The Third Exchange

For those of you who might know me, you could probably skip this post and move onto something a little more interesting. As for everyone else, this might explain some of the erractic, irrational, strange, funny, and flabberghasting situations I manage to get myself into. And lord knows there are a lot of those.

I absolutely detested high school and my small town with every fiber of my ever being. I will not get into it, but I had planned my escape since practically the very first day of Kindergarten. That change kept at the ripe old age of 15, when I spent an entire year in Kochi, Japan. I returned home to American to graduate, but rather than heading off to college like all of my peers, I decided I was not exactly ready to go off to college. I went to France for a year instead, and traveling all around Europe with a few dollars, a reckless behavior, and an awesome host family.

In all, I have done some really stupid things in my life, but they have made me who I am, a stronger and more wise person. And when I returned from France, I decided that I would give it everything I had to fully reintegrate and be an American again. After all, I was headed to American-pride stronghold South Carolina, and I would do my best to fit in. It could not be that hard, could it?

Oh, yeah, it could be that hard.

Sure, I was born and raised and instilled with a Northern mentality, having grown up a whooping 20 minutes away from New York City, but America is America, is it not? It's all relative, same history, same language, same prejudice, same culture, same way of looking at the world around us, right?

Wrong.

I spent a year of my life chasing samurai and eating raw (possibly still living) Sushi, a year surrendering to laziness in France, eating baguettes and Creme Brulees. Surely a year in my own country, could not possibly be that different?

Haha.

And thus, not only will this blog be about the trials and tribulations of a college kid at Clemson, but also the trials, tribulations, and trials of a Northern world ambassador in a place called, The South. It is possibly my third exchange to a different country. Very possibly the most mind-boggling of all.