Learning Patience, Whether I Like It Or Not

I'm spending a pleasant Saturday morning enjoying my coffee and making valiant attempts to watch Lost on Youtube. Although Lost is available on ABC.com, only viewers within the US are able to watch it. Luckily, it is also bootlegged on Youtube. However, my internet connection has made watching the one hour episode of Lost an exercise in extreme patience. I started trying to watch it last night around 7, and I'm only about half-way through now.

Watching Lost is one of many things here that is forcing me to be much more patient. Immigration woes have also really forced me to suck it up and wait. I may have mentioned that I thought that Thursday would be my last day with immigration, but I was wrong. I have to go back on Monday, although I REALLY think that will be my last day.

Everything from constant bus errors which cost me hours spent wandering around trying to get home to seemingly unending miscommunications with my host family have me gritting my teeth in an attempt to grin and bear it, because really, there isn't anything else you can do. For those of you who know me well, you know that patience is something that I've never been able to claim as a virtue. So, I'm trying to take this in stride and recognize that since I've never been very good at cultivating patience an extreme situation like this may be just what I need.

Being here has also been instrumental in my realizing how much support I have from my friends and family back home. This week the church I grew up in made a very generous donation to help cover my costs while I'm working in Ecuador. Between the donations from my church in Hillsboro and the donations from my church in DC, I have found myself completely covered for my entire 7 months. Since I will be going to grad school directly upon my return, being financially stable is really important to me. And beyond financial support, I have been really touched by the number of comments on my blog and emails that I've received from people back home. The adjustment here has definitely been challenging and it's really helpful for me to know that people back home know what's going on with me and are thinking about me. So thanks for everything everyone!