I want to update but I don't at the same time.
I feel like there is so much to say.
Things are looking up, they really are. I'm working harder in school and doing homework and studying and I hope so much that it pays off. Mom and I talked about going to Europe next Summer, I think it is.
I asked if we could go to Germany and Poland. She told me how we would have to take a train through Russia/the old Soviet Union, and she said it was a bad area-
but I'd imagine that, an area as characteristicly 'bad' or even good...has to be cultured. I love State College- I do. It's a good town, but i NEED culture. ... I would love to go to Europe like a sponge and just soak in its culture, its mindset, its way of life.
Matt and I were looking at my mom's big book of timeshares around the world that we can stay in, and I noticed that there are one or two in Egypt.
Matt says, "You know- they don't speak English there. You'd need someone to help you, it's not a tourist attraction sort of place"
and that's EXACTLY IT! I want to be absorbed into Egypt's thousand year old culture, I want to understand their customs and beliefs and religions deeper than what a World History book can show me. I find Egypt fascinating. I always, always have... when I saw that we had a timeshare there, I almost cried. I would wrap myself in whatever clothing the women wore, I would try and become one with the people- to understand them and their culture.
Mom told me that if I go to Penn State, I could study abroad in the Summers.-
I,
just
feel like
there is so much out there
!
like I'm not always going to be in state college doing precalc homework
like someday I can be in Europe, or Turkey- EGYPT. someplace mysterious and interesting, someplace far from home where I would just sit and watch and understand.
I'm so jealous of Jen. She might be going to Europe next year, which will just be wonderful. Experiencing any new culture is absolutely wonderful.
I said to Matt, "I want to go to Iraq- I want to go to Afghanistan. They amaze me. Not sometime soon but later..."
and he told me that they'll always fight and that it will never be safe for me to go there.
That upsets me so much. A culture so different from mine, and our culture, so different from theirs- don't they want to know about us?
Well. Probably not.
But those who want to understand and learn about another's culture and beliefs to understand INSTEAD of judge- to appreciate instead of ignorantly discriminate- are denied those opportunities because of the useless hate and death in those countries. So discrimination and hate will always exist if we don't UNDERSTAND each other... that's what I want, so badly. I want to see what it's like to be those people. I want to go to Africa and walk through a market and hear the dialects and see the colorful things they barter.
I want to go to France and eat an eclair- and talk to a crazy French man!
I want to go to China and feel the undermining compassion and dignity of an age-old culture.
My mind opens wide for those of which I have not learned.

0 comments so far