Getting Oriented

Day 1 of orientation is completed. I'm hanging out in my room, just enjoying some alone time. We were basically in "class" from 8-5 today which feels like a really long time, even though all of the info is super important. I had to hit the Mountain Dew for a caffeine fix before ten o'clock in the morning! I think I need to consider taking up the more sophisticated practice of drinking that bitter black stuff.

Because of the time change, I was pretty awake by 5:45 and went for a run around the campus with one of my teammates. Turns out both of our parents didn't want us running alone, so it was cool how within a few minutes of talking on the bus we realized we both enjoyed running early in the morning and decided to go together.

I have now met all my new teammates - there are four of us here who are the "newbies" - and I am so thankful because we all get along really well so far and have enjoyed hanging out and sitting together during the sessions. Team dynamics was one of my bigger concerns, and so it is a real blessing to have hit it off with them so great already (we'll see how we feel about each other after another 7 weeks straight of hanging out during TEFL training and Language Lessons!;)

Each of us have our own room here in the dorm which is a huge blessing because of just how incredibly emotionally draining the process of saying goodbye was all last week. Turns out most of the people I've talked to felt the same way about saying goodbye to friends and family, and being able to retreat to my room for some R&R is a huge blessing. Below is a picture of my room, very neat and tidy as you can tell!

This picture is especially for my mom so she can see how I organized all my clothes in the drawers already. See, I do pay attention to some of the things you tell me! That, and just the idea of living out of a suitcase for the next 7 weeks isn't really that appealing, so I'm trying to make it feel like home as much as possible! :)

Here's me just being a dork and modeling my motor bike helmet. I think I should take the writing off the sunglass insert before I start driving, though that won't be for quite a while...8 weeks after getting in country.

Well, I wish I could share something more substantive on here, but a lot of what we learned and heard today isn't really supposed to leave the room for obvious reasons. Probably the thing that stuck with me the most today was shared by the president this morning discussing the question JC posed to Peter, do you love me? We can do all sorts of service and such for Him, but if we don't truly love Him, and have that be the motivation of our hearts, then it's all for naught. Of course, he said it much more eloquently than I just did here, but it really made me think. What is my motivation, and how can I grow in my love towards Him?

Something to reflect on as I begin this new phase of my journey.