Bienvenidos

Pictures, from the top: Evan and me, two of my best friends Meaghan and Sarah, and my sorority formal Spring 06.

So as my first post for my new blog I'd say it's pretty mandatory to state why I'm doing this. I was finishing up the most recent post on Ten Pin Korea and thought how great it would be to have my own blog. I love updating Ten Pin and enjoy working on a project with my boyfriend Evan, but every now and then I have opinions on trivial matters and random thoughts that I'd always wanted to spill out to the world.

And so, Carolina Love came to be. Going to school in the South was one of the biggest turning points in my life for me. I became a NCAA All -American and was able to split my time reasonably between my college life and swimming life. I learned how to make and keep truly meaningful relationships with people. I found new interests in things such as community service and getting involved in school activities. I also expanded my mind about more frivolous matters such as becoming a Lilly lover (Lilly Pulitzer, classic prep wear) and professional sunbather.

Sometimes I look back at my life and am in wonder of how I ever would have gotten by without Wingate University. so it's small and a bit out of the way. I sometimes get made fun of that my school was a dry campus. So what? we still had fun and there were always off campus parties and get together and of course as rebellious college students we always snuck stuff onto campus. I find it hard to see where whether your school permits those of age to drink on campus freely determines the amount of enjoyment you get out of your college experience. I know people who went to huge state schools and don't have as many good QUALITY friends as I did and still do, nor did they get the same attention academically that I did. It's just a way of people who didn't enjoy college can gloat about how great their school is rather than their experience.

I will say as for my school being in the South, I at first fought this new strange culture of sweet tea and grits for the first semester at school. I was a Marylander, we love crabcakes and lacrosse and are ridiculously passionate about all things Maryland. Maybe because our state got jipped land wise, we feel we need to stand up for ourselves...I don't know. Anyway, come to find out, I made a lot of friends who played on the lacrosse team and after trying sweet tea once immediately decided this was my cafeteria drink of choice. Maybe I was scared of liking this different flow of life. Walking a bit slower, leaving the -g's off the end of certain words and calling people "y'all" felt so much more wonderfully more free than being at home trying to keep up with all the "cool kids" ha, and trends.

It seems that when you enter a culture that is different the first thing you do is balk at the new. However, I feel one only begins to feel at home in a different place when that place is completely comfortable with what it is, their beliefs, values and actions are all in sync. Essentially I think I'm saying how comfortable the culture is with itself.

Stay Beautiful