An International Childhood Anonymous

As a result of my father’s business, my family moved to France in May of 1995. From France, we moved to Singapore, back to France, to Spain in 2001, and finally to our current location on a farm in rural Upstate New York in late 2002. Over the course of my seventeen years, I have lived in eight municipalities and have attended six schools. Because it was the first of my foreign peregrinations, I credit the initial move to France as the crucial turning point in determining the kind of person I have become. Living and traveling throughout different parts of the world has been an experience and opportunity with which the majority of American high school students have not been graced, and has provided me with knowledge one can only attain through empiricism.

The pilgrimage to France created a domino-like effect. I made new friends, and then learned a new language. My parents did not tolerate or subscribe to any television, so I learned to spend my time in ways that were much more educational. The subsequent moves and trips simply added new dominoes to the chain. I made a whole new set of friends five more times, and learned what it was like to live in the suburbs of a major European city, in small towns, in the country, in the...