B.C. & A.C. - Not Just Another Set of Acronyms

The P.C. (Peace Corps) is known for its acronyms, being everywhere, confusing new P.C.V.'s during P.S.T.'s like crazy. Can you even follow all of that? I bet you can't unless you were in the P.C. It's our own little language shared by people that have worked "The hardest job you will ever love." Similar to how there is eduspeak, doctor talk, and film lingo. I'm sure they don't describe it as such, but I only know eduspeak and so can't possibly tell of the others with knowledge or suaveness of any kind except to say that this winter I had a 'hematoma' and was introduced to film and script words via the cool boy I've spent the last few months with. (And so no one feels like an outsider any longer, P.C.V. means Peace Corps Volunteer and P.S.T. means Preservice Training. And by the way, I am now an R.P.C.V. - Returned, yes, you guessed it, Peace Corps Volunteer.)

Even I am now getting lost in all of the acronyms and various speaks... Focus, girl, focus.

Since coming back from China, now a full eight and a half months (how the heck...!?), I've been in B.C. mode - Before China. (Sad to say, I think I'm the only one currently using this acronym with this specific meaning, so if anyone wants to adopt and use it, I'd lovingly share.) The B.C. is used in conversations such as: "Let's go rollerblading! Wow, I haven't done that since Before China!" That might seem like a silly example, but I've used it for the most mundane of things to the most extravagant, first times being everything from eating a Boca burger, to concert going, to seeing snow fall, and the best, holding hands. Everything was "I haven't done/seen/smelled/eaten/drank/experienced... since before China." I remember my brother at one point looking at me, just weeks after getting home, him seemingly thinking, "Yes, yes. Get on with it." I would have thought it would dwindle in time, go away, all of those second time around new experiences since coming back, but they haven't. I still find myself using the familiar line time and time again. But I've realized, regardless of how annoying that might seem to others, that I am appreciating my surroundings and experiences on a daily basis. Seeing things, life, in such a light has brought about a kind of constant renewal that seems to give me a calmingly content feel, at least on the inside.

There is also A.C. - After China - but I don't use that nearly as much. And so my life has become divided by my former life abroad, leaving me missing things, sometimes subtly, other times coming out of nowhere. I've missed my host family, friends, and students like mad since leaving them. That goes without saying. But other things will make themselves known to me like a tease, and I'm suddenly left missing unattainable things. I crave food out of nowhere, shaokao being drooled over time and time again. The first few times I saw pomegranates in a store sent me down memory lane faster than a Porsche 1600. And my whole body relaxes then tenses as if frustrated at the thought of my once three dollar weekly massages that I can no longer enjoy.

Now suddenly A.C. has another meaning - After Clark. Life, love, and such has thrown me back into singledom and now I'm stuck with this new flip side. Darn that second totally unfun meaning of A.C.! (Oh, wait. That first meaning wasn't all that fun either... Huh.)

And so there is this bittersweet, love/hate relationship with my acronyms. But I wouldn't have it any other way.