Success!

Me in my messy apartment after a long day's work, non-blurry. You're welcome.

Man is life ever getting better and better since I've stopped giving a shit how terrible my Korean is. And you know what else? I'm learning more because of it. Like with most things, I can do more than I realize anyway.

When I went to buy the camera, I was able to explain, in Korean, what I was looking for (thanks to a little E-K dictionary prep and the international language of brands), and understand, in Korean, when the lady told me it was sold out. She then told me to come back in 20 minutes. I wasn't able to understand why, but I had a feeling it had something to do with someone coming on shift. I went to look at the rabbits.

Where I met a charming little girl named 소운 (not a fucking clue how to Romanize that...) as best I could gather, age four. It didn't even occur to her that I didn't speak Korean, and she rattled on to me for quite a while about what the mice were doing in their cage, yeogi and yeogi and yeogi. Gwiyeoweo, I told her. She paused to consider this. God knows if she understood or not. Or maybe she didn't know if I meant her, or the mice.

I'm hoping the camera will act as a valid excuse for getting out in the neighborhood and torturing more people with my seven Korean words. As more and more of the fear and nervousness falls away, as I begin to take my own damn advice and just try, even if I know I'll make mistakes, I feel myself becoming more and more visible to the people around me. Language is a weirdly intimate thing -- that's why I love it so much. And I'm tired of being the one who stands confidently by and lets other people step out of their comfort zone. People are much warmer, much more open, when you communicate with them in their own language, even if you do it poorly.