I am frustrated with America... don't get me wrong, America is a great country and people have a right to take pride in being an American... but I am non the less frustrated. Let me explain.
America is the only country that does all of their weights, measurements, and temperature different. We are the only one that uses Fahrenheit instead of Celsius, we use pounds instead of kilo's, we use miles instead of kilometers and so on. It's all different. There is nothing wrong about it when you're living America, you probably wouldn't even think twice about it, I know I never did. Then I went overseas to Switzerland for 6 months... all you really have to do is jump up to Canada if you want to experience it, anyway, and I realized that EVERYTHING is different and that unless you remember every little thing from school and are prepared to do math every time you look at the temp or calculate kilometers... you really don't know what people are talking about. You can't understand fully what people mean because, though you may have been taught it, it was never enforced or were made to use it, therefore it is mostlyd forgotten.
At first I just thought I was dumb and should have paid more attention in school. Then I realized that all the other Americans who were with me didn't really know what everybody was talking about either. We did get used to it after awhile. I moved back to America and I felt smart again because I knew exactly what everybody was talking about. Now I've moved to South Korea and feel dumb all over again... why does America have to be the one and only country that is different? At first I felt stupid again and then realized that my husband, who is way smarter then I am, had to do a little math every time someone mentioned something to him because it's not what we're used to.
Another thing that just frustrates me about America is the American media. In America we only hear things that are going on in the world if and only IF they effect America or if America is doing something "good" to help a "unfortunate" country. Things could be HUGE news, things that effect the whole world, but if it doesn't effect America directly then we don't hear about. Let me give you an example. When I was living in Europe for 6 months I was supposed to head to France for three weeks to do some missions work. Right before I was supposed to go to France there was a huge outbreak from the Muslims living there and they had started to burn cars in the streets and cause riots and breaking into places... it was like a mini war, this lasted for a few weeks. Big news right? Yeah, so I called my parents to reassure them that I would be fine... guess what, they didn't hear a word about it. Even after it had been going on for weeks, my parents were in the dark and they watch the news every night. So here I am again living overseas and some of the teachers here at the school are talking about things that happened a few months ago or even a year ago and though all the teachers are from different parts of the world they all know about it, except Josh and I. We're the Americans who only get American news so therefore we don't know what is happening in the world.
Ok, so while I'm at it I have to say that I'm a little amazed at the American school system as well. One of our friends, Nate (yep that's you!) mentioned that one in like 5 Americans can't point to the USA on a map... crazy! Then I realized that we are at war with Afghanistan and have been for quite a few years now and most Americans don't even know where the country is! I'm not saying I'm super smart or anything, but I at least know where my own country is and where countries that we are at war with are located.
So alas, I am still an American, yes, I am still proud that I am one, I have just become to realize over the past few years the flaws that our country has... so don't get mad at me:)
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