on belonging

so i was thinking a little bit as i was walking across the rpi campus today.
(sidenote: first blog post as a college student)
I was thinking about belonging.
I've been plenty of places during my short life on earth: i've been through private middle school, public highschool, private highschool, juggled churches, and now i'm a student at a university with a ~$800m endowment.
And what i've realized is that i've never really "fit in" anywhere, the exception being cwc.

In middle school i was the kid that threw pencils at people.
At somersworth i was the fattish kid in the corner that didn't talk to people.
At BA US i was constantly stretched in every direction and couldn't ever focus on academics. And all my friends weren't in my grade.

At RPI i'm the kid in engineering that doesn't want to be an engineer, the kid with a bicycle that doesn't use it because i enjoy walking, the kid that is completely lost in physicsII and mostly lost in calcII, the kid that gets locked inside stairwells in EMPAC, who misses job interviews because the interviewer's phone didn't ring, who doesn't go to frat parties, whose laptop needed reimaging 10 minutes after he got it because vista lets you create limited user accounts when there are no administrator accounts on the machine, the list goes on.

So i'm thinking, maybe its not that i don't fit in here.
Maybe it's that i just don't like fitting.
Example:
In highschool, I amassed a collection of geeky tshirts because a) they were funny and b) no one else had them.
Now i go to a school where everyone wears geeky tshirts and i no longer wear them. because other people do.

But i think that there are advantages to being somewhere that you don't fit.
Mostly, people remember you.
I missed my job interview at EMPAC today because i was supposed to call the guy's cell phone so that he could open the door for me. I called it at exactly 4:40, the time of my interview, and it went straight to voicemail. Thinking that he was running late, I just hung around in the hallway for a little bit.
There was a stairwell next to me.
I started looking out the window.
The door shut behind me, and it locked.
And i soon discovered that every door leading to the inside was locked.
So i ran down 6 flights of stairs as fast as i could, luckily there was an outside door at the bottom, and then ran back inside the main entrance and up 6 flights of stairs again.
Then i waited where i was before.
At 5:17 he came out the door.
me: "are you heading out?"
him: "yes, did you want to meet with me?"
me: "yeah i had an interview at 4:40"
"well it's 5:..." (shows phone clock)
"yeah i thought you were running late"
"i've been standing here by the door, you were supposed to call.."
"i did..." (takes out phone) "it went straight to voicemail"
"oh... well i'm sorry about that, how about you email me for another time slot"
"okay, sorry. thank you"

then we left. But with any luck, my unfortunate exchange will help him to remember me next week when i get an actual interview. maybe.

anyway, some parting thoughts:
psalm 119:19 says "i am a stranger in this world"
and that's how i feel every day.
But i don't mind it too much, because i think that i'm supposed to be here.
also, in verse 11 says, "i have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you"
and that's also how i feel- that through the daily troubles of college life i have nothing to worry about because I have God's word hidden inside of me, forever, holding a spot that cannot ever be usurped. And if i rely daily on it, nothing can go wrong because i'm convinced that inside of God's will, there is no wrong.