Word of the Day

try·ing
–adjective
extremely annoying, difficult, or the like; straining one's patience and goodwill to the limit: a trying day; a trying experience.
–verb (used with object)
to attempt to do or accomplish: Try it before you say it's simple
—Synonyms 1, 10. Try, attempt, endeavor, strive all mean to put forth an effort toward a specific end. Try is the most often used and most general term: to try to decipher a message; to try hard to succeed. Attempt, often interchangeable with try, sometimes suggests the possibility of failure and is often used in reference to more serious or important matters: to attempt to formulate a new theory of motion.

Use of the word in a sentence (or two)
1. I am trying to learn how to decipher all these codes and new systems used in the school, proper dress for the weather, understand life in a country that can't seem to find how to plug in a telephone.
2. Some days all of the above tends to try my patience AND goodwill.

We were told that Anna (get this!) should go to the Ministry of Telecommunication herself (with an adult chaperone of course) and convince them, with her winning smile, big brown eyes and blondish hair, that they (the Ministry) needed to hook up the telephone for her family. So we agreed to it, Anna was up for the adventure, and then nothing happened (the person who told her wasn't able to make it happen today)
So we get to explain to our daughter, once again, that we should just have patience and it will all work out (or not).
We are learning a lot of big life lessons here but most of all I'm learning how incredibly lucky people in North America are with the simple things in life: who would have thought that not having telephone lines would be something that makes me thankful?
Here's another sentence:
I am trying to have patience with all of this. Wish me luck

PS We'll keep you posted on how this all goes. At least it gives me something to write about.