Reflections on being an expat

I was 19 when I came here. A city in scandinavia (which some of my american readers need to be told is not a country). Until I was 19 I grew up a southern California girl.

When I came here I had just finished high-school and had planned to try to get into uniersity. It turned out not to be that easy. An american high school diploma is not very highky regarded here. I had to learn the language, I had to take several subjects from their high-school equivalent. The math and science was easy for me and I couldn't really see the point of having to do that again. The social science and history was an eye-opener. I had a good teacher and the subjects fascinated me.

The next year I did get in to university, and after 6 years (it was supposed to be five, a year got wasted in there somehow) I got my masters. Today I teach history and english in their school system.

I try to get to california at least once or twice a year to see my dad and his new family. I have also visited a few of my old friends from high school, and some of the difference between young americans and young europeans really have struck me as significant.

Here young people get a degree of freedom at an early age which is just unknown in middle-class america. That means they reach a level of maturity at a much earlier age, to me it was a strange awakening that led to conflict with my parents and when they left after two years here, there was no question in my mind, I was staying on.

I had fought hard I felt to get into university here, It had taken time for me to learn and adjust to my contempararies here, and of course I had also fallen in love with an older woman, so I was staying.

After a few years I went back to California and I attended a five year high school reunion. As that evening progressed I felt increasingly like an adult lost in a childrens party. People were in college, they still had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives. A surprising number of the girls still expected to be married, and viewed that was a carreer in itself. In the twenty- first century, that was incredible.

The only three who actually seemed to have some idea of who they were and what they would do was a girl in med school and two guys doing computer science.

My high school boy friend was still a clumsy lover, only his clumsiness was not so endearing any more.

The class jocks still had a pre-puberty type sense of humor.

When I was twenty-one, a young scandinavian girl turned me on to some of the classical American litterature. (Like Sinclair Lewis' Main street. I mention it because that book has become one of my dearest ones, I've read it three times now).

Among my classmates, one and only one ever read a novel for pleasure and she was in med school. Among the english majors the idea of reading a classical novel for pleasure seemed totally foreign.

Several were still living with their parents.

Quite a few of them were pro-Bush (the majority still democrats). Most seemed to have no particular grasp of the issues beyond the war which was discussed a bit.
In europe I've had an education in politics which is amazing. Of course having been very influenced by an older, wise man, my political views are quite cynical compared to most of my contemporaries here as well.

Last christmas I met a few of them again. The one I have a relationship with is now an intern and she got a few who were living locally together for a party and it is nice to be able to say that relative maturity came late to some, but it came.

There were times here that I thought of getting citizenship here. After Obama was elected Ihave postponed any decision on that.

There are things that I miss. The climate is the obvious one, and yes there are times when I do miss the best climate in the world, southern Cal weather.
The ease of getting along with people is another.
The art of small talk.
The laid-back tolerance.
The lack of moral judgements.
The hospitality towards strangers.

I miss those.

At the same time I am tired of this having to show respect towards any silly idea people may have.

I am an atheist! I think all religion is man made, and I have no particular respect for old myths being peddled as actual truth.

I think vegetarians are silly, and vegans must be idiots.

And I find it a lot easier to have these views here than in the US. I'm tired of people looking at me as something from outer space just because I say I am an atheist.