A New Perspective

Like any other student entering high school for the first time, I woke up on my first day as a freshman with butterflies in my stomach. I was worried about classes, teachers, and, most of all, about making friends. Little did I know that I would meet a friend on the first day that would greatly impact my world view.

I remember arriving to homeroom bright and early at 7:00. It seemed that everyone knew each other and already had someone to talk to. I was rather shy, so I felt uncomfortable joining in an already-started conversation. Instead, I looked for someone who seemed to be quiet, like myself. I happened upon a girl who was sitting at a table alone and doodling absentmindedly on a piece of notebook paper. I approached and sat down, introducing myself soon after. She introduced herself as "Amalia," and I could immediately tell from her accent that she was not from Las Vegas, or even the United States. I asked where she was from, and she explained that she was an exchange student from Germany. This amazed me, as it was my first experience with meeting someone my age that was from another country. I was completely intrigued, and asked her so many questions. I cannot remember exactly what I asked her or how she answered, but I do remember the impact of meeting someone who came from somewhere completely different than what I was used to. Indeed, when my parents asked me if I had made any friends that day, I enthusiastically told them all about Amalia and Germany.

As I said, this was my first encounter with a young student from another country. I had always realized that people lived across the globe, but I had never really stopped to ponder that people actually lived other places. I mean, foreign countries always appeared to me as outlines of land with a name printed across it, as seen on a map. I never thought about how people live there and carry out their lives in the same manner that we do here. Talking with Amalia and learning about her culture completely opened my eyes to the fact that the world is a big place- with different people living in different places and engaging in different activities. This creates so many different perspectives and different world views. This epiphany, of sorts, greatly influenced me and made me interested in other cultures and traveling. I love living here, but I think that it is so interesting to learn about the way other people live. And, thanks to Amalia, I realized that it is important to learn about the people that live in other countries because it makes you realize that they are actually people living there, and not just numbers in a population map. It is important to know this, as it keeps perspective on humanity. In all, Amalia taught me much about both myself and the way that I believe the world should be viewed.