Observations about Midd Kids

I have a lot I could say about my classmates. I've really enjoyed being surrounded by language nerds and study abroad addicts this year. We may be mostly girls and largely American, but we're still a pretty diverse group. I've made some great friends this year and will be sad when we all go our separate ways in May.

There are two observations about the Midd kids that I've been reflecting on this week that I wanted to comment on (especially since I have no trips to talk about for awhile).

1) Just because I think differently than you does not mean I can't be friends with you. This group of kids is, in general, vastly more religious than any other group of classmates I've ever had. (I mean, Brown, hello!?!) There are plenty of atheists thrown in here, too, but I've just never been surrounded by so many people who put "Jesus is my everything" in their Facebook profiles. I was worried I wouldn't relate to many of my classmates, but I've found that we actually have a lot of common ground. You'd think this would be obvious to me considering some members of my family and a particular member of my future family, but what can I say? I'm a work in progress.

2) Speaking of being surrounded by new types of people, I have also never been surrounded by so much xenophobia and racism, unfortunately. This is not to say that everyone's walking around dropping the N-bomb left and right. Hardly. But it's not uncommon to hear things like, "Oh, a female American reporter got sexually assaulted by an Egyptian mob during the revolution? Well, you know Arabs in general are very aggressive people." Or how about, "You know how Asians are really into necrophilia? They really like their porn to involve bodily excrement." (Yes, I realize there's more than one issue with this sentence, but let's stick to the racist part.) As much as the discourse throughout my education has always been about being open-minded and not judging others based on race, I've also always been surrounded by people who are on board with this concept. I've never had to confront anyone about saying these sorts of things. I don't feel adequately prepared to respond to these sorts of comments.

I'd like to reiterate that not everyone in the program fits these profiles and that, on the whole, this is a pretty great bunch. Also, I'd like to add that Observation 1 does not necessarily correlate with Observation 2. Plenty of these comments have come from people who are not church-goers and who self-identify as liberal. (Once again, the importance of not stereotyping!) It's just that I've realized that I'm being exposed to new things not only out on the streets of Madrid, but also just hanging out with other Americans. And it's provided me food for thought.