North v. South

HPU's student demographics is 80% out of state and that has become very apparent to me, North Carolina raised southern girl. Since starting school here there are multiple examples of how the North and South are different. Let me clarify by saying that this is not a bad or negative comparison but it has been more of a learning experience for me. Here are some stories of how I have learned how people form the same country have different cultures.

1. Is it really that weird that we have Chicken biscuit sandwiches? My friend,Shannon, was saying how weird we are to have chicken for breakfast and it kinda stopped me for a minute. Is the food we eat so different? My friend, J, said that the pizza and bagels up North cannot even compare to the pizza and bagels down South. I also learned that plain bagels on the street in NYC is 53 cents. Food can be a bonding factor but I have also learned that it can be a place of separation. A place that you can learn from others.

2. Since the start of my first semester I have made many friends and most of them are from the North. When we all were getting to know each other, I struggled a lot. Some of my friends, I am sure hated me. For example, my friend Bella was very blunt. I decided to ask some other friends if she hated me and they laughed and said " no that is how she is." Are people's personalities different from where we are? In the South I am very familiar to everyone being severely friendly and in the North people think you are crazy if you say hello to a stranger.

3. To go off of the personality topic, a group of us went to Hanging Rock and on the way back we saw a man struggling on the side of the road, holding his heart, and then finally collapsing. I immediately wanted to turn around and get out of my car, but my friends said that is was not safe. Even our thoughts are differnent. I was first concerned with the man and they were first concerned with safety.

We have to remember that regardless of where we live we can also be different because of our personality. I am not saying that these differences are because of where we all grew up. I am just saying that I have noticed differences between my friends from the North than ones from the South.