two weeks in...

It’s Friday night and the majority of the students are hanging out together in the room next door. It’s been a long week of orientation activities and ‘getting to know you’ games – but it seems to have worked, they’re all ripping on Arnold in a terribly dubbed version of “The Predator” and continuing with their own version of ‘getting to know you’.

With both my week of personal orientation, and now the week with the students here I’m two weeks in and feeling good. And while my first week of personal orientation was really good, it’s been so encouraging for me to have the students here. They all bring stories and knowledge and senses of humor that are such fun to get to know – turns out I sort of like meeting new people : )

I’m also grateful to be here with a community. This program believes so strongly in learning in community and sharing what we’re each going through with each other. I knew coming in, but it has certainly been reinforced that the subject matter of this semester will be heavy indeed. And it’s not just hard to hear because it’s tragic and sad, but it’s hard to hear because having heard these stories, and knowing these people puts huge responsibility on each of us as receivers of that information. I’ve already spent some time feeling overwhelmed by it all – but I’m content to be in a place that refuses to let me be complacent. And, because we’re in such tight community – we don’t have to process this all alone. Which I’m also excited about.

(An afterthought: While re-reading what I’ve written thus far I realize that my posts have been lacking in specifics about the actual things that are impacting me…it’s too late tonight to write more (I think it’s time to head out dancing) but I promise to attempt to include more of that in the future).