First Saturday in the City

235/365

"(...) and I felt as if Christ was the only friend I had in Chicago. But since then I have found some nice people..." - The Shorter Life of D.L. Moody by Paul D. Moody and A. P. Fitt

It's strange, because I'm an old soul, and part of that means I think about things a lot. I thought a lot - like, a lot - about what life at Moody would be like, and while I didn't think I would get here and magically make a million friends, I kind of did expect that. It's not as though I haven't made any friends, because I have made so many! Not all of the returning students are back yet, but I think even then it will still continue to be this friendly environment where I feel perfectly comfortable sitting next to almost anybody and at least starting a simple conversation - What's your name? What year are you? What's your major? Where are you from? - and so on. 

Tonight I was feeling pretty down because my window faces the plaza, which means you can almost here conversations as they float up and bounce off the walls. It's hard to not feel at least a  little bit lonely hearing everyone holler (mostly returning students greeting the friends they haven't seen for a while) and head out into the city for the evening while you're watching from nine stories up. I somehow ended up taking a walk around campus and then sitting in the plaza chatting with a girl on my floor who I have every class with this semester, then when we got back to our floor I moved my orientation reading (which is where that excerpt came from) to the lounge with my nighttime snack. I sat there on my own for a while, people passing by to go to the bathroom, etc., when another girl from my floor asked me about Doctor Who, while led to talk about other TV shows and fandoms and college life. A third girl joined during that time and we all chatted for a little bit, then one went to bed and I was still chatting with the other...and it's just nice that the simple act of moving your loneliness to the lounge can spur conversations and relationships and ideas on what to do for dinner tomorrow.

- rl

(p.s. this is part of my 14 goals for 2014. You can view all my goals here.)