Union College is located about 25 minutes from the house that I grew up in and 15 minutes from the high school that I went to. When I came to Union my radius of experience outside of my hometown only grew by a few miles, while to many students Union is their home away from home. My entire life I have been confined to this small section of Upstate New York and have only traveled out of its limits on infrequent occasions so I am most excited to get out of here an immerse myself in a new culture. One of my biggest, yet least explored passion is that for travelling to places where I can experience living situations not as ideal as my own. Through this I want to gain awareness for the destituteness that plagues populations everywhere, but from which I have been shielded because my perspective has never been relocated. With this awareness I feel that I will no longer take for granted all of the luxuries that I dismiss as common amenities that people go without on a daily basis. This humanitarian excursion is the first step I will be taking towards exploring my passion and my first dabble with globalizing my perspective and the community to which I am serving.
One thing that I am particularly anxious about is actually getting to leave behind my ignorance about the actual condition of New Orleans. Because it has been hard to untangle the truth from the media about the present state of Louisiana, I think that I will not truly understand the extent to which all of these catastrophes have devastated not only the land but the social and economic constructs of New Orleans until I am living in it, which is an argument bolstered by W.E.B Dubois who implied that the only way to truly learn about and know a culture is to live in it.
I am also particularly excited about our night out on Frenchman Street listening to real New Orleans Jazz. Even though I am not a huge jazz fan, it is definitely a style of music I can appreciate especially in a place where it is such an embodiment of the culture!