By Alison Athey, Assoc. Features Editor -

When people ask, “So…where are you from?” they usually expect a two-word answer, three words max. There are students from all 50 states and 96 different countries at Boston College. For most, home is a definite place located only a few hours away. For some of us, however, the answer to the question “Where are you from?” is less clear. In my 20 years, I have lived in seven different home towns, on three different continents, for no more than five years apiece.

My father works for the United States government (no, not the CIA, promise), and this means that my family picks up and moves every few years. I was born on a small Army base in Georgia, then moved to New Orleans as an infant. From there, I moved to the westernmost point in Texas, where my father served on the Border Patrol.

My father then got a job with Diplomatic Security, a branch of the State Department. This meant that my family spent a brief 10 months in Houston, Texas while waiting for our first overseas assignment. From there we moved to Tel Aviv, Israel for two years, then to Washington, D.C. for four, then to Frankfurt, Germany. Since this is a mouthful, I like to say I’m from a little bit of everywhere.

I have learned the art of moving over the years. Schlepping all of your stuff to school freshman year gives you a decent impression of the discomfort of the process. Moving a whole household, however, is a whole different beast. I first had to sort through all of the junk I had accumulated over the years, and figure out what I wanted to keep and what really didn’t need to make the trip across the ocean. Then my family had to box everything up ourselves, or otherwise supervise a team of men who had missed the deodorant memo and were less than sensitive to those family heirlooms that belong in boxes labeled “fragile.” Finally, there were the three months when we held our breath and hoped that all of our material possessions made the trip.

Picture this: a family of five, each with a backpack and carry on, sprinting through the Atlanta airport to catch a 3 a.m. plane after 20 hours of travel. Now add two cats. Navigating through airports without losing anyone (except the occasional stuffed animal) becomes second nature.

The main challenge for nomadic kids, and just about every other kind of kid, is navigating through school. Moving so often meant that my siblings and I perpetually found ourselves forced to play the role of “the new kid.” When we were attending international schools, this wasn’t such a big deal. Everyone there was used to kids cycling through and moving away. However, being the new kid in a big public school in the United States was a different story. It was sometimes isolating and forced my siblings and me to be proactive about finding and making our place at the new school. Getting to know the other new kids helped, and one or two classmates were usually willing to show us the ropes.

Moving every few years teaches two distinct sets of social skills. People who are shy by nature learn how to blend into any crowd. They learn to observe social cues at an early age, and can mold their mannerisms to fit into the various new communities they encounter. On the other hand, people who are more outgoing by nature tend to become even more extroverted. They too learn how to observe social cues, but then figure out how to stand out in a crowd in the most flattering way possible.

Language barriers put a limit on how well assimilated people can become in a new community. In Germany, most people spoke English, so I was lucky enough to get by only knowing the words “danke,” “bitte,” and “sheisse” and maybe how to order a beer. In Israel, few people spoke English, forcing me to communicate through makeshift sign language and find friends within the English speaking community. In my experience, it has been important to acknowledge that it is the responsibility of the visitor to learn the language of the host country. When people sensed that I was respectful of their language, they were far more willing to negotiate some means of communication and tolerate my sorry-I’m-a-lost-American smile.

In addition to language disparities, cultural differences also had to be taken into account. There are different holidays to observe, different ways of tipping waiters, and different ideas of personal space to become accustomed to when living abroad.

Despite traveling in the Middle East and Africa, I never really experienced true “culture shock.” Living in diverse places has, in fact, taught me that people are much more similar than different. School is school, whether it is in the desert of South Africa or the suburbs of Maryland. Kids just want to fit in and have fun. Adults just want to love and provide for their families, however these are culturally defined. Seeing people not as Texans, Israelis or Germans, but simply as people has allowed me to feel at home in the various places I have lived over the years.