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I was born and lived in Georgia until I was thirteen. People in Georgia have lower Southern dialect, also known as the classic Southern drawl. This dialect is very slow and drawn out. My first words were mama and dada, which eventually turned into mama and daddy. These are the most common names for parents in this part of the South Eastern United States.

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I attended preschool at a high school in Georgia, where students where able to practice being teachers to four and five year olds. Before I attended this program, I was very shy and did not spend much time with anyone other than my mom, who was a stay at home mom. For the first couple months, I was very intimidated by the other kids because I was so shy. My mom encouraged me to ask kids nicely, "Hey, I'm LaurieAnne. Do you want to come play with me and be my friend?" While in the program, I eventually made a bunch of friends and learned to be nice and friendly to individuals other than my family.

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Throughout elementary school, I learned how to work and communicate with my fellow classmates. I learned how to share with them and how to better communicate my feelings without throwing a fit. I also learned how to properly respect my teachers and follow their directions. I discovered what hard work meant through my class assignments and homework. I especially had a hard time in math, but got lots of help from my mom, who taught me to never use the word "can't".

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In middle school, I moved to Washington DC from Georgia and became homeschooled. People in those two places act very differently from one another; and it was a surprising culture shock for me because I had lived in Georgia my whole life. I learned that it was not normal for me to use Southern words like, "Y'all". I felt very out of place for a while because of people's customs and way of life were so different than in Georgia. After about a month of living there, I met a friend that also had moved from Georgia and was experiencing the same culture shock. We quickly bonded and shared our feelings.

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During summers in high school, I went to visit one of my best friends in New Orleans. Even though I was used to the South, this dialect was very different than the dialect used in Georgia. Some people in New Orleans have southern drawl similar to what I was used to in Georgia, others an accent similar to a New York accent, and others a mixtureof the two. A lot of children called their parents their mama and daddy, but some with a not as drawn out accent. My friend's family, that that lived there for many generations, had a mixture of the New York accent and the Southern drawl.

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Coming to a public university after being homeschooled was also a big culture shock to me. Homeschoolers and public schoolers are very different kinds of people; and they also act very differently. I was exposed to a whole new world of very distinct kinds of people than the people I was used to. People talked differently and used words I was not used to like, "Greek" and "prerequisite".