The world is flat...I swear

Last evening one of my lovely sorority sisters asked me, “are you for or against the war in Iraq”. I naturally took a moment to pause to prepare for some sort of neo-liberal attack, as I was quite sure the effort in Iraq was well under way and all that was left was complaining. But I guess she was really searching for some proof to justify it. Well heck, I have about a million facts to throw your way then. I began spouting off economic improvements; expanded civil liberties, flourishing opportunities, and other propaganda fervently stand by. As I rambled on for a good fifteen minutes I failed to realize the look of confusion on her face. I assumed my own look of inquisition and she managed to utter “uhh, what?” You see, just because one is admitted to college does not mean one is capable of being successful in college. I guess when I began discussing the estimated increase in gross domestic product and the per capita income distribution she got lost somewhere around “gross”.

This is all okay, I don’t expect everyone to care about the world let alone know anything about it but the next one really gets me. One of our other sorority sisters lived in Kuwait for most of her life and even went to university in the UAE. So I instructed my clueless sister to ask her about the perspective she has gained living amidst the problems in the Middle East. Now please, before I tell you this please withhold all urges to have a voluntary heart attack. Bewildered like bambi in the headlights of a semi truck “What’s Kuwait?” Half praying that I did not hear that and trying with all my might not to cast the dirtiest look down upon her; I replied, “South of Iraq, you know…in the Middle East”. She nodded her head and I could tell she still didn’t understand. Because explaining geography to twenty year old women doesn’t seem like a good time investment, I scrawled some websites on a post-it and left her to her own disillusion of the world.