Two weeks.

Yesterday marked two weeks of our new life in Beijing. Some days are harder than others. It can be easy to feel scared and lost if you let yourself... In my opinion it's natural. I don't speak the language, I can't understand street signs, I am not familiar with the entire area and the food..... The food is a mystery. The other night we went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant (we have mostly been trying to find foods we are missing or familiar with) but anyways, we are at the restaurant and there are no regular utensils in sight. I'm not a stranger to chopsticks but I'm used to the wooden ones. These ones were plastic and trying to pick my food up was really embarrassing! I must've looked like a buffoon with my food slipping and sliding all over my plate while trying to win the battle of the plastic chopsticks! Needless to say, I didn't end up eating much at dinner. I was having my butt handed to me by that scrawny pair of dumb dumb chopsticks. 

Putting all difficulties aside for the moment, this is one of the first times in my life I have felt almost completely dependent on myself. James works a lot and I have had to find ways to keep both myself and a toddler busy, happy and entertained in a very foreign country. Let me tell you: IT IS A BIG JOB! I have had to try to discover what it is that makes me happy and not who. Don't get me wrong, my husband and my baby of course make me a very happy woman, but I don't have many people outside of them to hang out with. So I have taken a few test drives with some old hobbies. Drawing, for example. I used to love drawing when I was younger. In fact, as a little kid I wanted to write and illustrate my own children's books. Unfortunately, that hobby somehow got put on the shelf as my selfish teenage years came in to play and I explored stupider ways to entertain myself. I'm happy to say after some doodling in my notebook I have relit the fire! I am going to buy some official supplies and look into maybe taking a few classes out here. Gotta keep busy. 

I will end with a quote:

"Sometimes your only available form of transportation is a leap of faith." Margaret Shepard

 And that is exactly the transportation I'm taking today. Zai jian!