JCAM, Vol. 6, No. 1
Emily Brown What is your professional name? My name is Emily Brown. Where were you born and does that place still influence you? I was born in Washington State, but I was only there for about a year and a half before I was whisked away by the army life. As a military brat, I never really settled anywhere. I never lived in the same house, let alone the same state, for more than a couple of years at a time, until I moved to North Carolina for the second time. When people ask me where I am from, I have to do the stereotypical army-brat thing and ask, like, where I was born or where I lived the longest? and then promptly recite: I was born in Washington, then I moved to North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, New York, Arizona, Tennessee, California, and back to North Carolina. The place I was born has little to no influence on me, because it was never home and I never learned anything from the people there. In my experience, it is the people that influence you, not the place. Where do you live now and how does that place influence you? I have been living in North Carolina for about seven years now. As I said before, I believe that it is the people that influence me, and I have not been influenced very positively by these people. I find myself surrounded by people with no morals. No sense of right and wrong. People who refuse to do what is right when no one is watching. This has left me, an already cynical and critical individual, with a sour taste in my mouth. Perhaps it is a bit harsh of me to say that. I have heard that areas outside of where I live are far more morally and ethically conscious. However, my experience here, with these people, has certainly painted a corrupt, lazy, and incompetent picture of the society I live in. And this picture is what is driving me to leave where I am living as quickly as I can in search of more like-minded people.
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