Memoir

HOW CULTURE CHANGED MY LIFE

“Monsieur Brown, France, prendre la parole” the professor said in a booming voice.  So I stood up in front of the four hundred people in the conference and proceeded to the podium.  The thought of the Rwandan genocide and the fresh realization that this conference may not end peacefully quickly came into focus.  Here I am, a representative of a super power in Europe with many countries, including Belgium, looking up to me as my hands grasp the brass rails heading to the stage.  I reached the podium, and began my speech.  I talk about statistical data suggesting how much life is being lost in Rwanda, I talk about Hutus, Tutsis, and the need for Europeans to help

the men, women, and children that are being slaughtered.  I say that it is our responsibility, as the provocateur of the problems in Rwanda to fix what we have wronged.  Words flowed through my mouth as I stood on the stage in my suit, a European Union flag hanging behind me.

            Since a young age, I have always been keen to European culture.  Rather it was languages, customs, rituals, food or even television shows I was in tune and interested in them.   I remember my grandfather always telling me about his amazing trips around the world.  He always told me to take opportunity as soon as I get the chance, and to me that translated into many things.  One such thing is to travel as much as I can and see the world through others eyes by exploring their cultures, ways of life, living through their hardships, and making new friends.  He told me of his many trips to China, and how vastly different it is from America.  I used to sit and imagine these fantastic scenes in my mind while he told me his stories, and at those moments I knew I wanted to be able to have my own stories of adventure someday.  I just was not sure how to accomplish the task, especially since traveling today can cost so much money.  However, my grandfather had a tip for me; get a job in a field that requires travel.  He was head of engineering at PPG since the early nineteen seventies, and having a job like that required extensive travel to see where the company could build new industry and production plants.  From Europe to Australia and everywhere in between, he had the opportunity to see it all.

            In my freshman year of high school I decided to take French.  Everyone else in my grade wanted to take Spanish, but I never really liked Spanish culture as much as the French and I also herd that during your senior year, if you took French four or above, you had the opportunity to go to France; a dream come true.  When summer ended, and the first day of school came around, I was more excited about French that any other subject.  I knew the teacher came from Marseilles, a coastal city in southern France, and I thought to myself “What could be better than learning French from an actual French person?”  And for once in my life, I could not have been more right.  I loved the class, and I gained a huge love for the language.  Monsieur Robberts was one of my favorite teachers in high school, and I believe I quickly started to become one of his favorite students through participation, asking him about his experiences, and showing that I was not a typical American student who did not realize America does not run the world.  And when I joined French Club, he was overjoyed.

            Joining French Club was one of the best decisions I made in my whole life.  I was surrounded by people with an interest in the culture, language, and customs of France, just like me.  And seeing all of the officers of the club and how accepting they were of other cultures made me feel a sense of belonging that I was missing in high school.  We did all sorts of activities, from watching French movies to eating at French restaurants, it was some of the most fun I have ever had.  It introduced me to different French music, educated me about the different parts of France and how vastly different they can be, and got me to eat my first snail.  My father originally viewed it as me pretending to speak French, and was amused by it.  I remember talking about it and he never was really that interested unless it was about a test grade.  Now that I reflect on it, I just think it is because we are somewhat different people.  He is the greatest father anyone could ask for, and we have a lot of similarities, but we also differ in many ways; he would excel in sports when I excelled in language, and he was interested in baseball while I loved foreign cultures for example.  This all changed when we went on a family vacation to Disney World my sophomore year and I held a fifteen minute conversation with the waiter in a French restaurant.  After that, he took me a little more seriously.

            During my sophomore year, I was elected as treasurer of the French club.  I was incredibly happy, even though it was somewhat of an unused role, because it made me feel like I was more involved.  Not only did I join French club, but I also joined Model United Nations.  Model United Nations is a sort of mock trial that schools from all over the greater Pittsburgh aria participated in.  Six students would represent each country, a total of one hundred and ninety two countries, and we would debate real world events from economic recessions to war declarations.  I loved every moment of it.  Seeing people who actually cared about international affairs and saw that there is more in the world than America made me realize that I was not a complete weirdo for liking and caring about international crises. Some people knew so much more than me and it intimidated me.  They could tell you anything about the topics we were discussing, and it is probably because they religiously researched the topics before the trials.  These people also helped me to learn, however.  Sitting in on the meetings, and feverishly trying to take notes on what they were saying and how to counter their point almost forced me to learn the material, and by the end of the debate, I would almost always come out more enlightened than when I first went in.

            It was not solely model EU and UN that made me realize what I wanted to do with my life.  Model UN and EU from my junior year, and the required political science class I had to take my senior year; intro to American politics, that really made me realize my potent possibility.  Before my political science class, I was somewhat uninvolved in politics because I never fully understood them, and believed that my life was going to be the same no matter what some people in Washington said.  But, as many people in their fields of study will tell you, I had this one amazing teacher that really made the gears of my mind turn and helped me to manipulate them into a configuration that I wanted.  Mr. Leri was one of those teachers that wants you to learn the material, and is in it for us, the students.  He would spend time after school to help you, he would talk to you and see if there was a problem when he saw your grade slipping and he would do anything in his power to teach you about this country.  I could tell that he had a goal to educate all of us so that we could become productive American citizens.  In short, he is exactly what every teacher should be.  He actually introduced me into what politics really are; opinions, beliefs, ideas, solutions and much more.  He sold me on politics, and I changed my major at Clarion to Political Science.

            Giving speeches at model UN and EU like in my first paragraph not only let me see what a particular career path is like, but also gave me confidence.  In many instances, we had foreign students from many of the countries we represented and they were really impressed by how much we knew about their country.  At my high school I was also a part of the foreign exchange program.  Although I never got to travel abroad through the program (even though they promised I would be able to) I had the amazing experience of hosting foreign students and showing them what America is like.  In total, I hosted two Italian students from Rome, and a Hungarian student from Makó.  I was able to experience their culture while they were experiencing mine, and it was one of the best experiences of my life.

            In conclusion, all of my experiences with other cultures and exposure to different ideas has made me more tactful than I ever thought possible and a much more worldly person.  The fact that I now want to be an attaché (also known as a Foreign Service Officer in the US) is proof that a single year in a person’s life can change it forever.  When inspirational teachers and experiences mesh together in a student’s life, it gives them a chance to change who they are and mold themselves into who they want to be.  When you are a student, you are just beginning to form your life, and I am so very happy that I have found what I believe to be my calling.