Facing my fear: when I moved back to America, I felt like a foreigner

I felt some fear too. I was in late elementary and middle school overseas and when I came back I had a bit of culture shock. I despised a lot of popular culture as antiintellectual and uneducated and rude... some of my childhood friends werent as I remembered and we werent interested in the same things anymore (which was not a surprise, really - we'd been going back for the summers most years).

This evoked memories of my time working in Japan, where at 24 years old, was the first time I had lived in the country.

I very much felt like a foreigner, and had never felt more "American" than when I lived and worked there.

Similar to the author, I saw my new grad colleagues getting their souls crushed by the corporate machine (mine was one of the hardest crushed), felt a strong desire to help, as someone who came from a culture with a healthier perspective towards work and life, but was entirely powerless to do anything.

Obama was here for 8 years, lots has changed.