A Mental and Physical Gnawing

Yesterday was a slightly better day. Each one is better than the last, though there are emotional ups and downs throughout the day. Yesterday, though, something very interesting happened. For the briefest of hours, I didn't feel the gnawing. This 'gnawing' as I've termed it is a perpetual wearing down of my ability to deal with the world around me. Homesickness, in effect. It has always been there, chewing away inside me. As we were walking back this afternoon from our British Life and Culture lecture on theater (which was actually very boring), I felt a small measure of security for the first time while in London. For the rest of the afternoon, I was the closest to 'at peace' since arriving here. But the feeling has returned, ever ready to continue its havoc.

I've noticed a pattern of ups and downs over my few days here. In the morning, I'm sad about being here and wishing to be back home. By the afternoon and usually lasting into early evening, I'm ok with it, even optimistic that things will get better someday. But by the time I go to bed, I'm sad again. I dread the morning and evening because I know those feelings are coming. While eating breakfast, I thanked the Lord for getting me through another day. 79 left. Tomorrow it will be 78 (hooray for the seventies!). The days are also beginning to speed up, if only by minuscule amounts. That is encouraging. This pattern seems something like a normal business cycle. There are recessions and booms, but if the economy is healthy it has an overall upward long-term trend (eventually the good outweighs the bad). Things get better as time goes by. I have a webcam that I use to keep in touch with family in addition to email; it helps so much.

I went to a Wednesday night Bible study last night. It was at one of the churches that my pastor back home had recommended for me. It's very, very easy to get to by the Tube. It's a smaller church, about the size of ours at home, and a visitor on Wednesday night is very noticeable, so the pastor immediately came up and started talking to me. He's perhaps in his late twenties, and I met his wife who seems to be Asian- perhaps Indonesian or something like that. All of the people were so very nice to me! The pastor invited me to go with them on a sight-seeing tour that the church is taking on Monday. I'm thinking I just might come along.

It's very interesting to notice some differences between typical Baptist churches of the US and of the UK. There is definitely a much more conservative presence here. Praise music and anything besides a piano or organ would be out of place. I know I've only visited one, but I did some research on the others that Pastor Kendall gave me. I might stay at this church- they're easily accessible, genuinely friendly, and small in number so I imagine they'd be very willing to 'love on me' as a visitor.

Today, a gal from my flat named Emily and I went to the Science Museum. Because it's so close to where we go to school (Imperial College), we were able to walk there. The rest of the flat went to the new Indiana Jones movie, but it's about seven pounds or $14. Ugh. The Museum was pretty interesting especially the space section where they mixed European aeronautics with NASA stuff. Yay America! We're trying to get things planned for all the afternoons we have off, so we get a chance to see London pretty thoroughly before our internships begin.

(I love seeing glimpses of American influence while I'm over here. Basically, our country's sweet. And I miss it.)

And an update on my food situation! So I came here with little cooking experience. Sure, when I'm at home I can whip up something with a few ingredients, but I have no idea what to do here. Ahh! I started out not eating so well. Actually, what I did eat was/is highly nutritious, but I hadn't had time to figure out what to cook, buy the ingredients, and make time to cook it. So on Tuesday I had a bowl of brown rice with lima beans seasoned with our only spices, salt and pepper, for lunch. It was...interesting. And for supper I needed to cook my ground beef and stir-fry before the expiration dates, so I cooked the beef, set it aside, and then cooked the stir-fry and combined the two. Now that was interesting.

I was basically always hungry throughout the day. Ugh, no fun. So, I stopped by the grocery store after class and literally wandered around for half an hour familiarizing myself with the layout and the food they offer. Twelve British pounds later, I was the proud owner of 3 frozen dinners, 4 ready-made chicken kievs, 1 bag of shelled walnuts, raspberry jam cookies, humous (Yes, humous not humus. Usually I don't like it, but their brand is ok), and pretzyls (Yes, I spell pretzyls strangely, but this is my blog so it's stayin'). On Wednesday night, I had a frozen chicken/broccoli/potato dinner and tonight I made a quesadilla! I found tortillas in the 'world food' section of the store. I hope to explore the cheese selections-- it's quite large. I brought home some Red Leicester cheese which tastes a bit like cheddar.

Tomorrow I hope to get some pictures of our flat taken and put online for y'all's viewing pleasure....and to demonstrate just how small this flat is what with it's six female residents. We're managing pretty well, though.