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You Americans aren't so bad

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Katie McCrory
The State Press

"Farewell, So long, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu" so sang the saccharine Von Trapps before they buggered off across the Alps, leaving a few irritable Nazis in their wake, and so hum I as I scribe my last piece for The State Press.

I will be leaving these shores in just three weeks, having spent a year rubbing shoulders with America as a Legal Non-Immigrant. I was wooed by this title, until I realized it was simply a fancy way of telling me to get my butt out of the country once the visa spontaneously combusts. So I'm packing my bags after recurring nightmares of Nazis, Republicans and that really annoying woman on the Cox Cable advert chasing me across the desert.

To be honest with you, I don't feel ready to leave. I had just perfected the art of telling someone I was from Britain whilst simultaneously exposing their abyss in knowledge of the geographical layout of Europe and thus humiliating them, and now I have to relearn what it's like being one Brit amongst millions.

I ain't so exotic anymore. Because although I am exhausted of being put on the spot every time someone new hears my accent, I thoroughly enjoy the enthusiastic responses of "England? Now tell me, how close is that to the United Kingdom," or "I've been to London and England." It's only fair -- I still don't know where Wisconsin is, although I don't think I'm alone.

For want of a better image, you guys grew on me like rampant bacteria. I may have given the impression at times, through my State Press ramblings, that I hate every single last one of you yanks, but believe me when I say it was merely comic potential.

You don't make the decision to live in a particular country and then spend a year being miserable because it's nothing like home. That's the point, stupid. And boy is this place nothing like home.

You are the only country in the world to have root beer. You are the only country where other national sports hold more popularity than soccer. You are the only country where you can, and need to, box your food after a meal. And you are the only country where Bush could have been elected.

You speak, act, walk, think and look like nothing else on this planet, and you are proud of it. It has taken me until now to understand and respect that attitude.

This is the land of opportunity and independence. Not for everybody -- no politician will ever make me believe that -- but it was for me. I put my fingers in all the pies during my time here, and I loved it.

I didn't realize how deep my affection was for ASU until someone from Yale laughingly queried "Why on Earth did you decide to go to a university Playboy voted as No. 1?"

She wasn't just insulting me, but all 50,000 of us, and although I wasn't slick in my immediate response to her, I more than made up for it in the action-replays in my head, fear not.

So in a backslapping, watery-eyed kinda way, I'll admit that I love you guys. I didn't to begin with, and I still have problems supporting aspects of your foreign policy and the need for six fast food joints on one block.

But in the way you are repeatedly asked to support the troops whether you believe in going to war or not, I will respect, admire and be inspired by Americans whether I like America or not. I'll take all I have gained back to the Motherland and try and find a safe place for it -- emotionally and physically -- and when people ask a few years down the line what the letters 'ASU' hanging from my keychain stand for, I'll simply tell them. Absolutely Splendiferous University.

Katie McCrory is a history junior and may be violating her visa if she cannot get to Mexico fast enough. Reach her at kathleen-ellen.mccrory@asu.edu.


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