaped my worldview. I learned how much God has gone through and how much He loves me and all of humanity. No post will do justice to this revelation (but I might try someday soon). I learned about my teammates, and how people interact. I also learned about cultures and how we all have our own culture. I knew this before, but on this trip I learned how much of ourselves really is from our culture. I learned how to stay true to myself while living in another culture. A major outcome of this “culture shock” was the hit to my absolutes. I found out that many of my absolutes were cultural absolutes, they are things defined as absolute by my culture and are not necessarily true in other cultures. This shook me to the core. But sadly the most violent shock was returning home. I left the place of new found knowledge and had to live in this change back at home. But home was no longer home. It was not what I left and I was not the one who left. Lets just say entering back into society was hard (especially school life). For instance it took months to be OK eating off a wet plate or cup or to put toilet paper in the toilet.
Also, friends have influenced me for the better and worse this last semester. Some have challenged me to be better. Some have taken time and emotional energy. I have learned what I need to do to keep myself going strong. I have learned who really knows me and wants me to be doing my best. With my friends its hard to say specifically what I have learned, cause each time I am with them I come out slightly changed.
This has been an interesting time of growth. I am still slowly realizing what all happened.
Creative Science 