Worldview

I have lived in two different states, and they were both very different. Growing up in New England I lived in a small town that focused on community more then anything else. We would all gather for the town Turkey Raffle every November, and come December the town would get together again for the Christmas Pageant that almost every little kid begged to be in. We didn't have a lot of diversity however, and when I moved that part of my life didn't really change. Living in Great Falls is not the most diverse experience. Langley High School was not known for having a vast variety of ethnicity's. It was mostly white and Asian kids, and outside of that you could practically count how many different ethnicity's there were on one hand. I wasn't really exposed to a different way of life until I went to live with my Russian exchange students family, and that was truly an eye opener. Everything was different. I wouldn't take that experience back for anything though, because it opened me up to so many different possibilities. In Russian the pitch drops at the end instead of going up and down like it does in English. No matter what the Russians say I always thought they were mad, while the up and down pitch that we use is an indication of sarcasm for the Russians. Everything can be misinterpreted just because of how we speak, and that example was what drove me to take a second and step back, wondering if I was reacting because it was actually meant to be offensive, or because my upbringing makes me assume it should be.