I feel more perfect every day

Behold! Translating the English from the Greek the passages in the John 1st epistle I am. Word order in Greek...wonderful it is. The past few classes we've been working through 1 John in class and have translation quizes the next day over a section of the passsage. It's going pretty well. It's great to be able to read through the text with relative ease. I'm actually reading a book of the Bible in Greek!! How cool is that?! Finally, I feel some reward from this long and difficult process! We'll be translating 1 John for the rest of the week/class and on the last day of class we're translating/reading Philemon.

I am starting to feel more like myself these days. I am beginning to realize that it is ok to do so. I think my main problem was that I felt like I was having to grow up way too fast by coming here, and I was really resistent to that. Grad school is a different atmosphere than college. While PTS is a seminary with a younger average age than most seminaries, most people are significantly older than me. And I guess what I mean by that is not so much that they're old physically (I'm thinking like around the ages of 29-30 ish), but more so that they're at a different point in their life than I am. I am still very much oriented around college life and they are coming from years in real world jobs and/or families.

I've found a group of people that are closer to my age and they are helping me realize that I can be myself. I'm 22 and going to Grad school isn't going to change the fact that I am still a youngin, or my desire for random crazy times every now and then. I guess I was so concerned about making friends for a while that it actually inhibited me from really doing so. It made me self-conscious--"I don't dress nicely enough, I'm wearing T-shirts and jean shorts and everyone else is wearing nice clothes"; "I'm so young"; "I don't really fit in anywhere". All this on top of struggling with a new language, and a different part of the country was enough to make me uncomfortable pretty much all the time. I wanted to me myself, but didn't feel like I could.

I am beginning to feel comfortable now. At least a little. More so with some people than others. I still don't think these people know who their really dealing with. ;-)

Maybe just like some of you reading this post. That's why you shouldn't let reading about my life from my journal be the last word of how I'm really doing and who I am. Translation...I miss talking to you guys so please e-mail me, or post comments, or call me, or something! I miss you!

And I am so incrediably sad that most everyone else is going home for the week off next week and I am stuck here...I really want to go home and I can't until Christmas. Let's hope I make it that long... But, Carrie's stopping by with her mom tomorrow on her way to Boston so that will be great. It's good having other friends starting seminary at the same time. Carrie and Lauren as well as Bret from my home church in Corpus.

Ok, I'll shut up now...