I just got confirmation today that I will be participating in the Global Jubilee Village, which will hopefully be fun and interesting! Practically, this means that I will be gone and without phone/email/etc, October 3-5.

Aside from that, I went to my Aikido trial lesson last night, which went pretty well, and I’ll be starting classes there next week—there are some areas where it’s pretty different from karate, so I’ve got some adjusting to do, but hopefully training there will be a positive experience nonetheless! I’m also somewhat buried in homework at the moment, and am still missing home quite a bit, but I should be fine. More verbiage to come at some later point

So, I went in to an Aikido dojo here in DC to watch a class and meet with the instructor, and it went really well! It’ll definitely be a challenge starting a new art, especially having done karate for 5 years, but I really feel the need to be training in something while I’m here, and I think that this is a really good dojo. The instructor seems like a super nice person, he’s got a good rapport with his students, and the atmosphere at the class was serious but positive, which is great. I’m still training in karate on my own, and nothing’s going to fill my karate space, but I think that training in a dojo will really help restore some of my equilibrium while I’m here. So, I have a trial lesson on Thursday, and then will probably start classes next week; fingers crossed I don’t fall on my head the first day

In other news, coffee with my cousin Raina was lovely, and she actually lives in the same neighborhood as the Aikido dojo, so maybe we’ll get together again soon. I’m going to see Romeo and Juliet with my friend Aracely tonight (I’m sure I’ll have pictures to post), I’ve got reading to do and essays to write (woo?), and then Cap and Gown is this weekend; which, due to an obnoxious policy engineered by the administration here, at least 75% of the freshmen class has to participate in, or we don’t get visitation in October. So yeah, hopefully everybody shows up that needs to show up, because no visitation is stupid. And FYI everybody, pretty much none of my teachers are doing midterms, so I’m liable to be fairly available through October/November, around all of my regular classes and fabulous extracurricular activities. So if you want to chat, ring me and I should get back to you in pretty short order.

So, I’ve now been at college for a little over a month, which means a couple of things. The first is that I’ve now settled in academically and have started getting grades back, which is the more positive note. Unless everything suddenly goes way south for some reason, I am apparently not destined to have a suckish GPA – I got an A on my geography paper and a 9.5 (out of 10) on my communication journal this morning, a 10 out of 10 on my math quiz last week, and a comment on my critical reading journal by my professor that included the phrase “well done!,” so I think I’m doing pretty well so far.

The second is that I am now very, very, desperately homesick, and am generally feeling like I’ve thrown myself out of whack in every possible way. It’s hard, because school itself isn’t going badly for me, and socially I’m doing fine here. But I would be lying if I said that I was really doing OK, because I am honestly having a really hard time with being away from home. I was truly thriving at home, with my stable, stress-free, karate-filled life, and I’m having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that I have essentially forsaken that in favor of what my life is now, which I have not yet managed to construct in such a way as to have it make me even remotely as happy as I was before. Yeah, homesickness is normal, it’ll (probably) pass eventually, etc etc. It still sucks.

So, on balance, I’m doing fine, I’m getting by. Yes mom and daddy, I am eating. No, I have not just fallen apart and given up here. But for the record, I am not currently content with my life, and I am not going to be really, on-balance happy until I am.

In other news, I’m meeting up with my cousin Raina tomorrow for coffee, and headed to see Romeo and Juliet with my friend Aracely next Tuesday, as facilitated by my fabulous aunt, who works for the Shakespeare theater, both of which should be fun. I also put in a registration form today for a Global Jubilee Village, which would be pretty cool if I got to go; I’m not sure yet if I’ll get in, but it would be October 3-5 if I did.

I’m headed up to NYC for a visit with my dad and (some of) the rest of the family … leaving Thursday (the 11th) afternoon, coming back to DC on Sunday (14th) afternoon. I can taste the bagels already School is going pretty well, it’s super hot here but most of the classrooms are well air conditioned so we’re getting stuff done. Annnd that about covers everything!