Throughout my transfer experience, the one question I would constantly be asked is 'Where Are You From?' of course when I would say my answer there would be a scatter of 'Wait Where?' or 'Oh so you're from here?'. At first, I didn't mind explaining where I grew up to most people, but after a while, i'm not gonna lie it started to get annoying.

As much as I love the city & everything that it offers, I'll never forget the place where I learned how to ride a bike, play soccer, and growing up with all o my neighbors. I know to some that live downstate, anything that is above the city or Long Island is considered 'upstate'. If that isn't something that we who live above the city find annoying I don't know what else is. I know some parts of New York State have small towns where there really isn't much for young people or people in general to have much to do, but seriously we're not all the same.

It was less than almost two years ago is when I heard the word for the first time. The term 'townie'. If you're talking geographic wise, Guilderland and Albany are two completely different places.

At first, I laughed at the word because I assumed that it was just something that all students use. Then I started to grow sick of it. My good friend and I were discussing our annoyance just because the way the word is used almost makes some of us who lives near or a few minutes away from the area seem unimportant. It's only annoying because it boxes in every 'local' in the same category. But newsflash...WE GET IT!!! We know we don't get the same advantages that alot of downstaters get. We don't have a beach 15 minutes from our house, nor do we have the worlds greatest bars or clubs. WE KNOW THIS ALREADY!!

Just because we're 'locals' doesn't mean that we don't wish that we were somewhere else. There are many pros and cons of being from where we're from, but don't continue to underestimate us just because we're not LI residents or from any of the 5 boroughs. We're not all rednecks or weird hippies...we're PEOPLE TOO! So next time you wanna ask someone where they're from, just ask and move on with your day. NYC may be a fun place to be, but wake up it's not the ONLY place in the whole state. Imagine coming to your neck of the woods and addressing you as a townie? We're people just like you, get over it.