Today was a nice day. I'm incredibly tired and it's almost 1 AM here, so this will be short. But I feel like after yesterday, I owe it to my family to write a post and let them (and you all) know that things are starting to look up.
I went back to the OPC church here in Wheaton this morning. I'd intended on visiting a different church every week until I'd at least experienced each of them, before choosing one... and I may still do that in a future semester. But I went back to the Bethel for two reasons - three, maybe. The most superficial being that they have a shuttle that brings students from Wheaton to the church and back again. Secondly, it IS very much like my home church and after this week, I needed a little bit of home. Thirdly - okay, so there are four reasons. But thirdly, the teaching is very sound and the music is very beautiful. And fourthly, today they began a 15-week course in the adult Sunday school class on modern Roman Catholicism, and how it relates and differs to the reformed faith. I thought that sounded intriguing; the first class was, anyway. So I'm pretty sure that I'm going to attend the church for this semester, at least. But I don't know - the people there are so nice, and there's a good little group of Wheatonites who go there together, and I might just end up staying. We'll see. It was nice, though - after Sunday school, we all rode back to campus and went to brunch at the cafeteria together. For the first time in a few days, I didn't have to stress about finding people to sit with or worry about looking weird if I sat alone. It was really nice.
After that, everyone went their separate ways and I went up to my room to play guitar for awhile. Then Jon called me, which was wonderful - we talked for two or three hours. I read for a little bit after that, and then went to the little restaurant on campus (the cafeteria is only open for brunch on Sundays) and got a burger and fries to go. I sat on my favorite lawn until it got dark, and then wandered over to Evans. (Evans Hall is where I live, by the way. Not some guy's house.) I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with my evening, but I knew I wanted some coffee re-heated. So I poured myself a cup and went down four flights of stairs to the kitchen in the basement (where our only microwave is located, along with a few lounges, a piano, a foosball table, and the laundry room). In the kitchen, I found one of the girls from church, making herself some macaroni. We talked for a while until both of us were finished with our various comfort foods/drinks; once we left the kitchen, we continued the conversation while she did a few loads of laundry. We ended up just sitting on the floor of the laundry room and talking for about three hours. It was so nice! (Why is it that some of my favorite conversations happen while I'm sitting on some random floor with somebody? Weird.) She's one of the few people I've met who I really felt like myself with. (Something about that is very grammatically incorrect. But I'm too tired to figure it out... and you know what I mean.) I think the best part, though, was towards the end - there's a lounge right next to the laundry room, and at 10:30 or so, two music majors came down and started playing the piano and the trumpet together. They started with "When the Saints Come Marching In", which nearly made me want to kill them - but they quickly changed over to songs of the more classic-persuasion, like "Stardust" and "The Way You Look Tonight". And they were good. It was lovely.
Anyway, so it was a very nice evening. I'm happy that I've made a friend, and I'm happy that I have talented musicians living in the building. I'll have to make more late-night trips to the basement and see if they do that every night.
Also! I signed up for the swing dancing club here on campus. Booyah.
And now I'm going to bed. I didn't do any homework today, aside from a few pages of The Odyssey. So tomorrow will be properly busy. Yay for being busy! Goodnight, folks.
This makes me miss you so much!
ReplyDeleteI remember the empty loneliness of not knowing who to eat with at school. I'm pretty sure that's why I lost 20 pounds during my first semester at Concordia. Don't let it happen--you hip bones stick out enough, anyway ;-)
But then I started realizing how many other lonely girls were sitting by themselves at meals, and I forced myself to walk up to them and as if I could join them. I made a few really good friends that way. There's always someone just as lonely as you.
Church sounds great! How nice to be able to go with a group of friends (and especially, to eat together afterwards!) Hopefully, there are some great friendships in that group just waiting to surface.
You are loved!!!
♥ B
p.s. I got hung up on the word "Evans" for 0.2 seconds, and then I realized that you didn't put an apostrophe, so it obviously wasn't about a boy. And then I laughed when I saw your sentence of clarification following. Don't you love how we're both so predictable?