I'm an American. Well, obviously. I was born here in the land of free, lived here my entire life, blah, blah, blah. All that good stuff that allows you to easily tick off one of those boxes:

European? No.

Australian? No.

Canadian? No.

Confused? Yes.

After spending the past semester in London, I'm more confused than ever about what it means to be an American. No worries; this isn't one of those fourth grade Fourth of July essays, but it is true that this is something that's been on my mind since returning to the States.

Now that I'm back in State College, I've been wandering around campus with these glazy, help-me-I've-got-major-culture-shock eyes. I've looked everywhere for a solution to my confusion, and when no answers were found on MTV Cribs or VH1's zillionth re-run of I Love the 80s, I thought I might need to take this a little more seriously.

Ah ha!

It finally hit me. The medical professionals will surely have an answer to this problem. I thought about heading to Ritenour:

"You don't feel well?"

"No, I just don't know what makes me American."

"That's no illness -- go to McDonald's and read up about John Adams."

I guess that wasn't such a serious solution after all, so I continue to wander aimlessly, thinking about it all.

When I first got to London, I met four new Penn Staters I'd never seen at University Park before. It was definitely great, but I got to thinking. Why were we becoming such fast friends? Is it because we go to Penn State?

Not necessarily. Maybe it's because we suddenly became "Americans." We didn't talk about which states we considered home, but more about America and how it compared to England.

Returning to Penn State has made me realize that here, we don't really care about the word "American" in the place where Americans live. Yeah, I'm sure there are those of us who think about it for one reason or another. Of course, some of us are not American at all, but rather from another place with an entirely different identity.

However, for the majority of us, we attend class daily with a consciousness that we are just "us," whether we're from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania or wherever. Maybe some of us relate to each other through our white and blue sweatshirts. But what does that say about us as a group of human beings?

My roommate, traveling in Germany so we could meet and head to Amsterdam, was on a train, where she heard so few English words that she turned up her hearing for any ounce of English.

She eventually noticed two Americans on the train. Overjoyed at this incredible sense of connection, my roommate asked politely if she was on the right train. As it turns out, she was.

The two Americans were a young male stationed in Baghdad and his mom, both on their way to a few weeks of touring Germany. They got to talking, and my roommate learned the story of how this 23-year-old had joined the National Guard. Three trainings later he was sent to Iraq to play video games in between watching and waiting for attacks.

I never really thought much about it until now, but his story sticks out so much in my mind because it really brings together one of the pressing issues for an American abroad.

With the situation in Iraq, being an American in Europe takes on a sort of ambassadorial responsibility. How do you defend your country when you don't agree with the government, but certainly are a product of it?

A friend of mine in London, born in Greece, asked us how we put up with it -- meaning our government, our president (or "monkey," as he put it) and so forth.

A general response was echoed: apathy.

Is it true? Are we just apathetic to our country and ourselves? If I sit next to you in the HUB, we probably won't even exchanges hellos. Aren't we both part of a community that needs each other?

While reading The Daily Collegian online over the past couple of months, I couldn't believe that this campus is still divided by race. Maybe we could all benefit from a little understanding of who we are.

I guess it'll take me a while to readjust to this campus, but it won't be impossible. I'll get back into a routine, the way all of us do.

I just hope I don't become apathetic, too. Now more than ever we have a responsibility to this country and to the world.

"American" might mean a lot of things, but I don't think we have any idea what exactly those things are.

Maybe we'll find out and prove to the world it's not just McDonald's, Britney Spears and Super Bowl Sunday.