Here There Where

Edina is one of those schools that harbors hoards of foreign exchange students from Russia to Mexico. After a ridiculously arduous application process, these students are thrust into schools where don't know anybody or anything.

Recently, I have developed close friendships with many of these foreign exchange students. As a newcomer to Edina myself, I feel a connection to these students and feel obliged to make an extra effort to make them feel more welcomed.

A close friend of mine from Mexico has recently been revealing to me, the exciting life that she leads as a 17 year old in Mexico City. Just like my hometown of LA, life in Mexico seems to be filled with nightclubs, socialites, and fashion. I was instantly able to relate to their sleepless lifestyles.

But after two years in Edina, I watched as my lust and need for weekly parties and club outings diminished, until the only thing I wanted to do was to enjoy quiet weekends at home with family, or with friends. Strange how one's environment influences you.

Then I went back to LA this summer and was shocked at my instinctal need to withdraw from all the craziness and quickness of city life. There was so much pollution, poverty, homelessness, and too much PEOPLE. It was a man-eat-man world. I never realized any of these when I lived there but after stepping back, then returning, it came as a huge shock.

Yet living in quiet Edina has its cons as well. Unlike most cities, where nearly everyone are very liberal and open-minded, people in Edina who have lived very protected lives and have not been exposed to the realities of the world, are mostly conservative and are close-minded.

Woe, I'll take a leave from school to go search for Utopia.

~H