Intercultural Communication Personal

To begin, I will make you aware that I was a pretty sheltered girl in grade school: I went to a Catholic school, so just about all of my friends and people I knew were Catholic. However, in high school I met people with many different religion backgrounds: Jews, Mormons, Lutherans, and Atheists. My freshman year I thought it was a little odd the different holidays we would all be able to take off due to our religion. But I thought it was so neat: the variety of celebrations, typically all for the same purpose. 

Anyway, not only did intercultural communication enter my life by becoming friends with people of many different faiths, but I basically dove into another culture, taking every opportunity I could to learn from it. I am referring to a relationship I had in high school; I dated a Jewish guy for two and a half years in high school and felt it necessary to take every opportunity to learn about Judaism since they are the Catholic's roots. However, at times I did feel a little uncomfortable during Passover or batmizvahs when I had myself convinced I was the only person present not understanding the Hebrew being spoken. I would often ask my boyfriend what was being said, and of course a verbatim translation was not accurate because "language differences can go much deeper than simple translation ambiguities" (Tubbs & Moss 323). Ultimately, even though I felt a little uneasy at times I knew the importance of our successful intercultural communication, especially since Catholics and Jews are often seen on different spectrums of things. This was a great experience of intercultural communication in my life.