Inevitably, after only 20 minutes of driving, the suitcase that was stuffed at the top of the middle of the back seat would fall on me. I never understood why we had to pack so much for only a week or two. It did not matter how far away we were driving from Houston - San Antonio, Texarkana, Phoenix, Savannah, Kennebunkport - the golf bags took up most of the space in the trunk, so the middle seat was always filled, forming a canvas wall that had illusions of Incan grandeur.
"Don't worry about it," my mom would say from the spacious front seat, "You're little. You've got more than enough space back there." Thanks, mom. She was right, though. As soon as we were on the road, she'd hand me a coloring book and some crayons and I would quietly entertain myself for what seemed like much too much time.
It was mostly in this fashion that I have visited 40 of the 48 continental states (not to mention 36 of the states' capitol buildings - my family has a strange fascination with them).
QUICK!!! Fast-forward to now!
The broken record from friends who are thinking about going abroad: "I just don't know, Neil ... I mean, I, like, feel like I just haven't seen the world. I just don't, like, understand the way it works. So I'm going to go to London for the year. I just can't stand the way people in this country think! They're so backwards!"
As the little Yiddish man sitting in the corner of the 2nd Avenue Deli snacking on a pickle with one boney finger raised says, "Achaaaaaah!" (Don't forget to pronounce the -ch like you're hacking up a loogie.) Here is the point and the problem. You think you don't understand the world? And you think that a year in London will help? Let me tell you something: you ain't gonna discover it there (much less anywhere else you go to study abroad).
(But I keep all of this to myself. Nod and smile. Nod and smile.)
"No, Neil ... It's like this ... I, like, just don't know who I am. I need to find myself ..."
That's fair to a certain extent. You want to find yourself. I need to find myself - don't use that expression. You should know where you are. At least be honest to yourself, what you want to do is figure out where you want to be and who you want to be. That's a more fair course for self-questioning.
"So you think you'll find yourself in London?" I ask.
"Yes!" You exclaim enthusiastically.
Let me tell you something, 40 percent of our campus goes abroad. Why? Sure, we could point to the University and its encouragement of study abroad programs. We could also point to people's interest in a greater chance at self-discovery. It is here that we are misleading ourselves. You want to know who you are? The wrong place to go looking is in another country, in another culture and in another language. That is not the first step - that is the second step.
The first is knowing where you come from. How many students on this campus were born and reared in a northeastern state? I would assume a majority. And of that majority, how many go abroad with the goal of self-discovery as one of their main motivations? Again, I would assume a majority. Finally, of that majority, how many have spent a good deal of time traveling around the United States, the place under whose passport seal they travel so freely to other nations? Yup! You are correct! You've won the brand new Ford Windstar! A majority.
I feel like I have a good grasp on what this country is about. I understand the types of people that exist in the different regions of the United States, not because I have given in to stereotypes, but because I have eaten in their restaurants, chatted with them over fajitas, corn fritters, crab cakes and fresh caught Pacific salmon. I have walked around their towns, felt the different climates, and noticed the different architecture. I have seen Old Faithful, walked on the beach in Orange County, gotten blackjack in Vegas, danced in a honkey-tonk in Nashville, fished off the coast of Miami, and spent 20 minutes looking at Monet's Waterlillies at the MOMA. This same sort of thing is what people do when they go to Europe or New Zealand for a semester. Why not try it in your own country first?
You want to understand the world? Fine. But don't be too eager. Start with your country. This nation is not just made up of people from West Orange, New Jersey or that mysterious void that everyone just calls Outside Philly. If you travel around a bit, you might start to feel more comfortable with the rest of the nation, and you might understand that it is not necessarily the Northeast versus everyone else. You might start to understand where you fit in the United States. Once you understand where you stand as a citizen of the United States, then go and try to understand where you stand as a citizen of the world.
Neil Hirsch is a senior majoring in art history and classics.
