I have now officially survived my first semester of college, and most of the things I have been left to think about and mull over have nothing to do with school work or the classroom. One of the aspects that had me most excited about attending college was the fact that my three roommates and I essentially made up the four corners of the United States: Georgia, New Jersey, Washington and California. I was ecstatic to have the opportunity to learn about the ways of life of different areas of the country and to hear all our accents converge. In the past four months, I have learned that I have the strongest accent, this country is very, very weird with an intensely wide scope of lifestyles and beliefs and not everyone believes that Georgia is definitively the greatest state in the Union (though it is). Though I realize I am essentially reaffirming every stereotype there is about the South by writing this, I am okay with that. Here are the things that I’ve been forced to do a lot of thinking about as a Southerner out of my element. I think you’ll laugh, I know you’ll probably scoff, and I sincerely hope you learn:
Idioms/Colloquialisms:
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“Make a plate,” “Had a cow,” “More than one way to skin a cat,” “As the day is long,” etc… These are just a few things I’ve said over the past few months that took my roommates aback. Some were met with horrified gasps, and others were met with sighs and utterances of “That’s so poetic. I wish we talked like that!” I’ll let you guess which phrases garnered which responses.
Boiled peanuts:
A true delicacy in the South and the state food of South Carolina, I wish my time explaining boiled peanuts was because I was convincing my friends to try them and not just because they could not understand what I was saying. Apparently, with my accent it sounds an awful lot like “Bold peanuts.” When my roommate asked, “What about meek peanuts?” and I automatically responded with “Those get to inherit the Earth,” I knew this conversation had spiraled way too far.
Having never seen a desert:
I blame this one entirely on my Californian roommate, but supposedly it’s a big deal to have never seen a desert. I’ve seen Star Wars plenty. I feel as though I’ve had my fill of desert through that.
Patriotism:
There is a very large faction of citizens of this country who do NOT believe that the United States is the greatest country in the world. This is deeply saddening to me. The United States may not be perfect, but it’s definitely the best. If you don’t love it, change it yourself or leave. As I’m typing this, my roommate is appalled. See, there are lots of different opinions out there.
High school:
The variances in the high school experiences of my roommates and I are insane to contemplate. Football is not the main sport everywhere (apparently volleyball is big on the West Coast), some people did not genuinely love everyone in their graduating class, the parties were not all held in fields, and the traditions we all enjoyed could not be more different. It is so weird to think about how something I held so dear was entirely different for someone in another state.
Water:
The California drought is a very real thing, and not just a plot device from A Cinderella Story. I learned this from my roommate who is very passionate about my leaving the water on while I brush my teeth. She is also very taken aback when waiters hover to refill water glasses as soon as they dip below half full. When there’s precipitation, she’s flabbergasted but also very excited. It’s entertaining, but definitely very weird. She also didn’t know sleet was different from rain. I’m starting to wonder if California is a real place.
Knowing about other states:
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I don’t know if this is so much a southern thing as a me thing, but apparently knowing key details and politicians from states other than your own is not commonplace out west. I spent a few weeks grooming my roommates to understand who was who in my immense repertoire of Southern personalities.
Guns:
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I have a roommate who has never seen a gun. This is real life. Opinions on gun laws run the gamut in our dorm room, and we tend to have long discussions explaining our points of view. It’s interesting and enlightening to have people on the opposite end of the spectrum with whom you can discuss such hot-button issues.
Churches:
Apparently, not everywhere has a Baptist, Methodist and Pentecostal church on every block. In fact, some people don’t know the key differences in the theologies of these denominations. I’ve had to explain what “Pentecostal” means quite a few times in the past few months. Also, people going to church to be social and be seen is not as prominent outside of the South, and church sizes are very different according to my friends.
The Civil War:
The amount of times my roommate and I have tried to explain that the Civil War *ahem* the War of Northern Aggression was not entirely about slavery but in fact more so about states’ rights is astronomical. We even got a friend from New Jersey to apologize on behalf of the North. No one abhors the institution of slavery more than I do, but to grossly and erroneously generalize a major armed conflict is to do a major disservice to its memory and to invite more struggles in the name of its cause in the future. States’ rights are still a prominent issue, and that issue cannot be ignored forever. I’ve also been called a paradox for citing Abraham Lincoln as my favorite president. I prefer the term “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”
Gone With the Wind:
There are people who have not only not seen this film, but don’t recognize key quotes from it. I’m heartbroken.
Clothing:
My roommate and I got into a genuine argument over whether an article of clothing was a dress or a shirt. What we learned from this experience was a California dress is a Georgia shirt and vice versa. The definition of what is acceptable clothing on each of the coasts could not be more different.
These are just a few of the things that I’ve been forced to contemplate as a Southerner out of my element. Many are humorous and ridiculous, but they all speak to a larger sense of division which is pervading our nation. Until we learn to understand and accept each other, we’ll never be truly united. I hope that I am learning to be a better individual and citizen because of my exposure to different lifestyles and ways of thinking.
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