Nathan Janick Linear Version Whenever I say I live in the suburbs of Lansing to somebody who isnt familiar with

Michigan I usually get a response similar to A suburb of what? Thats when you know your from a small town. While Lansing holds my States capital, a single A baseball team and Michigan State University, there really isnt much else to it. It doesnt matter what movie theater you go to in town your pretty much guaranteed to know somebody there. We have summer bonfires instead of nights out in the city. Instead of a fancy restaurant district a vast majority of our restaurants are chains with locally owned restaurants few and far between. If somebody asked me how to sum up Michigans diverse natural beauty, I would just give them a link to the Pure Michigan YouTube channel. These slightly ridiculous commercials are easy to make fun of, but they do describe some of the most beautiful things about the state of Michigan. Whether the commercial is featuring Michigans fall colors or sunsets the commercials display beautiful images while the annoying but catchy Pure Michigan Melody plays in the background. Whenever I leave the state of Michigan and mention a Petoskey Stone nobody knows what I am talking about. I forget that Petoskey Stones are native to Michigan Northern Shorelines. All of the geography of Michigan from the mountains in the north to the flat fertile land in the middle of the state were created by glaciers. The Petoskey stone is able to capture all of this geological history in one distinct image. Found everywhere from cheep touristy gift shops to fancy rock and mineral stores, the Petoskey Stone is much more than Michigans state rock.

As an avid rock collector when I was younger, one of my first rock related memories involved Petoskey stones. My family would rent a cottage on Lake Michigan just a couple minutes walk from the beach. I distinctly remember walking along the beach for hours closely examining hundreds of rocks that have washed up on shore. When the rocks are dry, it is difficult to tell if it actually a Petoskey Stone. Using a water spritzer of water I would moisten the stone essentially making it come to life as if it were polished and potentially revealing the distinctive Petoskey stone pattern. If we were lucky, we would find one maybe two Petoskey Stones after an afternoon on the beach, which an older man who lived near our cottage would polish for us. The sports of the Midwest vary greatly from state to state. The Midwest holds some of the oldest and most famous sports traditions and is the setting for arguably the two most famous sports movies of all time Rudy and Hosiers. The heart of Big 10 country is here in the Midwest. It is also the home to both the oldest rivalry in college football, Minnesota versus Wisconsin, as well as the most famous Michigan and Ohio State. Michigan is a state with allegiances divided between Michigan and Michigan State. It doesnt really matter what sport is being played between the two schools both teams do not like each other. While college sports are more popular in Michigan, the two sides both mutually root for Detroits professional sports teams especially the beloved Red Wings. When you think about sports in the state of Ohio the first thing that pops into everybodys mind is Ohio State football. The entire state rallies behind this program that is one of the oldest and most storied programs in the country. The professional fan base

is split between Cleveland and Cincinnati. Neither city has historically had very successful sports teams. Cleveland is considered by most people to be the most tortured fan base with an endless collection of heartbreaking losses, miserable seasons, and bad luck with everything involving their sports teams. Indiana sports can be summed up with two things: basketball and Notre Dame football. Basketball rules over everything in Indiana. Indiana is home to two of the top ten college basketball arenas in the country Hinkle Fieldhouse and Assembly Hall as well as the most famous sports movie Hosiers. There is one small portion of the state where basketball takes a back seat and that is in South Bend, home of Notre Dame football. With one of the most passionate fan bases in the country Notre Dame football is iconic in American sports and the movie Rudy helped contribute to that. Illinois University basketball has traditionally been pretty successful, but professional sports rein supreme in Illinois. It doesnt matter if youre a hocke y, basketball, or football fan. The Blackhawks, Bulls, and Bears have all won multiple championships. Baseball allegiance is split between the White Sox who have recently won a title and the more popular Cubs who havent won a title since 1908. In Wisconsin sports are all about Wisconsin University basketball and football and the Green Bay Packers. Bo Ryan has built an incredibly successful program at Wisconsin and Wisconsin football has traditionally been a powerhouse. However, Green Bay football is by far the most popular and iconic thing that Wisconsin sports have to offer. Fans come from all over the state to watch the Packers play in sub freezing temperatures while wearing foam cheese heads.

I interviewed my friend Meg who is from Cincinnati, Ohio who cofounded the Midwest Society with me. We live on the same floor and we both realized how costal Emory during the first night we came to Emory. She explained how she, couldnt find a single person besides [me] from the Midwest for a week or two. We also talked about how since coming to Emory we have a lot more Midwest pride. Adam summed this up best when he said, When you're a minority you develop a stronger sense of who you really are/ where you really came from. I think that more distinct awareness has definitely led me to be more proud of my roots. Meg described a lot of Emory being, pretty self-involved and that is just so antiMidwest. We both felt that people at Emory are generally very nice, but the selfinvolved attitude sometimes came up in conversations with other people. Meg has had a couple of bad conversations where Essentially people are just having conversations with themselves and you dont even need to be there, its as if you just a body there. It was these sorts of complaints that inspired us to form what eventually became the Midwest Society. One day when Meg and I were doing work we got sidetracked and started talking about the Midwest and things we missed. As the conversation grew and continued, we decided that we had to do this more often and that would should form some kind of informal club. A few days later we created a Facebook group message inviting all the Midwesterners we knew at Emory. Our goal was to create an informal safe-space for us to talk about when we feel out of place sometimes as well as to vent about people from New York and Los Angeles. Being from the Midwest where complaining is much more frowned upon as Meg describes it, You just kind of suck it up and keep it more to

yourself instead of always complaining outlook. This group gave us a place to complain together in a fun way instead of just whining about it. When trying to figure out where we should meet, Adam came of with the idea of going to Daves cosmic subs, which was founded in Ohio. Im not sure how we came up with name of The Midwest Society, but after it was first mentioned it just kind of stuck. We start out meetings with various stories that usually involve people from Long Island or Los Angeles. The meetings provide a fun space to share different thoughts about being from the Midwest at Emory and how different life is in other parts of the country. For us it feels like we go back home for an hour or so. Even though we come from different states throughout the Midwest, we all have experienced that same thing coming to Emory. As Adam described in his interview we are part of a geographical minority here at Emory, and these meetings give us a chance to get together and celebrate where we grew up. Adam talked about how, Emory is only something like 6% from the Midwest so it was weird but also cool to be from somewhere that not that many others were from. He and I had very similar views when he described this adjustment, I think it took some getting used to, and not necessarily in a bad way, to be from a geographic minority. As a minority, I felt like Ive had to assimilate in a few small ways to the culture here at Emory. Back home I dressed much more casually with my go to being cargo shorts and t-shirts. However here at Emory, the preppiness is turned up a few notches compared to Michigan. My cargo shorts and sweat pants are starting to be replaced by khaki shorts and pants. T-shirts have taken a back seat to polos and button downs

especially when I go out. The lack of these items in my wardrobe has increased the amount of times I have had to do laundry as my t-shirt piles remain stacked high. In my interview with Meg, she described how she felt the same pressure and then some as a girl, A lot of people dress up here compared to Ohio at least. Back home everybody would go out in a shorts and a T-shirt and its fine, but here its like nice jeans, hair done, makeup done, accessories on accessories and your like have to be wearing a purse and Im not used to that at all. So wearing a purse is a big deal for me Back home it was no makeup, no earrings, wearing athletic shorts to class and not that people would judge you, its just here it is not normal not to wear makeup or try to look nice. My eating habits have also changed here at Emory. I was a big eater back home, but its much more difficult to eat in large Midwest portions here at Emory. Not only is the food more expensive, but also in restaurants they give you smaller portions. The measly portions at some of the stations at the DUC would be comical back home. The first couple months I would often find my self not being as full as I was used to being after meals. Slowly my appetite has shrunk to probably a heather size. Jokingly I say that I am in more danger of losing fifteen pounds than gaining it freshman year here at Emory. The few times I have driven around Atlanta and just being in the passenger seat I have noticed how drivers are much more relaxed here. In the Midwest, there is always a constant rush to get everywhere. People tailgating and swerving in and out through traffic is a common occurrence back home. Here you see it much less frequently and we are outside of a huge city where driving is the craziest in the Midwest. Not only are the speed limits lower, but I have gotten the impression that less people speed here. The laid

back driving is nice except when Im in a hurry to get somewhere then it becomes very aggravating as my high paced Midwest instincts come in.