Stick your nose up any higher, if it rains, you'll drown.

I try desperately to be as cultured, open-minded, and educated as I can, especially concerning other people/groups. I crave information about others. It's amazing how children are able to overlook cultural boundaries that adults of certain social classes so strictly adhere to. I have struggled to retain this ability to avoid passing judgment on others before such an assessment may be accurate. It's impossible. In the environment I now live in - rich, white, private - there is very little actual contact with diversity, and therefore, little information about other groups. This is extremely frustrating for me because I now that unconsciously I am making generalizations about others based on the pretentious assumptions of those around me.
I have not always lived in such an area. My father has been working up in the ranks of his company since the age of 16, and so we have moved in order to accommodate his promotions. Each time we moved to a nicer house in a nicer neighborhood in a nicer town. My friends from Canada are extremely down to earth. My best friends who have lived there their entire lives are very chill, and satisfied with what they have. I by no means lived in hardship, but in a close knit neighborhood of small houses. In England, we moved up a step in the ladder. I had to wear a uniform to school and there was a slightly more bratty feel to the children in general. I had friends who owned 60 acre ranches with 20 horses and a mansion-like house. But they were not the majority. Most lived in relatively large houses like mine - lots of space, but not much bragging was done. Here it is different. Money means something different. It means an opportunity to live in the suburbs and belong to a country club and chat about weekend plans of playing bridge. I have seen a distinctive change in my mom throughout the years as we have moved from place to place. In all of my family in fact. It takes so much more to satisfy us - that is what I'm trying to fight off. Of course, I was much younger in England and haven't visited my old school mates in a while so I don't recall completely their attitudes.
I remember being shocked Freshman year of high school, in World History class. I had already lived in the US for three years by then, but with little recognition of my new-found bubbled paradise. I have never encountered such ignorance as in that required 9th grade class. On our first quiz, the girl next to me asked where Europe was. What do you do in that situation? Laugh? Cry? I decided to turn a cold shoulder and rely on the rest of the class for intelligent input. Mostly, I was disappointed. Now, what I am stating is a different type of pretentious attitude that I have always had and probably always will. I hate stupid people. I have no tolerance. That girl that didn't know where Europe was displayed a pretentiousness that in my mind is far worse than my own main one - she didn't feel she needed to become aware of the rest of the world. That, to me, is crazy. As I said, I can never get enough information. I love to travel, to go to museums, to learn all I can. This is the first place I've lived where so many people don't even have passports. It is sad. There is so much to discover in this world, and there are people satisfied with staying in their own little bubbles. Especially around here, where the bubble entails card playing and wine sipping.