People

It’s really amazingly sad how little prolonged contact I have had with people who have been through real problems. I thought that going to UNC would give me the opportunity to befriend people who grew up differently. That didn't really happen. Everyone was rigidly defined based on thinly disguised socio-economic categories. Out-of-State. In-State. Morehead. Robertson. Honors Program. I ended up surrounded with people who confirmed my conceptions of upper middle class life and problems and taught me precious little about the reality that the rest of America experiences.

University of Minnesota is a state school the way I imagined state schools would be. Several people on this trip are the first ones of their families to go to college. One girl is a Mong refugee who was drugged with opium as a baby so her family could flee the country. Another girl lived with her proselytizing missionary parents in Mexico for several years and was brainwashed by home schooling until 3^rd grade to believe only religious dogma. Others lived in trailer parks, have parents on welfare, mental illnesses, other vibrant terrible things that helped shape who they are. Hearing their stories literally blows my mind. I need resist the urge to glorify what they’ve seen and done. It probably was not glorious for them.