This is something a little new for me seeing as I'm writing this post from a hotel room and not at my desk in my room at home. It's something new and interesting, but I don't think it'll happen often.
Anyway, you all might be wondering as to why I'm writing my post from a hotel room, and the reason to that is because I'm currently away for my last softball tournament of the year, also known as the biggest softball tournament of the year.
From home to where I'm currently at, this has been the farthest distance we've ever gone for softball and it's quite the experience. It's not so much a culture shock, but for the traveling and the people we meet, it's all quite different.
However, there is a big culture shock to everyone else on my team.
We're currently in a city that mainly speaks French. I have no problem with this at all seeing as I'm bilingual with both French and English, but everyone is having a little bit of a difficult time at some points.
It's not too difficult for them seeings as most people we deal with here are also bilingual, but sometimes the accent is too strong or the English of someone from here is too broken up.
I haven't had the chance to hear the experiences of the girls on my team because most of them have only arrived tonight, but I've been helping out the girl on my team that I've been traveling with.
I've been speaking French to the locals and I've been enjoying it. Their French is different from my French, so it's pretty amazing to listen to a different dialect of the same language. It doesn't make it more difficult to understand them, it's just a small but noticeable difference which is really neat.
Tonight I went out for a team supper with the majority of the girls on my team and it was alright. Service was a little slow, but that was expected with 14 people in one party.
I was the last one to order my drink and food, but when I did, I told the waitress my order in French.
She didn't mind at all and went to go bring our orders to the kitchen.
One girl on my team said "You don't have to order in French, they also speak English." I responded with "Yeah, I guess you're right," and shook it off.
She wasn't right, though. in fact, she was wrong.
Her telling me to speak English when I grew up bilingual to someone who grew up with French as their first language was wrong.
It was wrong, but I apologized for it.
I was apologizing for being myself.
I can speak French, I started to learn it at a young age and I'm proud of it.
On my team, my dad helps out with the coaching at times and I will speak to him in French. On a few different occasions, I've heard some of the girls mumbling to each other that we should speak English.
I understand that it can be uncomfortable for people to be around other people speaking a language that they don't understand, but it's what the world is.
The world is made up of so many different traditions, cultures, languages, and so much more, but people are on most occasions too afraid to learn about them.
Yes, I'll speak French in an English environment and I'm proud of it. Just because you don't understand the deeper meaning it has to me and why I hold my French so close to me doesn't matter to me, but you should never put me down for it.
No one should ever put you down for what you hold close to you, whether its a passion, a language, a tradition, a culture and so on.
All of those little things make up who you are and apologizing for a single one of them is like apologizing for who you are.
No one should ever put you down for being who you are. If they don't understand something, you can always try to explain it, but if they don't want to bother with that, then that's there problem.
They can live the rest of their life not understand something that's part of who you are and that's their problem.
Be proud of every single little part of you because it's the only person you know you'll be with for the rest of your life.
Stand tall, be proud and be you.
One More Girl, no longer online
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