Back in Beantown and craving rooibos

Okay, I thought it would be good to continue my blog in the USA as a theraputic way of adjusting to the rat race world of Los Estados Unidos. It's only taken four years but the prodigal graduate student has finally returned to her roots and all she has to say is THANK GOD I left four years ago! Cold crappy weather, drafty brownhouses and "my dick is bigger than your dick" faculty members. No thanks, I'll take the real world over the ivory tower any day of the week. In other news, I've been back in the USA for 10 days and reverse culture shock is in full swing. I was in a cafe today having a bite to eat and a couple of guys nearby started speaking in Afrikaans and I almost started crying! What the hell?! I can tell it will take a while for my brain to catch up with my body. In the meantime there is rooibos tea and booty shaking Sesotho music to soothe the pangs for Southern Africa. I have been using the 'T' (for all of you non-Bostonians it's the equivalent of the Vienna tram system/London underground) quite a bit over the last few days and the weirdest feeling, after using the hair raising mini bus taxis of Lesotho for the last year, is the sense of anonymity, (no one talking about you in Sesotho assuming that you don't speak the language or small children running by the mini bus screaming "Lekhoa!!"), diversity, and disconnectedness (no one looks at each other ) that I feel. Hmm...methinks a cup of rooibos tea sounds good right about now!