Reverse Culture Shock: Reflections on the US

Back from the US, back to routine. Updates on Italy, my thesis, coding bootcamp, and figuring out where I'm supposed to be 🗺

Hey guys! It’s been a while. My trip to the US was nothing short of hectic and my return was almost equally as frenetic.

I was out until 1 am then waking up at 3 for Bootcamp, staying up til 12, taking a nap, then driving seemingly all the time to everywhere only to have to do the same thing the next day and the next. Mostly I was driving around, sorting and collecting documents for Italy, getting them notarized then certified, and sending them off; I was watching code lectures as I brushed my teeth, waking up at 7 and returning at 11 or 12 that night if at all.

Driving everywhere meant I couldn’t do anything in the meantime, no email checking or sending or code review, so to me it quickly felt like a royal waste of time to have to drive 30 min to an hour just to do one thing or see a friend, and was more exhausting than I remembered. And it was expensive! I had to rent a car, and my personal advice to you and what I wish I had done ever since I’ve started renting cars for return trips home is, pick one company and start collecting reward points and perks.

After a beyond shoddy experience with a cheaper company, I wish I had stuck to the first one I had used. My boss has a Hertz Gold membership and he gets all kinds of perks (like returning the car at any time with no extra fee and free upgrades), while I sit around getting charged a whole extra day for returning the car an hour late. With all the renting I do when I go back home, I’d likely be at a similar membership level. Lesson learned: pick a company, stay loyal, reap the rewards. I’m doing this for everything I can now: airlines, rental cars, you name it. Got any recommendations for me, by the way?

A few brief observations from my time in the US before I do a quick recap of how my other projects are going:

• Driving. How do you people enjoy a drink anywhere? It’s no wonder houses in the US are so big — they have to be, because gathering anywhere requires a huge time and driving commitment to and fro, and if you’re drinking at all, you cannot drive, and what are you going to do when the bar closes at 10 or 11? Uber your way back 20-40 miles home and pay $80 one way, then do the same tomorrow and hope your car wasn’t towed in the meantime? The logistics if living and enjoying in this country are hopeless with the lack of sufficient public transportation.

• On that note, you can’t drink outside?? I always forget this because in Japan and Germany, you can go to a convenience store or grocery store, get a drink, and walk right out with it. Pop it open, enjoy in the street or on a pretty day at the park. Again, no wonder houses in the US are so big — you can’t have a lightly boozy get together in public anywhere. This rule just doesn’t make any sense. Is this a property law thing? It can’t be about drunkenness, because if any issue needs to be remedied, it’s the requirement that you have to drive somewhere and back just to enjoy a drink.

• I could not escape a casual meeting with anyone without hearing their opinions on taxes and the poor. It was quite astounding how many misconceptions there are about taxation, where money is going and where it comes from, and how other larger systematic and structural problems (like transportation, to stay on theme) contribute to the experience of being poor in the US. Those I spoke to had a markedly bleak outlook on the current situation, and expressed a lack of faith in any politician or party. I would also like to add that I did not ask anyone for their opinions on politics or taxes; the topics were brought up organically.

Okay, so back to the usual project-update-programming.

Italy Citizenship

My goal in the US: collect all the remaining documents including my amended birth certificate and my mother’s birth certificate, and get them all sent in for apostille. Apostille means “internationally certified”, so that a foreign government (Italy) would recognize that the documents are valid. A state Apostille is needed on state or locally issued documents like a birth certificate, and a Federal apostille is needed for federal ones like naturalization papers.

Corona really screwed up this process for me, because walk-ins are not allowed anymore and perhaps the offices are happier having fewer requests and everything sent in the mail. But needing to send everything in – all original documents – and wait days or weeks or, in the federal apostille case, months, is terrifying. Before corona, I could have just went to Annapolis, handed over the documents, then got them back with the seal. The same for Federal apostille - just go to DC, wait in line, get the apostille, sayonara. But no, I’m stuck with the mail option. If you write anything wrong on the application or forget something, you’re screwed. Payment by check or money order only – who has those?? Sending documents with tracking? Minimum $20 one way, and you need to pay for both ways. I believe in total I paid $150 for all the documents I currently possess.

This process was thus complicated and costly, and each apostille had their own separate requirements depending on the document type. For example, I had to get a few documents notarized then certified by the local court before I could submit it for apostille. All the running around and checking and confirming I had to do for this… ugh.

Okay, so final result? All documents State Apostilled. Hooray! EXCEPT…. the original birth certificate of my mother was deemed too old to get the apostille. Wtf, right? It’s from the 50s, not 1800s! [I want to add that it cost me $40 to learn this because of the mailing to and fro]. The worst part is that I had went to Vital Records a week before with my father to obtain a new, fresh copy of her birth certificate, after confirming multiple times on the phone and on the application itself that my dad, the surviving spouse, could get it, but the staff was so unfamiliar with the request that they said no, and that he needed a court order. *mental explosion*

When I found out the apostille request with the original was denied, I was in Berlin again, and I was furious. I called Vital Records again, explaining that my mother is dead and my sister is estranged and is guarding our family documents like a gluttonous, evil dragon. Guess what they said? Your father can get a copy. I nearly snapped my phone. I will not divulge here what an absolute ordeal it was to get my dad and the documents together to go to Vital Records that one day only to be rejected despite knowing he could, but it was mentally and physically too fucking much.

So on the phone, I made another appointment for my dad to go and get my mother’s birth certificate, and pre-printed every document he could possibly need to prove that he is eligible, and told him to not even think about leaving until he gets a copy. So everyone, please join me in prayer as he, the most unreliable person I know, is entrusted with this extremely important mission to complete tomorrow. *deeeeeeeeeeep breath*.

And to add to my frustration, I have learned that getting the federal apostille for my great-grandfather’s documents could take another 3 months, and that getting his USCIS (citizenship paperwork) plus the apostille could take an additional 7 or 8. This throws a huuuuge wrench into my Monza plans, which means I may have to choose a different city with a more lenient city office/process.

I have also considered just staying in Berlin and doing the German citizenship route, but the working visa restrictions are even messier… I don’t see the worth in it while I have already done so much for Italy.

Master’s Thesis

Oh lordy. I’m really running out of time with this one. I only thought about it and shared my ideas with some friends while I was home, which helped give me more confidence in it. Now that I have a better idea of what I’ll write about, which I hope to share with you soon, I need to do some fine tuning first. I’m meeting with my advisor next week and hopefully will be able to buckle down on writing, since it is now somehow almost December (!!) and I have nothing written, nor has my thesis proposal been submitted. But now that I’m feeling back into my routine here, I should be able to get started in the next weeks.

Bootcamp

Keeping up with my class three days a week including all day on Saturday tested the extent of my Energizer-bunny-like stamina because I had a six-hour time difference to contest with.

While that sounds just fine on a Tuesday or Thursday when the class would start at 1 pm EST, if I was anywhere short of someone’s house with a stable Wi-Fi connection, it was almost impossible to join in. Cafes I went to were either too loud, too small, trashy, or had no wi-fi; my dad doesn’t have a large place nor one with wi-fi; it basically meant wherever I was, I had to drive back to my residence in the county to be there, and if I had an appointment for anything, I had to make sure I did it very early or the latest time in business hours because it took so long in traffic to get from A to B and back. Logistically speaking, doing all the Italy paperwork stuff plus Bootcamp absorbed most of my time.

Then Saturdays, where I had to wake up at 3 am and stay up til 12 pm, were a particular challenge since wherever I was staying I had to make sure I had good wi-fi and space to work without waking up anyone else. Since it was the weekend where my friends were finally free, I would usually be out quite late on Fridays. Overall, I was quite sleep-deprived in those two weeks.

Nonetheless, now that I’m back in Berlin, bootcamp has been a lot more manageable. We are learning SQL and very soon learning Ruby on Rails. Although I still don’t know what kind of job I’ll have at the end of this, I like what I’m learning, and I’ve been meeting some cool people. The network is large and diverse, and I think that that will in some capacity make it worthwhile no matter what.

Workshopping

I’m sure I’ve mentioned it here before, but I also run a student group at my university focused on career development. We had a big event this past week where a well-known business coach led a workshop on personal branding. I was so glad to have a team helping with the set up and cleanup, and we managed to have a turnout of 30 students. I also did a little speech at the beginning, and I believe that the more I do this type of thing, the more I think that it’s my calling. Motivating people! Organizing events! Making stuff happen!

Our guest suggested that everyone do this thing called the CliftonStrengthsfinder to figure out what you’re best at and capitalize on those strengths. Luckily, I got access to the Top 5 Traits quiz through my part-time job. I did the quiz in a half an hour and it gave me the following results along with a few tidbits from the descriptions and suggestions I highlighted:

• Learner

  • “You love the challenge of a steep learning curve”

  • “Be a catalyst for change”

  • “Become an expert in an area that interests you”

• Activator

  • “You have an ability to spark action and momentum in others”

  • “Help your friends make a decision and start moving”

  • “Consider becoming an entrepreneur”

  • “Get enough sleep”

• Focus

  • “You understand that life is about choices”

  • “Recharge yourself to avoid working yourself to exhaustion”

  • “You may get frustrated with incomplete projects and groups that don’t seem to get much done”

  • “Find a leadership… you have the talents to make decisions for the group and to get stalled plans back on track”

• Individuality

  • “You want to have the best fit between who you are and what you do with your life”

  • “Tell your friends and roommates about the great talents you see in them, and encourage them to follow their dreams”

• Responsibility

  • “People rely on your because they know you will complete a project – and do it right”

  • “Have you considered running for student government? You may feel that if you can make things better, you should make things better”

Wow. Accurate, much?? These are all things that I have especially been pondering over the past few months and realizing, yes only now realizing, are my strengths. I also found it interesting how I keep going back to certain things like leadership positions or politics or always signing up for courses (I literally just bought one on photography this morning…). This is who I am. In 2023, I’m going to absolutely make the most of them and get the job, money, and projects I have always wanted and known I could do.

I encourage everyone to take the quiz and find out your strengths! As I was taking it I couldn’t believe that the questions would be able to develop such an accurate profile of my personality and strengths but I’m definitely sold. And it wasn’t just this one guest who suggested the quiz, a previous guest from the German Marshall Fund also highly recommended it. Here it is if you’re interested: https://store.gallup.com/p/en-us/10108/top-5-cliftonstrengths. If you take it, drop your results in the comments please! I’m so curious!

Wrap-Up

Okay, this was longer than I expected. I had Spiderman 3 playing in the background since I started writing this and now it’s almost over. A few fiiiinal notes:

• Been trying to automate a few work tasks with Excel. The lack of practical and well-explained tutorials online is absolutely astounding. How can this program be so popular yet so mysterious, and all the tutorials/guides so dreadful?

• My German needs to be actively improved but I am admittedly proud that I can understand most day-to-day writings and conversations. I truly never thought I could just a few years ago. And the same goes for Japanese. That I can read it so easily still, man, young me would be in utter disbelief.

• I recently bought a water-flosser thing because I’ll be getting a permanent retainer soon following my DrSmile (i.e. Invisalign) treatment, and wow, what a cool product. My mouth is so clean!! My electric toothbrush and the new travel-sized electric one I got in the US were also well-worthwhile purchases. Health problems, especially dental ones, can be so expensive, and even this little cosmetic treatment was a hefty investment, but I believe preventative and long-term care in this stuff is the best investment you can make in yourself.

And that’s that for this week! Thanks for reading this far and being my cheerleader!

EXTRA::: My 31st birthday was last week, and I had a little party at my friend’s new apartment. My favorite people in Berlin and one of my best friends from London were all there. Lucky me!