KANSAS CITY--The city is in Missouri. My suburb, Prairie Village, is in Kansas--and no, it's not a farm.

As I climb aboard the van that will take me and four other newspaper interns from The Kansas City Star on our obligatory tour of the metropolitan area we will be covering this summer, my first order of business is to clear up the common confusion surrounding my hometown.

Being from Kansas City carries with it a distinct heritage. I have a Kansas driver's license, but I was born in Missouri. I cross the state line at least five times a day. And although in a couple weeks I will move from Prairie Village to Overland Park, there is really no noticeable difference, they are simply two names contained within the large, sprawling suburb of Johnson County, Kansas.

Kansas City confuses people. It's probably one of the easiest cities to navigate, but the whole Kansas/Missouri dilemma is perplexing to the non-resident. But after a year away at school, I'm used to the role of geography teacher.

Coming to Harvard from the Midwest, I assumed I would have to dispel some regional assumptions about my home, especially the name "Prairie Village." When people first began asking where I was from, I would say "Kansas." But that's not really true. The heart of Kansas is really the small central and western towns of which my Johnson County suburb is not a part.

And besides, saying I was from Kansas, especially after the Kansas State Board of Education's decision on evolution, was just asking for trouble. Responses varied from, "Oh, so you're from that place that doesn't believe in Darwin" to the standard, "What's it like to milk a cow?"

So then I changed my mind. I was no longer from Kansas, I was from Kansas City. Much safer. I'd tack that extra word onto the end and save myself a lot of explanations about how, yes, I do know what natural selection means and no, my milk comes from the grocery store across the street from The Gap, a store that we actually do have here.

I thought all I would have to do was maintain that, yes, Kansas City is a real city. Downtown has everything from tall, fancy office buildings to inner-city crime-ridden areas. Perhaps I would avoid the cow questions.