Liz's Spot ~ Blog : ): July 2005

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Hello Everybody!

Hello! I'm back from my blogging leave, at least temporarily. :) It's hard to keep up with blogging faithfully. I think a blog works best as either 1) a personal journal that you don't mind the world reading, 2) a means of communicating with people who are interested in your life but neither of you have the time to communicate constantly, or 3) a way of communicating with the world about your views on politics, as your "column," or whatever.

Since April 30 I've been back in the States. Of course it sounds strange to say that, because until this spring, I've never been anywhere but in "the States." So calling it "the States" implies a sort of experience that perhaps I don't have. During the spring and since then, it seems that life has been moving too fast for me to really assess either it or Europe well. I'm not sure what I got out of the Europe trip really. I also find that what I thought I learned there, I have forgotten much of since I got home. At first when I came back, I felt much different--like I didn't fit the life I came back to, but now I am back into the groove of my "old" life and am in many ways the same person as before. There are many ways I've changed, too. I actually think many of the changes are negative.

I found Europe very hard on my inner person. The distance from home was actually not the hard part. The hard part was keeping a good, right perspective on me and the world around me. Some things that made this hard were 1) being away from almost any other Christians besides Justin (and eventually, our friends Robin and Andrew, but we didn't get to spend too much time with them until almost the end of the trip), 2) growing to depend on Justin almost totally for friendship--good for getting to know him and for growing a really close relationship, but I think bad because I grew to depend on him so SO much--made it hard to be a good friend or sister or daughter when I came back, 3) traveling all the time. I think this was good for me in many ways--made me realize I can do without a lot of stuff, helped me become more flexible in respect to what I am willing to consider "home." I am much more portable now--inside and out. But it was hard because it was so wearing. I guess that's about all.

I think there were some good changes, but it seems like they didn't stick as long. One is flexibility, like I said above. Another is being close to Justin. Being in Europe with him helped me get to know him very well--I think I have seen him in pretty much all of his moods, and we've sure worked through a lot of stuff by being together for so many hours and in so many situations. Another change is that I can be more courageous and willing to try new things, but I think this is the biggest area where I've lost the change since I got back here.

Well, now that it's summer again and I'm here and established, I've been working back in my job on campus that I had last fall. I'm an office assistant in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech. I file a lot. :) I teach some of my piano students from last fall, but that not very regularly, because they go out of town so often. I had an online technical writing class First Summer Session, but that just ended, thankfully. Now Justin has a class. This next week is Vacation Bible School. Justin and I are doing some skits together for it, which we need to practice in a few minutes. I am so happy to be less busy now that class is over, because I like to have time to do stuff and be alive. :) I like to have time to cook and read, write letters, sit outside, run errands, etc. I don't know what I will really accomplish this summer, but I hope to do some fun and lasting things.