The things you don't consider. . .

So this post will be quick because I'm waiting for Stephanie to come over and we'll eat dinner tonight. . .
But I was thinking as I was riding the elevator tonight that no one ever told me that moving to a different country puts a damper on basic life skills and changes your ability to complete simple tasks. I mean, I knew I would have adjustments and "culture stress" and language barriers. . .
But no one told me that moving to China would make me forget how to ride an elevator.
Seriously!
At least once a day, I push the wrong button on the elevator or I stand in front of the elevator and have a 30 second convo with myself about which is the right button to push. For some reason, I keep hitting the up button when I want the elevator to come up to my floor instead of hitting the down button because I want to go down. Just today as I was coming home, I started to hit the first floor button because I was on the first floor before I finally hit the 5th floor button because that's where I wanted to go. . .
And as I rode to the fifth floor, I started thinking that there are a lot of skills that seem to have vanished on the plane ride over.
Some of them are frustrating. . .like not being able to cook anymore (I seriously burned 3 meals this past weekend) or standing in the grocery story and being surrounded by food, yet having no clue what to buy
Some of them are unnerving. . .like sitting down to write lesson plans and having no idea how I'm doing to fill and hour and a half teaching my English class
Some of them I just have to laugh at. . .like pushing all the wrong buttons on the elevator.
but all of them remind me that I'm waaaaaay out of my comfort zone. . .and right now, that feels ok.
I had a really good day at school today. . .the Father has been so faithful in providing the strength, words and ideas that I need. However, if you could remember me as I teach my 6th graders. They are such sweet kids, but I need a little extra patience with them as they are still getting used to middle school life. Answering obvious questions has always been one thing that really saps my patience level. . .so when I'm bombarded with them at the end of the day, it is a struggle to answer with grace and kindness. . .and I really don't want these kids to feel as if I'm pushing them away.
Also, I have open house and Fall camps coming up next week. . .both are going to take some extra planning and energy, so I would appreciate if you could lift both of those up as well.