differences.

ok, so this blog should have been written a very long time ago. I feel like it has been a while since I talked to Ryan in our class. I was so glad we did that exercise. Maybe I am naive, but I never really notice my differences with people until I get to know them. And even then, I typically don't let the differences bother me that much. There were the obvious differences between Ryan and myself: he is a boy, and I am a girl; he has brown hair, and I have blonde; etc. All surface differences. Had I not had to sit down with him to talk about ourselves, I would have never found out that he is 29, divorced, from Florida and other things that are the exact opposite of myself.
I feel like in doing that exercise, I learned to not just look at someone and see similarities or differences, but to see an open opportunity to really get to know someone. Here is Ryan who has been in my class all semester, and I knew nothing about him. Now, when I see him, we have actual conversations that are meaningful or just a simple "Hey, how are you?" but that has a deeper respect.
That is the beginning of cosmopolitanism for me.