Small Victories

One of the things studying Chinese taught me is that it's no use beating yourself up for not being perfect--instead, you have to just celebrate the small victories.  You greeted your neighbor appropriately?  Great!  Understood the convenience store clerk when she told you the amount you owed?  Fantastic!!  Decoded the recording played in the elevator?  Making progress!!!  Told your coworker that you like to wash your dishes on the subway?  Meh, keep trying.

I have to admit, I've been really frustrated with my slow progress in learning Korean.  Even knowing that it won't just come by osmosis, that it's going to take a lot of work; I've lived here for four months now, and still mess up simple phrases and misunderstand sentences even when I know all of the words that make them up.  And it's frustrating!  But I keep reminding myself that's it's a marathon, not a sprint.  I do, after all, work in little America, live part of the time in little-er America, and spend most of my day in an English-speaking environment.  Even the Korean soldiers who work in the room next to ours speak to us in English (and usually pretty darn good English--there's the maintenance guy who calls me Sir and uses a lot of the point method, but some of the KATUSA soldiers read college textbooks in English).

But baby steps beat just hanging out on the couch.  I worked up my courage today to call my favorite take-out place and order, instead of going over to the other apartment building.  (Should I be embarrassed that the lady not only knew who was calling, but what floor I live on?  I am a pretty frequent customer.)  The conversation went fine, and I'm going to celebrate my dinner!  Even if it did arrive with two rolls of kimbap that I did not intend to order.