disconcertingly familiar

I needed a new watch in 2002. Despite my criteria—relatively small and light, with both an analogue watch and stopwatch—I ended up with the Storm Digi Grand (my specific watch serial number 1082). This must be the world's heaviest watch, but... it glows blue! And that so rocks. I got it on sale too, which at half the recommended retail just getting into the top of my price range. Well, it was great but last year I started having problems with the digital part. (It's two completely independent watches.) I had the battery replaced three times by the local watch guy (only paid the first time, since he was clearly doing something wrong). In the end I gave up on him, no one else local would fix it, and for months and months I've just had the watch as an analogue watch. Well finally we took some more action. Fortunately, though I bought it in New Zealand, Storm Watches are a UK export. After some earlier investigations by Nick and I, Bronwyn took my watch into the Storm repair facility in London on Tuesday—a day off for her, though unlike New Zealand not a Bank Holiday here. Well, for half the price of the earlier battery replacement (ie. £5) they replaced both of the batteries in the watch, and it's all working swimmingly. (Here ends the first reading.)

The reason I'm telling you all that is because it is bizzare to have it working again! Every time I look at my watch now I'm surprised to see two time readouts looking back at me. It has been so many months the other way that I've grown accustomed to what was originally strange.

I was thinking on my way home yesterday of the parallel with our friend Sonja's Masters research from back when. She examined the psychological stress and adjustment reactions of New Zealand students returning home from International Exchange Programmes. It's not always a comfortable change. There are clearly parallels to others who have been overseas too. And from what I've heard, the culture shock when you go away often isn't nearly as difficult as the culture shock when you come back.

And so I wonder. Will arriving back in New Zealand in March be a bit like my watch experience? Will having things finally back the “right” way seem wrong? Will it all be somehow disconcertingly familiar?

I'm sure I've read that reverse culture shock is often harder than going overseas because the victim isn't expecting a culture shock at that point. (Can't recall if this was in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology or perhaps in Women's Weekly, so I'm unsure about how much weight should be put on this theory.) Well, we're prepared then, aren't we? Hmm.

Brace for impact.