Notes From the Desk

Author: Caroline Stauffer

A few days ago, I finished my finals at the Universidad Carlos III, left Madrid after a five month stay, arrived in Burlington late Friday night and was sitting in class at Middlebury 10 a.m. Monday morning.

I was skeptical about the phenomenon known as "reverse culture shock." While many of my friends elected more exotic locals such as India or Africa that required dramatic lifestyle changes, I lived in a western European capital where Starbucks was always a mere 10-minute walk away.

Back on campus, I noted that aside from the new buildings very little had actually changed, although perhaps my perspectives had.

Proctor has been rearranged and it took me 20 minutes to find the cereal. There are plenty of new faces and I feel much older among the throngs of first-years and new Febs. In addition to the usual threatening reminders from Dining Services to bring back dishes, my inbox is now flooded with notices from public safety warning me of dangerous late-night intruders or drunken classmates. Of the multitude of construction projects that were anxiously awaited last spring, the new library and Atwater Dining Hall have at last opened their doors.

After living abroad, where gaining independence and spending time alone are actually a large part of the experience, it is a bit overwhelming to plunge back into the bubble, perpetually surrounded by people you know, are supposed to know or at least recognize.

The size of the Middlebury campus also seems to have shrunk. After enduring an hour commute to class in Madrid, the extra five-minute walk to Ross that I used to whine about seems superfluous.

Basically, coming back to Midd has been somewhat of an amplified version of returning to my hometown after my first semester of College -- an experience I often describe with a favorite quote by Nelson Mandela. "There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find ways in which you yourself have altered."



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