2015 Expressions on a Sustainable UMD: The Power to Change May 2015 | Page 19

Samantha Leap
Economics
Class of 2016
“Where are you from?”
As a college student, I get asked this question constantly—in
awkward ice breakers, new people feeling like this is an obligatory
question, weird first dates, you name it. Regardless of the situation
my response is always the same. “I’m from the Middle of
Nowhere,” which if you would need to pinpoint a location you could
put “middle of nowhere” into Google Maps and Lusby, Maryland
would light up your computer’s screen.
I moved to the Middle of Nowhere when I was eight years old from
the bustling city of Canton, Ohio. It proved to be quite the change
considering I traded a five-minute drive to the movie theatre for trees, the Chesapeake Bay,
farmland everywhere, and more trees. I remember the perks of a second grader in Canton
included a field trip to the chocolate factory with a free sample at the end. Moving to Lusby meant
that my free-chocolate-sample days were officially over. I traded my days of sugar highs for
school sponsored sail boating, artificial oyster reef making at a local park, and canoe trips.
Everything about my seasonal life style changed with my move to Nowhere. Fall turned into
afternoons jumping in the biggest leaf piles. Winter days consisted of sledding on the countless
hills in my neighborhood. Spring meant windy afternoons down by the water trying to fly my kite.
Summers were spent fishing at the beach with sun kissed shoulders… The move to the middle of
nowhere changed me into a well-rounded environmentalist who no longer cared about the
(irrelevant) thirty-five minute drive to the movie theatre since I gained so mu