Going to new places: drained and energized

This fall I just started attending Biola University in southern California, and that got me thinking about moving. Every day I drive 30 minutes to and from school, every day I walk around campus at least once. Movement is part of life, including moving away… I am used to moving away, I have moved away more than 9 times in my life, sometimes I don’t even tell someone I am moving away.
But in this post I am going to talk about moving to or moving in. at Biola I am not living in a dorm, but I intend to make my place at the university. Over the first 2½ weeks I observed my own behavior (as I often do) and the behavior of other freshman around me, here is what I found:
People who are new to a place spend much time of their first week looking around, I would watch freshmen eat and they wouldn’t look at their food, they watch people like a gazelle at a watering hole. After they get over the initial shock then they, or we, act completely not ourselves. The first few weeks of school, I was quite, tame, and only friendly if I had to be. On most days I never got the inclination to go and hangout outside (I mostly studied in the library). Then slowly I got back my original personality and started pumping energy into people through my hand shakes. I am such the extrovert that whenever I am not socializing I get drained.
So then I was conversing with a friend about this and she said, “Justin, you and I are exact opposites.” Then she began to tell me about how the more people are around the quieter and quieter she gets, and that just made me laugh.
It is funny how people are wired, I have been taking an UNDECLARED seminar, and the class is pretty good, and 1 thing I have learned is that strengths aren’t necessary the things you’re strong at, no it is the things that make you feel stronger, the things that energize you. People are my energizer!
One last thing, today is September 11, 2009 and it has been 8 years since the WTC fell. Please keep the people whose families were lost in 9/11 in your prayers.
-over and out! Hustin.