First Lesson: Progress Takes Patience

One of the things I really took for granted in the states is routine. Most of you know that I never have a set routine and I'm completely flexible when it comes to spontaneous plans. The one thing that was out of my control is when the sun set and when the sun rose. Because of this, my internal clock always had me go to sleep within a 2 to 3 hour window which always made me wake up at a certain time. I always prided myself in being able to stay up late and not requiring much sleep to be functional the next day. If my routine was a little off, it hardly phased me.

I keep joking about how jet lag is a weird thing and that I sleep at random times because of my internal clock. It's beginning to be a bit of an inconvenience. Two nights ago (actually early Wednesday morning) I stayed up until about 7am. That would be about 11pm in Texas. I couldn't sleep at all. Since I stayed up so late, according to Kuwait time, I made myself wake up around 12pm to make sure I could sleep when it became a decent hour to go to bed. I woke up, did some unpacking, went to this random little shop and bought an alarm clock, came home and ordered pizza with a couple of the other teachers and was in bed by 10:30pm or so. I woke up around 2:30am and laid there for about an hour before I just got up. I've never had a problem sleeping straight through the night so this is new to me. In so many ways I feel like an infant. Not only are they so many new stimuli around me which are constantly helping me figure out my new world, but I also praise myself for sleeping one more hour when it's bed time. I've heard that it takes one day for every hour of difference there is in time change. That means that it will take me 8 days to completely sleep through the night and feel like my internal clock matches up with the Kuwaiti sun's clock. I'm totally buying me a cake on day 8.

Patience is definitely not one of my strong points. In some areas, I have a ton of patience. I typically have zero patience with the situations that are out of my control, such as getting use to a different time zone. One major one back in the states is dealing with Sprint customer service. It gets me going every time and I probably end up causing the service to be worse because of the way I react. When I decided to come over here, I first asked God for a peace about my decision. I definitely wanted to go, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going for selfish reasons. The second thing I prayed for is as many learning experiences as possible to mold me into the person He meant for me to be. I got in a huge rut living in Dallas. It was a fun rut and I wouldn't take a second of it back, but it wasn't a good rut for growth. I'm beginning to think patience is lesson number one. Waking up at 2:30 this morning solidified that for me. I initially wanted to get frustrated, walk down to the bakala (convenient store about the size of my living room located on the corner across the street/alley) and buy some benadryl or something. That'd solve my problem short-term, but I'd probably be pretty miserable around 7am when my alarm goes off. After I laid there, I decided to get up. It's all a learning experience.

In hindsight, there was more than just the jetlag that helped me with this. Here's a few:

- The entire visa process

- Working with the people at the airport in Istanbul took patience to deal with the language barrier.

- Trying to locate my bag at the airport at 1:30am while also dealing with a language barrier

- Leaving the airport not knowing if I'll ever see my clothes again took a little faith and some patience.

- Getting to my apartment and realizing I had no adapter in to plug anything in to call or email people back home. My phone and laptop were completely dead.

- Going back to the airport 24 hours later to only be greeted with "maybe its on the next flight"

- My Ipod freezing (believe me, I tried to unfreeze it by holding down buttons for 10 seconds). I think its a gonner.

- Pandora radio not being an option in Kuwait.

All of these are completely out of my control. I can't change the rotation of the sun, go search every airplane that comes through, change the outlets in Kuwait, or magically fix my Ipod. These things are also short-term. It's all going to work out and I'll look back and laugh at how trivial it all was. I'm not freaking out by any means and I'm not losing my patience. I think that's what I'm supposed to get out of all of this. I definitely think I'm going to experience several other obstacles that will make me step back, assess the situation, and react accordingly. The past few days have taught me exactly how to do just that.

With all that said, I am absolutely enjoying Kuwait. It's such an awesome place. The majority of the people are nice. We have a cab driver that we can call anytime. His name is Wahid and he takes good care of us. He said he's been helping people at this complex for 9 years. When we asked him about alarm clocks, he took us to this store, walked us in, took us to the right counter and translated for us. It was great! He also told us if we ever get in a cab and the driver doesn't speak english, we can call him and he'll talk to the driver to translate. He's from a small village in Syria.

Another fun little sidenote: I was walking through one of the little shops where Wahid took us and I was looking for a grill lighter. I've almost burned my hand off a few times trying to light my stove. This boy, probably no older than 10, came up to me and mumbled something. I asked him to repeat it and I kind of heard something that resembled "where" and "from" mixed in the somewhere. I told him I'm from America and he smiled. I asked him where he's from and he said "Syria" in the coolest accent ever! His dad immediately called him over to keep working. I loved that little moment! I haven't been able to interact with any kids yet and I love kids, so it was refreshing.

Here are a few pictures from yesterday. I still don't know what's acceptable as far as picture taking goes, so I've just started snapping ones to see how people react. I think they're ok with it. They stare, but they stare when I don't have my camera, so I'm not too concerned.

This was a random little find not far from where we are staying. It's definitely not anything like the Targe we have in the states, but it was nice to see the sign.

My friend Alex back home always has these bags of rice in his apartment. The first time I saw it I laughed and asked where he found a bag of rice like that. He told me he gets it at an Asian market. Turns out he can just get it at the local Target here in Kuwait!

I was walking around my complex trying to find this pool and gym they keep talking about. I found both. We have two pools. I also found a little baskeball court! Totally wearing this thing out.

One of the teachers here found this in a little store that had absolutely no familiar American brands, but they had kid clothes with her college on it. Random!

These are the coffee mugs they gave me for my apartment. I was wondering why they were shaped weird, then I poured a cup of coffee and saw the shape! I love it!