On Identities

This weekend I went to my student orientation for RPI.
It may have been the most socially awkward event that i've ever been to, because at RPI, everyone is socially awkward in some way. At 8:00 last night, they told us that we were going to the "New Student Celebration". It was essentially a highschool dance, except 80% of the kids didn't even go on the dance floor. And we're in upstate new york, so all they played was slow, annoying club music, not the high-energy disco that i'm used to for dances. There was a few good minutes of enjoyment, but most of it was just noise and advisors encouraging people to mingle.

Here's my overall impression:
RPI is a lot like my highschool. This is both good and bad, but i don't know which it is more of. I'm not too worried about my schedule, as it looks like its going to be a lot of the familiar struggles with calculus and physics that I spent my whole senior year getting used to. That's a little comforting, though I'll admit I was beyond joyous when AP tests were over. Summer break feels like a fleeting respite from the agony.
More familiar than the sinking i'd-better-find-someone-smarter-than-me-and-be-their-friend feeling was the faces: I met at least 10 different people who all eerily resemble someone that I already know. That's playing tricks with my head, because I will probably forget about the people that i currently know as I get to be friends with the people that look like them. There's even a girl here named Kathryn who calls herself Katy. I kept doing double-takes because she looks exactly identical to a "katy" from Maine.

I really feel a lot like i did the first week I went to somersworth high school.
There's this familiar deal with stereotypes: At RPI, there seems to be three(3) mixable, interchangeable, fashionable stereotypes: The Nerd/Geek (of which there are several flavors), the "Smart Jock", and the "Minority". Everyone seems to have at least one of these traits down pretty good.
Except me.
I believe that I have succesfully avoided stereotype as a teenager through my mish-mash of changing schools, intense time divisions, and diverse assortment of friends. Resultingly, I don't have a recognizable "clothing style", unless jeans+tshirt with the occasional khaki/polo has a style named for it, I don't play any sports, I have good hygine and don't talk about videogames during lunch...

I feel very out of my own environment. I'm sure everyone does.
But I'm starting to get used to that feeling.
So far my only hope is that the christian group here isn't lame. Because I know i never would have made it through highschool without Uturn, and maybe, just maybe, there will be continuity through a campus group that will allow me to keep my bearings.

This is going to be a pretty nutty next couple of months.
But as Paul said to Timothy one day, "Continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." [2tim 3:14+15]

It is impossible to ever be completely lost, completely alone, or completely forgotten.