A Boomerang Adventure

“So when they were gone out, they parted the one from the other, and turning back again they came to the same place…” Susanna 1:14

January 6, 2012 I left PLU to explore Greece. That day, I left my family, my home, my comfortable surroundings and the language I understood. For many, January means doing the same as I did. We pick up our studies and trade our Tacoma campus for one a few thousand miles away.
At sophomore year, many students have declared their major and the number keeps increasing as the semester’s progress. I find myself in classes that house the same students. I recognize him and realize that I had intro psychology with her. As I start to work towards my upper level division classes, I have familiar faces with the same major and similar interests that I do. It is great to get to know fellow Lutes that love the human body like I do, and see others finding internships that would fit my likings. Nevertheless, by taking a religion course and experiencing life off of the PLU campus, I have met people that I may have never had a class with or had the opportunity to know. Some of the people on this J-term I have seen around campus, but most where new faces. I have created seventeen new friends. Only one other person has a similar major and if it weren’t for this course, I don’t believe I would have gotten to know any of the others. The class has a wide variety of majors and interests. We have someone who is fluent in French, a student who is passionate about geology, a future music teacher, a track runner, a fantastic singers and a student who is undecided in field of study, waiting for the right path to come along. The Greece family is a diverse one, but we all share similar interest; a love for Greece and each other. Even though we are an assorted group, we have meshed in a way that is uncommon for a crowd this large. At the end of January, we will return home to our fellow Lutes. We will share stories with friends who stayed on campus and we will hear tales of other amazing January adventures. J-term is unique to PLU and it is a wonderful opportunity that provides students the chance to take learning from the classroom to around the world. In December, students prepared their warm coats or shorts, and their mittens or sunscreen. We all left as Lutes venturing out into the world of unknown, traveling to different countries and representing the first school to have students studying on all seven continents simultaneously. We left as Lutes ready to endure a new culture and adapt to the new time zone. We left as Lutes and we will return as Lutes with a new perspective on the world to bring to our Parkland community.