Going Native

I read this today for my Creative Non-Fiction class, and even though the writer is referring to her experience moving to India, I imagine myself having a similar experience in approximately 3 months when I make the big move to the big apple. I have been and continue to prepare myself for the culture shock (I've only ever lived in South Dakota, after all), but I am confident that once I get past the initial realization that "holy shit I live in New York," I, too, will fall in love with the overabundance of the new big city. At least I hope so..

"Much of what I saw terrified me, yet I was intensely happy, perhaps because my fear was the closest thing I'd felt in months to a genuine emotion, but also because I'd already fallen in love with the excess, the overabundance: too many people, too much to see, too much noise, too many bright colors. It seemed less like overload than replenishment after the sensory-deprivation tank in which I'd been living."

"Going Native" by Francine Prose