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It’s been over three weeks now since I moved to Bryan College.

Honestly, it is only just barely starting to become real. Part of the reason for this is the fact that for the first three weekends—Mother’s Day, the day of a Christian music festival that I took a friend to, and the weekend of my high school graduation party and Memorial Day—I was to go back home. And as long as I kept going home, there was something artificial about the fact that I had a new home.

It happened in somewhat of a crazy way. I first started to really notice it at three weeks, but it mainly hit when my mom said it was two weeks away, not because I did not already know that, but because she said it would go by quickly. That was when, as could be expected, each day began to go basically as slowly as it possibly could.

Nonetheless, my mom began to make it quite important thing that I had things that I would need, such as dishes and linens. We began to have brief little discussions about whether or not I was taking certain things.

And then it was May 6th. And I was packing. On May 7th, I packed some more. And on the morning of May 8th, I had to pack things I had forgotten to pack on the two previous days and the last few things that were not to be packed until my departure.

And then I left home, and have not been back more than three at a time days since.

As I said, it takes a lot to get used to the fact that I don’t live at home and that home is actually in a new place. But I think that now, at last, it is becoming more official in my mind.

As I said in a previous issue, the fact that I was moving out was in several respects a Godsend. But I originally did not plan to move until the 12th, because Bryan College had to clean out the townhouses and primp them and get them ready for us to stay in. So, it was planned that I would begin work that week.

But then Mrs. Wesolowski and my soon-to-be employer got together and determined that I needed to come on the week of the 8th because that would be training week. So, in her usual way of offering to take care of everything, Mrs. Wesolowski called me and asked if I’d be willing to stay at her house for the first week.

A week later, after this was all settled, it was discovered that I would be able to move into the townhouse by Tuesday the 9th, so I would be staying with Mrs. Wesolowski for one night as opposed to one week. I was somewhat indifferent to this, not because I did or didn’t want to stay with Mrs. Wesolowski, but because by that time the entire idea of this whole thing being less than a week out had my mind in a spin.

I arrived at Bryan College, as I mentioned, on May 8th, 2023, which was a Monday. It was a rainy day, which somehow threw off the entire mood. On top of that, I was in a hurry to get some necessary things done for my housing and living at Bryan. It turned out that I was able to move in that very day after all so I did not end up staying with Mrs. Wesolowski after all.

The first few days were the weirdest. Those were the days when I didn’t really know anyone that well, and despite the fact that I was familiar with Bryan, the situation was very unfamiliar. So, for probably the first week, I was still in the mindset that it was all a vacation, similar to the Summer Institute that I attended last year.

As a side note, I will be able to attend the 2023 Summer Institute at Bryan. I won second prize in an essay contest, which was a 50% discount for the event, and I was also given a generous gift from a dear friend. Adding this to the fact that this would give me an opportunity to preview the Martial Arts program, a major selling point in my Bryan experience, it became totally worth it.

I went home for Mother’s Day on the first weekend after my arrival, and when I returned to Bryan I brought a few more things that I needed in order to make my one-sixth of the townhouse into a home. And then all throughout the next week, I still had the vague feeling that I was on some sort of vacation until I went home again, this time to attend a music festival I was taking my friend to.

The third week was a bit homier—if that’s the right word. I was still a new person in a new place, but I started to settle in and lose the mentality of being away from home. And the next weekend, when I went home for my graduation party and Memorial Day, I realized that the feeling was starting to be reversed. And for the first time, I referred to this home—my Bryan College townhouse—as home.

This weekend, I’m not going home. Instead, this weekend, I will stay at Bryan.

Now, as I finish this issue, I am sitting in the townhouse living room with two of my roommates and one of our friends laughing our heads off over random stuff. It is Friday night, June 2, and I have been at Bryan for almost four weeks. I know the people I live with well enough, and I am more familiar with the environment. I am just now getting into the place where, as is often my way, I want to start involving myself in other things, starting to become a part of the Bryan community and of the local community as well.

And now, at last, though I have much ahead of me and much to learn about the people and things around me, I can sit here and say,

I am home.

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