I know I said I would try to update every month, but life seriously took a hold of the reigns since I've gotten here.

Have I really only been here for a month and a half? It seems a lot longer. I've settled into a routine, made a few good friends, and have studied way too much.

Currently, I'm procrastinating from writing my--as the syllabus calls it--brief 15-20 page paper. I know, right? BRIEF!? Are you crazy? I'm used to writing 5 page papers. 10, at most. So as you can imagine, I'm at a deadlock with writing right now, so I'm going to make life easier on myself and have a super structured blog post. (edit--I'm now done. I started this post a few days ago)


FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

How's school?

It's hard. Not necessarily in the difficulty of the material, but MIT really is drinking from a fire  hose. The readings are endless (I think I'm assigned around 300-400 pages a week). I would do ALL of the readings the first few weeks, and now I do probably half. I realized I could get by without doing all of them. I don't know how people who procrastinate do it! Sometimes I feel like a real planning newb because the people in my class are extremely smart and well-versed. They know a lot about politics and design, and love to discuss and debate in class. As for me, I contribute very little and like to blend into the background and hope that I don't get called on in class. Yay for me!


BUT! I've been doing well so far... what a relief! I thought I would fail out of this program, but so far my assignments have been graded fine, and I got above the mean on my first midterm! AND IT WAS ECON. How trippy is that? For now, I can say that I BELONG HERE!

Something that is often emphasized here is that getting a degree at MIT comes with a lot of expectations and that it is truly a privilege. For some reason, although I agree, this statement makes me feel really uncomfortable. A part of me doesn't want those expectations thrown at me. I don't want to be expected to be able to 'save the world,' or make amazing contributions to society... especially if this mindset will stray me off the path to glorifying God and losing sight of His Kingdom. I need to remind myself to stay grounded in truth, to be thankful to GOD and appreciate my education, and use it to ultimately make myself small and Christ big.

Are you making friends?

You know, I think God has really taken care of me in this aspect. I think I expected to come into MIT and not make very many friends (especially Christian ones). God provided me to meet a lot of Christians immediately, and not even through Christian-related events. We now hang out regularly, share our burdens with each other, and encourage one another in our spiritual walks. Overall, grad school can still be pretty lonely, but I'm pretty much okay with it. I spend most of my time by myself in my dorm room doing school work, but it's been amazingly peaceful.

Have you found a church?

It's been difficult finding a church here. Not to say that there are bad ones in Boston, but I struggled with finding and pointing out faults (or even things that I just wasn't used to) in different churches and comparing it to Evangel back home. It made me really miss my church family... but I needed to let go of such a critical and judgmental eye, and really focus on finding a church that I could grow in during my time here. I think I've found that church, but I'm still not 100% sure. So interesting that in college, I plugged into EBCB immediately and loved it, and now it's been not so quick and easy of a decision here.

How is long-distance?

Really, we're great. We Skype almost every day and long-distance has been smooth. Nate just returned back to California yesterday after a week long visit, and I enjoyed his company SO SO much. We had a lot of fun together and he really made my time at MIT a lot easier--he bought me groceries, cooked soup for me when I was feeling sick, helped me with my homework, etc. I am so thankful for him, and now I really feel the pains of missing him. Haha.... one more month until Thanksgiving!

Are you homesick?

To be honest, no, not really. I think things have been too busy here for me to really wallow in missing home. I am really looking forward to going home though. It'll be nice to actually have family/people in the house, TWINKLE!, Nate, friends, church friends...

When are you coming back?

Thanksgiving! But I will probably only see my family and Nate since I'll only be there from Tuesday night until Sunday early morning. I'll be back again long term mid-December all the way into the very end of January.


Closing random tidbits:

I walk SO much here and I love it. I have now mastered the art of power walking. I can't walk slowly anymore. Cassandra, let's race.

My acne is the worst it has ever been in my life. It was REALLY bad a few weeks into when I first got here. My entire face was red and swollen and it hurt to talk (that's how bad it was). I don't know what happened--weather? stress? a new life in general? Gah. Now it has subsided, but I have a lot of scars. :( BOO....

I'm excited for winter. Maybe I'll regret saying that, but I want to see some snow! ...And hibernate in my room with the heater on full blast and a mug of hot cocoa (with marshmallows!).