Cultural adjustment

This is strange.  Wonderful, exhilarating, but strange.  I’m kind of on information-overload.  There are a few other people who are not from this area and as lost as I, but not as many as I was hoping.  Many of them already lived locally or were coming back after doing their undergrad.  Which is great for them, but not for me.  I’m just moving in, trying to figure out my way around town and basic living stuff and then orientation through the seminary and learning people’s names and remembering where I have to be and bring and finding the knife to make my lunch.  MY LUNCH!  Its still in the fridge here.  At least what’s left.  And learning a new laptop, which is a completely different OS than I’m used to.  Its not that horrible.  But I’m still feeling overwhelmed and underprepared.  What’s getting me through at the moment is the knowledge that this is not permanent.  I will figure out how to get around town.  I will remember where the knife got put.  I will know my classes and their expectations.  Things will get better.  

Ooo – I need tomato paste.

I also don’t have Internet in my apartment, which is annoying but I’m actually enjoying the internet-less and TV-less haven I’ve created.  I get things accomplished and plan things out better.  Hulu and Facebook can’t distract me as much.  The seminary campus has wireless for the students, so I just spend a little more time here organizing and playing around.  I think once classes get going, I might appreciate having internet in my apartment since a lot of the professors use Angel and everything is communicated on e-mail.  But I don’t really know.  Its another expense and I’m still jobless at the moment.  I’m hoping that will change, but there’s nothing definite and few good prospects.  I’m hoping to sort things out though.  Or else I won’t be staying here long!

This place is a strange mix of intellectualism and faith in a way I’ve never really experienced before.  Faith and worship run hand in hand with textbooks and tests.  Its nice, but just different.  All that culture adjustment.  It just takes some getting used to.  I’m still afraid of the bubble aspect and mentality that is created from a place like this.  I know the seminary pushes to keep its students from eating, sleeping and breathing seminary, to step out into the world.  But its not all that easy.  There are parts of me that often wonder if these people even know what a secular college really is like.  I made mention of the excessive drinking (not pointing fingers, I partook too!) that happens on a college campus and both Christian-college kids said it happens on their campuses too.  And I agree, there is drinking and whatnot on Christian campuses.  Students get drunk, this is true too.  But its not the same, or to the same extent as a secular campus, which may not be a wet campus, but it doesn’t forbid alcohol or drinking either.  I strongly believe that part of the drinking that happens on a Christian campus is rebellion against parents and the authority.  I wasn’t rebelling against anyone when I drank during my undergrad, except maybe myself.  I didn’t have to be sneaking and hid it.  I clearly didn’t!  Part of that was my school and part of that was my parents.  It never needed to be a secret with them, so I never needed to hid or rebel against that.

But on the flip side, I should give credit where credit is due and know that not every Christian college is filled with perfect little students.  I’m still feeling the outsider around here though.  Its just a different mentality and different focus.  Everyone here starts already believing in God.  In a secular campus, you can’t start there with everyone.  I can’t use the Bible as an authority for why someone’s actions are wrong or sinful if they don’t accept the Bible as an authority.  Its just a different mentality.  But I do need to remember that I’m not the only one who might have gone through a lot of secular experiences.  Everyone does.

Its just…  I feel a bit like the outsider.  Like I do fit in, but not the way I should.  I’m not exactly a "typical" seminarian.  I do know that this seminary does not attempt to smoother or destroy individualism or force a round peg into a square hole.  And I don’t know exactly what a "’typical seminarian" would be like.  So how can I not be something I don’t even know what it is?

I don’t know, but while I do feel like I fit in here, I don’t feel like I belong.  At least not yet.  And perhaps that is something you can’t force.  You have to let it happen over time, organically.  So maybe I’m jumping the gun.  And I know that.  But I still…  I don’t belong the way I did at undergrad.  Granted I didn’t know anywhere there right off the bat either.  I walked into a school half-way through the year when cliques and groups are already formed.  But I instantly had a family in the oboe studio.  I know not all the studios are like that, but this one was.  And I had a family.  I belonged.  The following years I turned right around and tried to make the new freshmen and transfers feel that belongingness too.  That feeling that they had somewhere to turn to if they needed help.

And this, this is exactly what I didn’t really love about Calvin the first time around.  Everyone here is helpful and nice and expresses a willingness to share and provide support.  Not a single person actually reacts with an attitude or plain old meanness.  Which is wonderful.  But creepy.  I would rather you just tell me you didn’t like me and we move forward from there (or make clear your distaste for me).  New Yorkers have a reputation for being cruel and callous, and while that can sometimes be true, they are at least honest at times.  If someone in NY offers me help, or asks me what’s wrong, I know they aren’t doing it because they feel they have to.  They do it because they genuinely care and want to help.  (Yes, I am making a generalization and there are plenty who fall outside that line.  But overall, walking into a situation where you don’t know anywhere, you can pretty quickly figure out where you’ll stand with all these people.)  Out here, I just don’t know.  And its just a little unnerving.  I trust people less out here than I do in NY.  What is wrong with that picture?