Homesickness.

This has to be one of the worst feelings ever. I miss home, I miss my band, I miss my girlfriend and friends and family, I miss urban vineyard, and I miss music. I do feel helpless about this whole thing.

I am homesick.

I wish there was an easy answer or something I could "do" to fix this, but I think it's something I have to push on and push through. Today I am taking off, away from class to try and recoup. I haven't been sleeping the greatest either so I am pretty sore and tired on top of everything else. 

I messaged my Arts Integration professor this morning just to let him know what's up and that I wouldn't be coming in today. He replied:

Artists always understand.

I would like to escape to a field away from everything with a guitar and some friends and sing to Jesus. That would be nice.

Party in the USA, maybe not.

First week at EU is done and dusted, well kind of. I have a bunch of reading to do and assignments to get started on. There sure isn't a honeymoon period here. Right from the first class I could tell I was going to have to work a lot harder than I had before this semester. 

Going to the ball game.

On Monday I have Multicultural Education in the morning and Social Studies & Art in the evening. Tuesday is Arts Integration, Wednesday Multicultural Ed, Thursday Arts Integration and Friday is Multicultural Ed. again. 

Around that I'm going to have to fine 90 hours of placement time in a school classroom. This is going to be really tough as I have classes every day of the week and I am unable to skip classes to get more hours in a school. This will be tricky.

Trying to juggle multiple classes and assignments at once when I had been used to doing block courses will definitely be a challenge for me. Time management will become more key here than back home as I will have multiple assignments due near the same time as each other.

One of my classes also seems to be ridiculously hard, it is Multi-Cultural Education and it is a level 400 paper, which from my digging would be in between a level 7 and masters paper back home. I definitely do not doubt my ability to do this, but I don't think I'll have as much time to explore as I was hoping.

As part of orientation / induction week we were put into random groups and given a song we had to create a dance to. Our group got given Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus and this is what we came up with...

I have been making a bunch of new friends which has made my transition here a much easier one, especially being around 14,000km (8,000 miles) away from everything that I know. They have offered to take me places (I went to a Phillies game on Thursday), help with any questions I have about assignments etc. it has been a Godsend.

Citizens Bank Park, where the Philadelphia Phillies play.

Asking for prayer, it would be fantastic if you all could pray for my studies this semester as I really feel I am going to need Jesus' guidance to avoid being dumped on and caught in the undertow of academia and also for my friendships as they are developing.

Thank you for reading.