I just realized, or realized again

Penn is crazy, and the scope of my life is ridiculously limited. At dance lessons last semester I met a guy from Egypt. I actually had no idea he was from there until a conversation something like this:

Friend: "My friend and I are going to [some salsa event], would you like to come?"
Me: "Oh...is that over fall break?"
Friend: "Yeah it is."
Me: "Aww man, I'd love to but I'm going home for break."
Friend: "Where's home for you?"
Me: "Oh just New Jersey, it's really close. Where are you from?"
Friend: "Egypt."
Me: "Ohh....!"

He's a really nice guy. I met up with him and a friend of his for dinner at Greek Lady one time. If I remember correctly, his friend is Arab, but American-born. Throughout dinner they discussed things like the politics and the world's view of the Middle East. I hardly said anything because I had no knowledge of the subjects. Later, walking back with just my friend, he said, "Wow that must have been the most boring dinner ever for you!" I told him no, definitely not, it was really interesting to listen to their thoughts.

Penn students come from ALL over the place. One of my roommates is from outside Las Vegas and the other is from Hong Kong and has lived in Canada and Australia. Among the three of us we run across differences as well as similarities in our growing up experiences. But honestly, wow. I am impressed by students who come from other countries, especially ones more different from the US than others, to spend their entire undergraduate college education here. Already, though, I'm assuming levels of difference. Honestly I have no idea what it's like to grow up in Egypt or India or Europe or wherever else I'm thinking of as "much different". There are probably more experiences in common with my own than I might guess. This is the "modern world" after all. Still, to think that I come in contact with these people, that they now lead lives very much like mine (we're on the same campus), kind of blows my mind. Yet I rarely stop to contemplate these ocean-spanning links - except for moments like right now, or when I see that one of their Facebook networks is a country on another continent. I should feel privileged to have such a worldly collection of people practically at my doorstep for four years, and try to connect with more of them.

Exchange students are a similar boat of people, but could be even more impressive... I met a French exchange student at dance - totally adorable, enthusiastic about salsa and jazz, friendly as anything. He's definitely got a French accent, and usually I have to speak a little more carefully for him and sometimes explain what something is (try football...). Yet here he is, studying engineering at Penn for goodness' sake. And on the flip side, a friend of mine in DMD just spent a semester studying in New Zealand and sometimes I can hardly get my mind around that, and I'm not even the one who went! I just can't imagine living a piece of life in what seems, to me, like a different world.

It's all just awesome. I think if I were to go to places around the world, what I might find most interesting would be not the history, the food, the monuments or whatever...but the people, and their lives.