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You CanT Spell Character Essay

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You Can't Spell Character without R-E-A-C-T There he was, seven months into an eleven-month mission trip eating a warm bowl of noodles with a crimson broth that he ordered by pointing to the picture with the Thai script. It was only until after consuming the dish that he was told the broth was made of pig’s blood ("11 Questions"). My brother Jonathan, the person who grew up memorizing The Lord of the Rings films, writing intricate plays, and finding his only real outdoors time at Disneyland on family trips every other year, was the last person I would think would travel to twelve different countries in eleven months. Jonathan nonetheless, felt a spiritual calling that pushed him gave up his fast-pace comfortable New York City life to …show more content…

The Oxford English Dictionary describes discomfort as “absence or deprivation of happiness or consolation” to which Jonathan felt that exact discomfort for the introduction to his eleven-month mission trip.
Falling into culture shock was expected, he however did not expect the severity of it. Mandi Schmitt describes culture shock as entering a new area where “cultural subtleties” that were viewed as normal are now absent or changed thus leading to an uncomfortable feeling of disorientation ("Honest Thoughts"). He went from New York City, the peak of modern civilization, to the Costa Rican mountains, a peak with some civilization. He went from being woken up at four in the morning to a sputtering car, to waking up at four in the morning to a rooster crow. Culture shock can take several forms, for Jonathan specifically it took a form of overwhelming regret. Just two days in his eleven-month trip, he was saying to himself “What did I get myself into?” ("Honest Thoughts").
Finally finding his rhythm in his new lifestyle through the companionship with his teammates and his own spiritual revelations, Jonathan began to absorb the incredible experiences for what they were. Looking back on the photos of his first month, he remembers how remarkable the scenery of Costa Rica is. He writes in his blog “How beautiful it is to know that the world is far richer, sweeter, wilder, stranger, and more wonderful than anything I can capture in one short moment” ("In

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