Breathtaking

This morning I woke up to the sound of the San Diego breeze playing with my string of pearls and I smiled. The street below was shrouded by the ocean fog, but if you squinted at the horizon, you could peer through and see the sea. I live in paradise.

They tell you to never shop when you're hungry, but they must have never been a college student. Since moving into my new dorm yesterday morning (!!), I've been ravenous. Maybe it's the adrenaline of moving into a new place or maybe it's the physical strain of hauling boxes around, whatever it is, I feel like a teenage boy.

It's surreal being here. I look around me; at the beach, at the palm trees, at this incredible campus, at the UCSD bag that's sitting on my table, and I can hardly believe it. Is this me? Really? I've dreamt about being here for so many months, planned and researched as much as humanly possible, and now I'm here! It's breathtaking and school hasn't even started yet. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

And yet, I really miss Sacramento...well, actually, more like the people who live there. It's so hard being away from the people I love; I want to share my day with them, whisper funny things in their ear, laugh with them, explore SD with them, run across the sand to the ocean with them, hug them, and be hugged by them. But they're 500 miles away. It's really, really hard.

A blazing sun is now setting over the writhing blue of the sea. It's an incredible contrast; the flaming oranges and red of the San Diego sunset suddenly collide with the deep, cold blackness of the watery horizon. And I get to sit in my bed and watch it all. In my bed! B.B. King is quietly serenading me - it's a bluesy kind of night - and my phone vibrates with an incoming text. It's hard leaving my friends and family so far away, but God has surrounded me with every possible beautiful thing. Everything I have *ever* wanted, I now have. It's incredible really.