Everyday Life in Middletown
Directive: January-February 2019
Muncie
Directions: This directive asks you to share your thoughts and feelings about Muncie, the town most of you live in and the town at the center of the Everyday Life in Middletown project.
Feel free to use your creativity in expressing your thoughts and feelings about Muncie. You can write this out as an essay or a set of disjointed observations, or any other way you like. You do not need to answer the questions below in order (though you may do so if you wish). But do try to address all of the questions, in one way or another, in your response.
The main question we want you to address is: What do you think and feel about Muncie?
Write as little or as much as you like. A good guideline for length would be the average length of your day diaries for us.
As with your diaries, your directive entries will be published anonymously in our on-line archive. While we will not publish your name or any personal information, it is up to you to decide how much or how little about yourself you want to reveal in your writing and to filter out personal information accordingly. As with the diaries, we will review your directives for personal information and contact you if we have questions or concerns.
Optional: Take a photograph that you think typifies Muncie in some way, and send it along with your directive response.
Please return your answer to us by Feb. 12.
Questions to address in your answer:
1. How long have you lived here? If you were not born here, indicate where you came from and why.
2. Are you happy with where you live? Do you feel like you belong?
3. Do you expect to stay here for long? What are or will be some of the considerations in deciding how long you stay here?
4. How would you describe Muncie to someone who has never been here? What are its most distinctive characteristics?
5. Do you think the ways other people think about Muncie are the same ways you think about it? How do you your thoughts and feelings about Muncie differ from its public image (from media or word-of-mouth around the state and beyond)?
6. What are your feelings about Muncie’s future? What are your hopes for Muncie? How do you expect Muncie will fare in the years ahead? What changes do you expect?
I’ve lived in Muncie for five years now. I came here to start my graduate program. I’m originally from the Middle East. I think these last five years have had a great impact on me and creating my identity both as a scholar, researchers, mother and wife. It is here that my family has grown, and here that I got to be in contact with amazing people from all over the states. Every person I met in this journey helped me become who I am today. I’ve learned so much here. My mom always said that I was a very mature child, and in Muncie I think my maturity has reached it’s highest levels. I used to be the person with a shy voice, who sits in the back of the room, but today, because of the great experiences I have had in Muncie, I feel that I have become aware of my own identity and how many things I can do to improve this world that we live in, even if it is just by being a scholar or simply a mother. I do miss my family immensely. The last time I saw them was 2015. I miss that I could visits them anytime I wanted, which is different here, because I have to make appointments with anyone if I wanted to meet them, even if they are my closest friends.
I wished that the small community we have in Muncie can support me, but I feel that in our community, there are a lot of biases and if you do not fit a particular image they have in mind, they think you are an outcast. So, I decided to maintain close relationships with people who would not judge me for who I am and would accept me as different. Even though my time in Muncie is getting shorter by the day, as I look back, I think I will definitely miss this place as I plan to go back home. I’m excited to go back home because of all the changes that have happened while I was here studying. My mother tells me that you would not know the city if you compared it to what it was five years ago. I’m looking forward to my kids meeting their extended family and cousins and learning our native language. During the elections, I felt that things were going to get very bad for me and my community, but we had such tremendous support emotionally. There were some instances that I did not fell very welcome in Muncie, but I ignored them, as the general atmosphere seemed to be on our side, and not with what was going on with the elections.
When someone asks me about Muncie I’d tell them it’s a little town, where people are friendly, and you see a lot of farms everywhere, something that we don’t see a lot back home. The name of Muncie in my native language means something that is forgotten, so I always joke about the name, telling people who ask me about Muncie that someone forgot to locate Muncie on the map, and it’s the forgotten good city. I don’t think all of the people think of Muncie like I do, some of my friends can’t wait for vacations so that they can visit their family and get out of Muncie, which is a gloomy and cloudy town in the winter. I think having lived here for five years, that Muncie does not get a lot of publicity, unless it has something to do with the university which it is associated with. I would have liked to read about Muncie before coming in a literary aspect but didn’t know how much the information on the internet was helpful because it was very much based on statistics and figures, which was not helpful in making me understand the town or its nature.
As I will be heading back home soon, I see that Muncie is growing to be a better place in all sorts of ways for everyone. I feel envious sometimes that more shops are opening as I am leaving, and I haven’t had the chance to try them. So just as we are leaving the town gets to be in a new shape, new services are added, and life becomes very easier. I do see that the university will for sure play a great role in how others hear and know about Muncie, as I see a lot of partnered projects between the university and the community here in Muncie, which gives a better understanding of the nature of the town for newcomers for sure. I think we will be seeing a lot of educational changes for schools in particular, but I would like to see more diversity in the educational choices we have in Muncie, especially for people with kids, and who identity as foreign.