Your faith was strong, but you needed proof...

One month. It's been about one month since I moved in here. And already, there are some things I miss from home.

My old friends for example. That's one thing about friends from home as opposed to friends you meet at school - your friends from home know all about you, and accept you regardless. They know your quirks and idiosyncrasies. They can pretty much predict what you're going to say when.

But here, they don't know you. They only know what you've chosen to expose. Anything you've kept hidden will stay hidden until you release it, as they're not suspecting anything. You may live with these people, but it doesn't mean they know you.

I came into college with the mindset that I could be whoever I wanted to be. I could try to be different than I was in high school. For instance, I could try to be quieter. In high school, I talked too much. Not in class, but when among friends. I spent too much time injecting my own opinion and not enough listening.

I tried to amend that somewhat my first few weeks here. I tried to be more ears than mouth, more Mickey than Goofy. But I ended up reverting to that which I was before, talking too much and listening too little. I could be whoever I wanted to be, and I tried to be something new, but couldn't.

Disappointing. I wasn't able to make this simple change in myself given a clean slate and a whole group of people that didn't know me. And now it's too late to try and begin again. They know I talk.

I tried this, once, back in junior year of high school. I was in my Driver's Education class after school, at the time, and it seemed that the easiest way to get by in that class was to not speak unless spoken to. I wanted to take this philosophy into my classes, see how it worked.

It lasted all of a week and a half.

I was enrolled in a General Semantics course (which has really shaped the attitude I take toward English today), and the class was very discussion-oriented. I tried to sit back and watch the debates unfold, such as whether language is necessary for communication to exist. But, as my hometown friends, and just maybe my Northeastern friends have realized, I'm an opinionated person. And when I have an opinion, I typically share it. There were just some arguments I was compelled to enter, and from that point on, I spoke incessantly in that class. The teacher was somewhat pleased at my level of participation, but I found it somewhat disheartening that I couldn't succeed.

And now I've failed again. Of course, I still have secrets, and I plan on working feverishly to protect them, but it doesn't mean as much as trying not to talk.

Ironic, then, that I write such long entries to this journal.