One Month Later

It's been exactly one month since I got here, and I was right. It's not THAT bad. I mean, it's not fantastic, but it's definitely as bad as it was those first few days. I'm not ALWAYS lost, and I've gotten used to copious amounts of u-turns (some of them are always necessary because they don't believe in left turns here, and some are because I still do get lost a lot). I think I can legitimately count the people here as friends now. I'm still homesick all of the time, and everything makes me think of the people and the place that I've left behind, but it's not so painful all the time. It's better when I get out of the house--sitting home alone is tough, so I socialize A LOT. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but it does result in things like my 2 1/2 hour nap today (which was also because my brain is exhausted).

I was right that this was one of the hardest things I've done. I don't know if it's because my brain had atrophied from disuse in the semester I took off or if it's because this stuff is really hard, or because I care so much more now (or some combination of the 3), but I am trying so much harder now than I did in undergrad. I think this is probably a good thing. It's SUPPOSED to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great. Or, at least that's what I keep telling myself.

My point is, I was right. Even if it didn't seem like it would get better it did. Thanks, former advisor, for teaching me the law of regression to the mean. It's always so helpful in restoring my sanity.

My wonderful Mom has a birthday on Saturday. Stay tuned for a post all about her. In the mean time, I'm going to react to a cognition article and work on building a website.

One thing I will say about moving out here--I'm doing a lot of things I've never really done before (exercising semi-regularly, willingly watching football games--albeit not very interestedly, making websites) and it's really showing me my potential to grow. I can do a lot more than I ever really let myself do before.