Adjusting

I think this is my first update of the week. That may communicate how busy it has been. One night I tried, and after writing a few lengthy paragraphs, the electricity went out in all of Cedarville. So I couldn’t post it.

Culture shock. People say that it’s worse when you get back from being away. I don’t know about all that. In some ways this is true.

This place is supposed to be comfortable. This is supposed to be normal. When I got here and realized how many ways it is not comfortable or normal, I guess it felt like there was something wrong with me, instead of just realize things just change. Also, because I have lived here before, and I do know so many of these people, I don’t feel like I have the right to “need time to adjust” or things like that. So I frustrate myself. But I know this is part of the process of being gone and coming back. That daily choice to embrace or resign is more like a hourly decision. And sometimes that goes well and sometimes not so well.

So much has been going through my head as I couple processing what happened last semester and ideas I’m being exposed to even now. Already, I can tell my classes are going to be so amazing. Hard, especially compared to the academic schedule I had last semester.  But so good. Three examples….

I have a class called Advanced Public Speaking. Now, speaking in front of people is hard enough. Supposedly more people in the world are afraid of speaking before an audience than death. Supposedly. First day of class, our prof asked us why we thought this was called “advanced”. Hm… She told us she was going to teach us to feel the pressure. Great. But then she went on about how the greatest influence on pulic opinion is not the media or the government, but word-of-mouth information. You trust what people around you say more than what you read or hear on tv. Therefore, taking the responsibility of daily conversation seriously, she wants us to be people of influence under pressure. I’m so not ready for that, but wanting to be.

Global Issues is another favorite. We don’t take notes or have tests or write papers. We read a ton. Last week I was assigned to read all the BBC News website. After being quizzed on how well we were familiar with the information, we just discussed it. Why are there problems in Kenya? What can be done about the blizzards in Iran? How can we prevent more war? Those kind of things. So interesting.

Lastly, I have this class centered on dissecting what we say we believe, and really getting to the inside of it, and learning to communicate that clearly. The other day we talked about the significance of grace, something that I don’t think could ever get old. It’s such an out-of-this-world concept that we can be given something, greater than anything imaginable, and deserve not an ounce of it. On the contrary, we deserve it’s opposite. And yet this is the foundation of all I believe, that God gives what I cannot earn, and live life from there.

Despite difficulties of adjustment and discomfort, I know it will be a good semester. God is moving, all over the world. And that means here too.