The Trust Fall

I can`t read (I don`t know kanji), drive (no car yet), figure out my TV (Japanese remote), eat with a spoon (chopsticks), or figure out my cellphone (it always takes me to Japanese sites); all of the simple things in life that I loved at home. I always have to trust that people are going to help me and I realized how scary that was today. Today, my second day of school, I tried to make coffee. The coffee makers here are normal, except that you can pull the coffee pot out in the middle of brewing and pour the coffee into your cup, then put it back to fill the rest of the pot. Now I know that this isn`t strange or high-tech, but if someone is gesturing for you to move a brewing pot of coffee out of the way and you don`t understand that the pot will stop, it`s a little scary. I got my cup ready to quickly stick it under the scalding coffee, and hope that it didn`t make a big hot mess, and it didn`t, the arc of hot coffee stopped for me. She KNEW what she was doing!! Of course she did. This kind of realization that people know what they`re doing, happens all the time.
Trust is a scary thing. I have to trust my co-workers to help me make the right decisions for cell phone contracts, bills, car insurance, how to throw trash away (mandatory recycling of 5 different types), how to buy a car and open a bank account. I have to trust that although people eat strange things, they are perfectly fine; they don`t end up dead or in the hospital. Although I think some Japanese food doesn`t sound appealing, I have to remember that they think sweet rice (rice, sugar, milk and cinnamon) sounds disgusting (I think I will give them a payback American (food) Challenge for all of their Japanese (food) Challenges). I have to trust that although the teacher`s lounge sink has no dish soap, everyone seems to be ok with washing trays and coffee cups with just water (It still freaks me out). I have to trust that although Japan does things completely differently from my own country, drive on the wrong (I mean left) side of the road, women aren`t equal to men, people eat raw food on the floor with sticks, and kids run wild, it`s ok. American kids shoot each other and that doesn`t happen here. Even though I see my female co-workers getting to work early to serve tea/coffee, rushing home to make dinner for their husbands, and walking behind men AND IT pisses me off, they have the power to change that, and they never asked for my help.
So today I realized that I can`t be in control of everything, sometimes I need to just close my eyes, take a breath, lean back and fall.