my chicago story: the beginning

It's been nine and a half days since moving into my new apartment, at my new campus, in my new city, in my new state, in my new time zone....

so I guess it's time for a little update. Consider yourself warned: this won't be a nicely cohesive, deeply thought out, reflective piece of writing. I had time for that during my two-month sabbatical from Real Life, when my biggest responsibility during a typical day was taking my dog for a walk or cooking dinner. This will be more like random snapshots of my new life, as it's gone so far.. and then I have to get back to homework.

My new digs:
Let's start with my apartment. I live in an on-campus apartment building that's reserved for seminary students, with six total apartments in it. My roommates - Kelly and Carrie - are fantastic. They're both second-year seminary students who helped make me feel at home in my new place almost immediately. I got here last Friday, unloaded all my stuff [have I mentioned lately that my parents are great? Cause they are. They drove a 1700+ mile roundtrip over one weekend to help me move most of my stuff up here, through some lovely weather, I might add, then proceeded to buy half of Target for me so I'd have food, pillows, and other essentials. Like peppermint patties.], and I unpacked and settled in over the next few days.

Oh, and you may be wondering about my apartment's location? Right in the middle of campus, less than a minute's walk to the gym, on the same street as four friends from camp, and less than five minutes' walk to any of my classes. WIN.

The people:
Now, if you know me well at all, you'll know I've had to say good-bye to a lot of amazing people over the last few months (including maybe you?). I'm not one to dwell on good-byes, get all misty eyed, or sink into despair when I have to leave people - but I had to leave so many of them. It was harder than I knew it'd be, but it almost always is.

Luckily, I knew I'd be going to a place filled with some pretty incredible people. I'm sure it's not exactly a surprise to hear that all the people I've met so far have been welcoming and kind to the new girl. (This is God school, after all.) It's been awhile since I've been the new kid on the block, and I'm not at all comfortable in that role. The way my life's been - particularly in college, working at my church, and working at camp - I'm used to being the one welcoming people and making them feel at home. Like anyone else, I like intuitively understanding my environment and knowing what my niche is.

Also, I'm a super-relational person. Shallow, surface-level friendships don't do much for me. I know there's always some of those in a person's life, but I don't thrive on them. At this point, I've been here a week and a half. There are a few people I'm getting to know well, and I'm seeing a lot of potential in those friendships, but most of the people I run into are friendly faces whose name I only remember about 80% of the time. I'm looking forward to the day when I'm comfortable enough with everyone around me that I can admit my life isn't all sunshine and rainbows and shooting stars. (I think that day will be here soon.)

The classes:

This is the part that's probably least exciting to you....and to me, actually....so I'll keep it short. Classes - interesting. Professors - smart (and, bonus points! they actually care if we succeed). Homework - laaaame. It's a lot of reading, analyzing, and writing, which I'm used to, but it's all on subjects I haven't studied before. I mean, I've read the Bible, obviously. I've even preached and led discussions on it. But the academic setting - all the terms and ways of thinking about these things - it's all pretty unfamiliar right now. It'll get better. My ratio of work to play is wayyy unbalanced at the moment, as I'm trying to get used to all this, but I'm still making sure I have some fun:)

That's all I have time for right now. My Business Ethics textbook and book on Preaching are calling to me from across the room, so I have to go hang out with them for a bit. I hope this helps you see a little window into my new life. I'm still feeling pretty great about this new adventure - God's been unceasingly good to me through it all - and I wish you all the best, wherever you are.