Lessons I've been learning

This post isn't as funny as being put in a foreign taxi and asked questions in Russian, but after coming home and processing all I'd learned in Ukraine, I found there were two main things that kept popping up. The first is that I was made so aware of how judgmental I am. I fond that when I'm in a foreign country I'm very easy going on the things around me. Someone ( or myself) is wearing a weird outfit or does something goofy and I over look it, "Oh ya know, just doing their thing...". But then when I get back to American I find myself thinking the most judgmental things; "Seriously, who thought that was cute?" "Why did they thing that was going to work?". Part of how the Lord's shown this to me is through showing me how weird I am. After a week of living where no one can understand my language and assumes I'm just the weird foreigner, I do weird thing and get away with it. I guess sub-consciously I think I'm fitting into the culture, and maybe I am, but then I realize, once back in america, how everyone does weird things and when I start looking for weird things people do, everything looks strange!
The second thing I learned is how much I complain. I think I seem it so much because when I'm out of the country I think well, "When in Rome!" but when I come bak I realize how blessed I am. I complain when the Cafeteria food's not my favorite yet there are thousands of people who would LOVE to be able to walk into a room where so many choices of foods are available for them. I complain about walking down 3 flights of stairs to do my laundry yet so much of the world would feel in heaven if they only had to walk that far for a clean and working washer and dryer. I think that leaving my comfortable little corner of the world makes me more aware of others and helps be get out of the me-centered world I so often live in.