1 year down and summer is here

As I am sitting here on the last day of april school is all done (well first year is). As I have said throughout this school year, I have really been blessed at Redeemer, on my first day already I felt like I was in the right place. The experiences that I have gained in the last year will last me a lifetime. Besides all the large events there are also small things that have made this year amazing. I will not name specific memories, because the year as a whole was a great learning experience full of blessings. As I was reading through my fellow bloggers blog's I read a great post on Heather Zuidhof's blog. Now I am not a big fan of stealing from other blogs, but I will this time. The piece on Heather's blog (see blog roll left) had a great understanding of how different life is between university and home, how there are 2 worlds.

Here is the piece,
"A year has passed and now we stand on the brink of returning to a world where we are surrounded by the paradox of everything, and yet nothing being the same. In one week we will reluctantly give our hugs and, fighting the tears, say goodbye to people who were once just names on a sheet of paper, to return to people that we hugged and fought tears to say goodbye to before we ever left.
We will leave our best friends to return to our best friends. We will go back to the places we came from and go back to the same things we did last summer, and every summer before that. We will come into town on that same familiar road, and even though it has been months, it will seem like only yesterday.As you walk into your old bedroom, every emotion will pass through you as you reflect on the way your life has changed and the person you have become. You suddenly realize that the things that were most important to you a year ago don't seem to matter so much anymore, and the things you hold highest now, no one at home will completely understand.
The memories and the stories from school won't mean anything to anyone at home and yet you resent them for that they can't share that happiness with you. Who will you call first? What will you do your first weekend home with your friends? How long before you actually start missing people barging in without calling or knocking? Who will get pizza at three in the morning with you now? How long until you adjust to sleeping alone in a room again?
Then you start to realize how much things have changed, and you realize the hardest part of university is balancing the two completely different worlds you now live in, trying desperately to hold on to everything all the while trying to figure out what you have to leave behind. In the matter of one day's traveling time we will leave our world of living next door to our best friends, walking across campus to eat, instant messenger, 8:00am classes and the perpetual procrastination to a world that will seem foreign to us despite the fact that we lived in it for eighteen years.
But it is different now. We now know the meaning of true friendship. We know who we have kept in touch with over the past year and who we hold dearest in our hearts. We've left our high school world to deal with the real world. We've had our hearts broken, we've fallen in love, we've helped our best friends overcome depression, stress and death, and we've stayed up all night on the phone just to talk to a friend in need. There have been times when we've felt so helpless being hours away from home when we know our families needed us, and there are times we know we have made a difference.
One week from now we will leave. One week from now we take down our pictures and pack up our clothes. No more going next door to do nothing for hours on end. We will leave our friends whose random email and phone calls will bring us to laughter and tears this summer. We will take our memories and dreams and put them away for now, saving them for our return to this world. One week from now we will arrive. We will unpack our bags and have dinner with our families. We will drive over to our best friend's house and do nothing for hours on end. We will return to the same friends whose random emails and phone calls have brought us to laughter and tears over the year. We will unpack old dreams and memories that have been put away for the past year. In one week we will dig deep inside to find the strength and conviction to adjust to change and still keep each other close.
And somehow, in some way, we will find our place between these two completely different worlds."

The great thing is, we will find our place between these two worlds. Wednesday morning I found my place between these two worlds. Before 11:20AM my university world was the only world I had a place in. At night I would be done my exams and I would be done my first year, however, I had no summer plans at all. However, things change; I got a call at 11:20 that Scott Missions Camp would love to offer me a job for July and August. And it is almost certain that in may and june I will probably work for Redeemer Food Services.

However, let's not look in the future, let tomorrow's worries (joy's) be for tomorrow. Yesterday, my destination was Lester B. Pearson Airport (that's Toronto). I picked up my brother and his wife from the airport. My oldest brother and his wife live in Holland and so I did not see them since June last year. It is great to be around family (even family from Holland) and it is great to be home for a little while, even though I have never lived in this house longer than 2 weeks.

Well, I want to be social again, so I will get back to you later.

Hi from everybody (my mom, my brother (Jeroen) his wife (Jacqueline) and from me. God bless.