Why?

Growing up my life at home was not very aware and open to culture. Let me rephrase that. Growing up, my father was not very aware and open to diverse culture. To be quite honest, this is what tore my family apart. My senior year in high school, the day getting back from a cruise I went on with my friend, I was greeted by my four older sisters at the airport. Confused because my best friend and I had a car waiting for us, I questioned their motive. That day I received an e-mail from my father disowning all five of us and my mother. He could not tolerate the way we chose to be, the things we thought, the way we dressed, who we loved, who our friends were, what we surrounded our selfs with, what area of town we drove through, our beliefs, our rituals, and our personalities. The truth, my father was scared of culture. And my family was extremely culturally diverse.

Being the youngest of 5 girls, my closest sister in age was still 7 years older than me and my eldest sister was 17 years... so there was a pretty big gap in ages. My family was very culturally diverse. Dating among different ethnicities and same sex, who we hung out with, where we went and what we did, my sisters and I have all remained very, very different with an extremely tight bond. I was honored to experience everything from an observers point of view up until I threw myself out there to experiment. I saw my fathers opinion, my mothers and sisters opposing opinion and myself residing with them. I was fascinated with culture and diversity and, of course, I still am. I have always been friends with other cultures....Even though almost every person would not give another culture the time of day in Nebraska. It thrilled me to engage, even when our form of communication started out with symbols and pointing. I have always enjoyed studying (whether it be school, self taught or just by engaging with people) cultures. I enrolled to a World Religions class. Loved it. Learned a lot. The University I transfered from did not offer a lot of interesting classes that discussed or even danced around culture. This really frustrated me and was happy I finally decided to transfer here. I was considering majoring in Cultural Studies when I transferred but, some where along the line couldn't let myself drop violin or writing.

Culture is life. There is no way to escape it unless you hide yourself from the world or end your life. It is the trends, patterns and rituals that we induce. There are many different cultures in the world. As the world ages, people are starting to become more acceptable of them. My father, after spending 36 years in his family, still could not agree with our acceptance of culture. Apparently he just needed a two year break from us yet still cringes at certain aspects of our cultures. At least he is trying, I just wish more people would. Studying cultures interests me. People interest me. I'm an observer. I'm a writer. Studying people and writing about their culture interests me.