As explained in the title, I was going to write about "The Perks of Being A Wallflower" but then I ran into a situation yesterday. Currently, I am in Venice, Florida which is about 20 minutes south of Sarasota. Venice is full of old tan people, dressed in printed shirts, khakis and horribly ugly sandals. It is not the place for me. I feel completely out of place anywhere I go, even if it's just the grocery store.
In fact, thats where my situation begins. Yesterday, I decided to go to the local Publix with my grandmom. We just needed to get a few things at the grocery store. I thought I was dressed fine, I was just wearing jean shorts, a nicer shirt, and oversized sunglasses. Then my sister Taylor said "Kate, why is everyone looking at us weird" and I just replied "I have no idea..."
My sister, my grandmom and I go to check out, and we are just having a conversation, and right away the lady at the register asks if we are from New Jersey. We told her we were, and she laughed and then said "Yeah if your accent didn't give it away, the way you girls are dressed sure did. The locals don't dress like that." Me and my sister were shocked.
But then I realized, people from New Jersey are completely different from the people in Florida. One huge difference, being our accent and the way we speak. Our language is the same, but the dialects are different. We say things like "wooder" instead of water, Monday becomes "Mondee", and instead of saying whole phrases, we tend to run our phrases together. For example instead of saying "did you eat" we say "didja-eat?" Also, we have our own little phrases. An example of this would be phrases like "bro", "guido/guidette", GTL, and "legit".
Bottom line is, your surroundings do affect you. Homer shows us this in The Odyssey too! Circe is very lusty, dark and mysterious...just like her island. So what does the make people from New Jersey? Are we as obnoxious, loud, and crazy as television shows like "Jersey Shore", "Jerseylicious" and "Housewives of New Jersey" have portrayed us to be? Do we really dress, act, and most importantly speak differently? Comment, and let me know what you think.
