Most of an exchange students experienced what so called culture shock in the beginning of their program. It can be related to food, people behavior, weather, public transportation, workload, a bunch of policies and lots of stuff which feel different and a bit bother them. No matter what happened it will be solved as time goes by and you need to work on your workload.
As time goes by with lots of new experiences and fabulous events like all the time, years run so quickly and time to back home is coming. Since there were lots of things happened in our exchange program  and we interacted, worked, and collaborated with lots of people from different places, it somehow affecting our thought and point of view in facing certain issues. In a way, we thought that we become more tolerant on people's preferences and we have more gut to express our thought just because it was appreciated a lot in our host country. Later on, it makes us super confident to back home as a new person full of experiences and idealistic to share with our friends, family, and institution.
However, things might be different after you arrive home. At some point, you will feel alienated by your surrounding as if you are not the same person you were. You feel like all thigs in your home country is not as beautiful as what you remembered and what you’ve got from your host country. Everything seems not appropriate or not in the right place in your mind. And you feel like you do not belong to your home country anymore. This is what we call reverse culture shock.
As what I experienced back home, things that I found quite bothering me was when I started  to use sarcasm to joke. Since I come from a place where everyone knows everyone's business, I felt like no one give me ‘my space’ and always sniffed around my butt, I couldn't help it and use sarcasm to respond them. I thought it was part of a joke but people take it differently. As a Javanese woman who is expected to be assertive, calm, elegant, and not laugh too much, being sarcastic sound really inappropriate and rude. My father even said that he didn’t know me anymore. He was so pissed of and always mentioning that I am not in the US anymore. He was begging me all the time to act like an eastern woman. Then I realize that we cannot treat different people with the same action. Some people thought that it means being fake about yourself, but for me, this is the art of adaptation. As the result, I was learning people joke and answering their questions based on what they wish, because I know that they don’t really care they just want to be nice that’s all.
In short, I handled in quite a good manner my reverse culture shock. How could I do that? because I had prepared it long before I go home. I did a mental preparation by planning lots of stuff ahead before I back home. I spent one semester to convince myself that everything is not immortal. Someday, the good thing might be ended and I need to prepare myself to create another good thing in new circumstances.
Although at some point I am feeling inconvenient still, but my preparation let me take it easy than feeling offended.
What did I do to prepare myself from reverse culture shock?
Telling myself that it will not always be lobster in my plate
Some people just don’t realize that they are infected by the most common disease of exchange students called lobster effect. Correct me if I am wrong, in my understanding, a lobster effect is the feeling of disappointment when we work on small thing after we deal with a big thing. They feel discourage and think that they need to work with the bigger league to feel satisfied. For example, you just finished your internship at Ivy League university for a year where you can use lots of sophisticated and awesome facilities like MacBook which you can book every time you need, free gym with complete workout tools, and modern lab perhaps and lots of well-known professor with brilliant idea and great buddy from all over the world. In short, you feel like you rule the world by being part of them.Then when you back to your home university, you see that the facility you get is not as good as before. You always blame on technical issues for not being able to finish an imposible mission and you just sniff around to find the weaknesses of this organization just because you feel like this is not your league anymore. This kind of symptoms might occur in any case like a relationship, social networking, work-life or perhaps your study. If you let this symptom beat you, you’ll be frustrated which trigger your behavior to respond any condition you face. As a result, perhaps you will be alienated by your beloved family, friends and acquaintances just because they feel inconvenient  being around you. And believe me, it will only suck all that you have and leave you alone in your frustration and solitude.
Since, I am not a typical loner person, I don’t want to lose people who will spend more time with me in the future. Thus, since the very first time I always tell myself that it will not always be lobster in my plate. Sometimes, it will be shrimp, fish, beef or perhaps salad and rice only. When I got lobster for dinner I will be thankful not to have an allergy on seafood, and I need to realize that tomorrow morning I might get shrimp or salad for breakfast. By realizing this, it will make me less disappointed when I really get a salad and I will be more thankful if I get beef or even lobster again in the next day. The ritual of realizing everything might be different from day to day is something that I always keep in mind. Thus, I didn’t find a significant dramatic shock if I lose something or I get something less than what I got before.
Planning What I am going to do back home