Discovery is the common theme

I’ve spent over six months in the States and all of a sudden, there is now only three short months left of my year abroad. Recently, someone asked me: ‘what’s the biggest culture shock you have experienced since arriving here?’ Although in theory this seems like a fairly light-hearted and easy question, it got me thinking. Thinking quite a lot.

As I mentioned in my second blog post, I knew very little about Texas and Austin so I didn’t really know what to expect. However, I have indeed found out that there is a rather big culture difference between here and home. We may share a language, but even then there are many differences: for instance, the astonished and slightly bewildered looks when I said currants (those red berries…). They just had no idea – that was kind of funny. Or our differing sense of humours… I attended an improv comedy night last semester and surprisingly, I just didn’t find it that funny. Now that was kind of sad.

However, my reply to that surprisingly difficult question was the religious difference between here and home; I don’t know many people who are religious at home, specifically Christian. This isn't surprising because now more people identify themselves as non-religious than religious in England and Wales, with that difference being higher between millennials (Sherwood, 2016). Here in Texas, in addition to the other states I have travelled to, religion still seems to play a prominent role in people’s lives, even among the younger generation; I know many UT students that practice Christianity and identify themselves as Christian. This was especially evident yesterday during Ash Wednesday when I saw lots of students on campus with a cross marked on their forehead. 

This is just another discovery I have made during my time here in the States. And that’s what I have realised links my blog posts altogether: a common theme of discovery. This may be as my first few weeks in Austin, familiarising myself with the campus and the city, or finding out Austin is succumbing to the forces of gentrification, in addition to exploring Texas’s liberal and green sides, or finding out the great facilities UT Austin has to offer. As I said before, I do indeed have only three months left but it is certain that I will make many more discoveries within that time.

References

Sherwood, H. (2016) People of no religion outnumber Christians in England and Wales – study, [Online]. London: The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/23/no-religion-outnumber-christians-england-wales-study [Accessed 1st March 2016].