A Dangerous Pasttime

Yesterday Charles' professor was in town to check up on everyone's internships and host family situations and everything. He took us all out to dinner (including the wives, which I thought was very nice) and asked us for stories and for recommendations for the future. Everyone had a lot in insight to share, and I thought the professor was pretty good at taking it all in stride, and not becoming defensive, as I think this program is kind of his baby.

After dinner, on the ride home, I started making a mental list of the things I've learned over here. I've learned more about myself, my marriage, my husband, and my parents than I think I've actually learned about Russia, but I think that's to be expected.

I've learned that I'm more of a scaredy-cat than I thought I was, but that I can learn to be brave. I just have to force myself to try new things, and fix problems as they come up, instead of trying to think of any possible dilemma and solving it before it before it happens. Chances are, it won't even happen, and if it does, I'm not actually more prepared for it by worrying about it beforehand.

I've learned that my husband is more patient than even I give him credit for. I knew when I married him that he was very easy to get along with, and very difficult to offend, but I'm learning that those are very greivous understatements. I'm continually impressed by how much he looks out for me, and how much he doesn't mind translating and explaining things. Especially advertisements in the metros. They always look so intriguing, and it's frustrating not to know what they're about. He went out of his way to find the website for one of the more interesting ads, and translate and explain it to me. That was when we both realized that we were looking at an ad for yeast infection medicine. It claims to work in just one day.

I've learned that I didn't give my parents enough credit. In my childish ignorance, I always interpreted moving as their way of punishing us kids for making good friends quickly. I never stopped to think that they were leaving friends, too, and that it hurt them to see us say our good byes. I never thought about my mom showing up in relief society as "the new kid" that I always resented being, and never thought about having to be the new kid with six of her own new kids. And I never had any sympathy for my dad, because he was always very optimistic and upbeat about our moves, so I just figured he was never sad to leave places that we loved. But now I'm realizing that was just so stupid of me. I don't know how my parents did it, but I'm in awe.

Sitting on the metro, thinking all of these thoughts, and having so many new and sudden insights into my own life, I naturally wanted to share them with my best friend. So I looked over to see if he was still awake, and this is what I found:

He had gotten his tongue stuck in his water bottle. What a cute little boy I married.