Warning: the following blog post is not going to be a diary entry of the insane amount of fun I had during the Honors First-year Global Experience last month. Rather, it will be a reflective analysis (sounds boring, I know) of some things that have been on my mind since my return home and subsequent recuperation period from London on 30 July. Hopefully it is still somewhat entertaining. To make things easy, I will make a list of "things I learned".

1. Major cities really are like living, breathing organisms.
I've seen and read several interesting media about the idea of cities as "living", based on the classical scientific definition of life as a reproducing, eating, excreting type of object. After living in two of the world's large cities, I feel like this notion makes perfect sense. The cities feel like they're moving, breathing collective breaths of night and day (especially London, where night times were subdued as the city actually did go to sleep). The infrastructure itself felt like an extension of the human mind--I was constantly thinking of how everything was built by humans.

2. New Yorkers are not inherently rude, despite what the stereotypes say.
This is an interesting idea about how physical geography can influence human interaction. Manhattan itself is a small island, where millions of people live and work with no surrounding land area to diffuse. Because of this, New Yorkers have become desensitized to the increased amount of day-to-day human contact compared to a smaller city. It all is based on population density; the higher the density, the more "used to" humans people become, and it seems possible that this desensitization is perceived as rudeness to an outsider. At first, I also felt like native New Yorkers were rude (based on some preconceived notions as well), but when I left, I realized why I was wrong. After experiencing daily life in the city for two weeks, I too was someone immune to the sheer masses of people surrounding me daily. I did not act intentionally rude to anyone; rather, I almost acted as if I was not on an island with millions of other people. This should not be perceived as a loss of respect for humanity or a loss of common courtesy.

3. Experience dictates experience.
Preconceived notions can be dangerous, and often times they are inescapable. In one of our group discussions after an excursion day, Dr. Berry mentioned how New York City is seen by many young people as having taken on a caricature of itself, where it has intentionally tried to fill it's sort of phantom aura or preconceived idea of what it is as a place. This idea has been translated to the minds of people who have never visited New York City, and thus when they do travel there, they can be disappointed by how the city didn't meet their expectations. New York City has this sort of glorified presence in the minds of Americans as being a hub of success, but when one travels there, one realizes that it is a city where real people live just like any other place.

4. Being introverted is neither positive nor negative.
In cities as large as NYC and London, privacy and alone time are hard to come by. A personal revelation I experienced is that I cherish my solitude. I do enjoy the company of other people, but I also need time by myself pretty often. Fortunately, my experiences in both cities have allowed to feel more comfortable being alone in larger crowds, and some of my shyness has been eradicated. I feel like I can be more personable. However, I will always look forward to the time of day when I can relax in the comfort of my own mind.

5. The idea of place is, and always will be, important to humans.
This might be the most important thing I realized this past month. There is a fascinating and vital connection between where a human lives his life and how that life is lived. In other words, where one lives dictates one's life experience for several reasons. The place that we establish our lives, raise families, work, play, die, becomes important because of our physical and emotional connection to geographical locations. Humans make cognitive connections to locations as a way to contextualize our specific place on this planet. This ties in all the other lessons I learned. Both New York City and London are these iconic "places" that to outsiders represent a certain thing or things. But, to the people who were born there, who live there, or who will live there, they represent a single, simple idea: the idea of home. 

One thing Dr. Berry mentioned that really stuck with me was the importance of travel to getting to know ourselves. Travel, defined by leaving one's home, by leaving one's own place, allows us to examine how we react when we're put in a new situation. This trip did exactly that for me. I have officially been bitten by the travel bug because I now crave to gain even more exotic experiences as a vehicle to become completely acquainted with who I am.

Thank you to Dr. Berry, to my classmates, and to the Honors College for giving me this opportunity.

-Kyle Goble