Indiana has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the entire Midwest, and has a reasonable cost of living. For instance, our home is nicer, bigger and 1/5 the cost of friends living in Dallas, Sacramento, New Jersey and Southern California. Also, I’ve found that the Midwest offers a real sense of community. People are generally friendly and good natured. I know that does not sound like much, but if you need help from a neighbor or get stranded in a car on the side of the road, people seem more than willing to help.

Don’t get me wrong, we love to travel and get away as much as anyone else, and unfortunately Indiana does not have a professional baseball team, but for daily living or building a family or career, the Midwest is not a bad choice.

It’s really tiring to have people continuously thinking that you’re from the motherfucking town in Footloose

It was the only area in my life where I regularly witnessed and/or encountered White adolescents and young adults who would regularly drive by and shamelessly shout homophobic and racist slurs against classmates on a unpredictably constant basis. In one case, one driver yelling racist slurs even wanted to start a fight with me and came out of his car. Only the timely realization that a police car was trailing a few cars behind stopped him.

Lauren did make a good point about Obama’s bitterness quote, though, as some of this racist behavior against the college was partially motivated by the region’s poor economic state, the college’s domination of the local economy, and the classist derived elitism of many of the ostensibly radically left progressive student body…many of whom came from upper/upper-middle class urban/suburban areas on the coasts.

/he he he he he he he
//bad joke :)