getting to real life

I think I've come to a place of belonging. I no longer gape at my surroundings like a kid in a candy factory. I am no longer terrified that I'll get on the wrong bus and become hopelessly lost in a city I don't completely understand. One-way streets are ceasing to inspire fear and confusion in me. I have even gone grocery shopping for the second time. Life is settling down to a new normal.

Reality also has set in in the form of homework. For the past three days, all I have done is homework. From the time my body wakes itself up before my alarm (crazy, right?) to the late hour that I finally allow myself to get some rest, I am either working on homework or performing necessary tasks in order to maintain my ability to do homework (thank you Marx?). It's not as if I'm completely focused on homework all of the time - the internet is a welcome diversion - and there are times when I take a break to have a much needed phone conversation with friends. However, my days are focused on homework in their entirety. I know it's time to go to bed when I have [hopefully] finished all necessary homework for the given day.

How do I feel about this new [albeit familiar] normal?

I love it. There are moments when I wish I had free time, but there are many more moments when the work that I am doing makes me feel absolutely alive. Last night I had one of those moments. I won't go into the messy details for those of you who could care less about the labors of an aspiring historian, but suffice it to say that I was insanely hyper, giddy, etc., at the opportunity to draw my own conclusions from a source and then compare it to another source.

A few things I have learned since coming to Bellingham:
1) Riding a bike down a hill in the rain and attempting to make a sharp turn at the bottom with brakes that are less than satisfactory can easily result in a spill... [don't worry, Mom, I'm fine.]
2) If you're looking for a cheap and not very effective but better-than-nothing way of heating an apartment, leaving the oven door open after finishing baking something works (as long as you have already shut the oven off before doing so).
3) People are people. Especially in the context of American culture. Much could be made of the differences between home and here, but at the end of the day, it has been incredibly simple to assimilate into this "culture."

I have found a church, I do believe. It's the one I wrote about in a previous post. It's small, the people love each other, and I felt very welcome there. More importantly, they are focused on God's Word and reaching out to a lost world. I feel some pressure to find a place where I can play piano, but to be honest, at this point, I don't really care. I would love to be involved with the worship team at my new church, but all in its time. At this point, I must be completely honest and say that my experience playing piano at my home church burned me out a little. I loved it, and it's not that I didn't like the act of playing piano. I did feel uncomfortable about the attention that it brought, though. It bothered me a great deal that I was a lot of the time the only person accompanying the songs, because I felt as if sometimes the focus was placed solely on me and my talents rather than on the act of worshiping God. If I am involved on a worship team in the future, I want the focus to be completely removed from the worship team...so that I am able to be used by God and yet remain completely out of the spot light.

I have a feeling my life will radically change during my time here, in one way or another. I am excited about the changes, because they will no doubt play a role in shaping me into the person God wants me to be.