Small World After All

I scream it to the nothingness.

I'd like to start out by apologizing to anyone who now has the annoying "It's A Small World After All" song stuck in their head thanks to the title I chose for this post.

That being said, it is a freaking small world. A couple nights ago, we went out to spend a night on the town with an old friend of ours who lives here. He brought his two friends along and they were awesome to say the least. There's a lot I want to say about them but I'll just go straight to the point; they're going to college in the U.s. One is going to Elon (the school my good friend Al wants to attend) and the other plans to attend USC after year (one of the school my good friend Kelly wants to go to). After hearing this, I stared at them for a second and freaked out. They were slightly alarmed but happy to hear good things about the schools they were going to.
While that whole ordeal is weirdly neat, I DO have an even bigger point to make. The kids here are just like us in the ways that count. They have similar interests, similar goals and like to do similar things- a lot of them love traveling, they speak English really well, and they have an appreciation for sitting for longs hours at a restaurant or cafe and eating that only my Freebirds group could understand. I really hate it when people hear me say that I'm going to Syria and instantly the words "terrorist" "bombs" and "camel" come to mind. We actually even joked about this horrible stereotype because everyone here knows exactly what the typical American thinks about the Middle East.
Talking about that makes me think of the guy I met last night, Sariya. He is my age and basically the guy version of me, except with musical talent (something I sadly lack). We talked more in-depth about the stereotype and how we hope to fix this problem. He is actually going to Norway next month for a student-exchange program and they'll have "Syria night" where he hopes to show what it's actually like. I want to do my part by doing THIS, writing about it and later, posting pictures.
I hope that by reading this, your understanding of "The Middle East" changes. I hope that in the future when you hear people discussing the area in a way that you know is wrong, you put your educated input in and set some things straight. I hope that by doing this, I am doing my part in changing the world.