I'm in America
I'm in America. In fact, after a 20-hour flight across the Pacific, I've been studying college here for multiple weeks now. Yet, everything still feels the same.
After the novelty of being in a new country and culture wore off, I've found myself bumbling through life just like I did back in Taiwan. I don't have to speak Chinese anymore, but I still have awkward social interactions. I'm taking classes the material of which I already covered with AP classes and self-study, but I'm not flying through the homework at superspeed or able to help my partners in term projects beyond a basic level. I haven't built close relationships with my professors, or made any good friends outside of the Corps (I'll elaborate on the Corps in a later post, just ignore that for now).
I guess I expected that life would suddenly become extremely easy and fun, and I would be some kind of outstanding college student once I came here. I've been preparing for this for a large part of my life, after all. For frick's sakes, I speak English better than Chinese despite having never set foot in an English-speaking country until less than one month ago. But at the end of the day, when I think about it, I'm mediocre. Here, and back in Taiwan. I don't stand out in any way, and I'm not better at anything than anyone.
I've had a simmering awareness of this for a while. But today, I had an experience which really hit the nail on the head for me. I went to this career fair event, and joined the line for a stall. The person in front of me was talking actively with the company representative, and the representative was talking about how he was impressed by his projects, and loved his attitude and enthusiasm, yada yada. The more things he mentioned that he valued and was looking for in candidates, the more I realized I was beyond underprepared for this. When it was my turn, I had a bland conversation with the interviewer, asked some stupid questions, was given the all-too-accurate feedback that my resume was lacking in extracurricular activities and technical achievements, and left the fair.
I feel stupid, embarassed, and tired. If moving to the literal other side of the Earth doesn't change anything, what will?