Saturday, June 18, 2016

Does this Zipcode Make Me Look Smart?

Hubby and I made our annual trek to Bonnaroo Music and Arts festival in Manchester, Tennessee. If you are unfamiliar with this event, it is four days of music, 70,000 sweaty, stinky people and scorching heat. Doesn't that sound fabulous? Are you already making plans to attend next year?

Just in case you are undecided, let me sweeten the deal with camping. In a tent. I personally have been camping four times in my adult life. The first was when the kids were little, and I swore I would never do it again. Three years ago, I happily broke that promise to myself to go to Bonnaroo, and it was so worth it.

While we set up camp on Thursday (and by we, I mean mostly Hubby), I went around meeting our neighbors. Pretty much the first question asked is where are you from. We of course got very nice reactions when our answer was the Raleigh area.  Several people made comments about the education level of the Triangle. When one guy said there are a lot of very smart people in the Triangle, Hubby and I said in unison that an exception was made for us.  Several people asked if we were professors or worked at one of the universities.

We are no dummies, but around here, we are pretty much average joes. The Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area is always in the top ten rankings of most educated regions of the country, most PhD's per capita and most STEM workers. Living in the Triangle is like seeing yourself in a smart mirror which is similar to a skinny mirror except instead of reflecting a slimmer version of you, it reflects a more intelligent version of you.

Of course here in Cary, I am pretty quickly recognized for what I am which is a liberal arts major from a southern state school. When I tell people that I have a daughter who goes to Carolina, I'm often met with a look of skepticism.  I am sure they are thinking 'Really?! How could you possibly have produced a child smart enough to get into Carolina.' Oh well, I look smart to the rest of the world, so I am going with that.


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