Letting go of perfection

I had an epiphany the other day.  I was walking down the sidewalk, headed to campus, thinking about my attitude towards language learning.  "I'm not striving for perfection" I thought.  For a recovering perfectionist like myself, that's a pretty big deal.  When I studied Spanish half a lifetime ago, language learning was about studying rules and applying them correctly.  Now, it's all about communication and comprehension.

And the wonderful thing about Germany is, I get lots of practice.  In the seven months I was in Finland, guess how many strangers asked me for directions, or the time, or for any other sort of information?  Ready for it. . .  Zero.

Now Germany, on the other hand, random strangers stop me on the street.  "Does bus 11 go to the train station?"  "Do you know where the children's clinic is?" "Is the train station this direction?" Fortunately, a simple yes or no, with a "left" "right" or "straight" accompanied by (possibly more intelligible) hand signals usually suffices to answer those questions.

Here most of the international students also already speak some German, leaving me at the bottom of the language learning totem pole.  So the other night on a bus with a Colombian, a Romanian, and a girl from Uzbekistan, our common language was German.  My brain can keep up with what they're saying, since they still have a limited vocabulary and use basic grammatical structures, but as I'm slowly dredging up the vocabulary to make some sort of contribution to the conversation, they've already moved on.  Still, at least I'm understanding.  

The other thing Germany has going for it is that people speak slowly here.  You know when you are learning a language, and they give you those fake listening comprehension dialogs to listen to?  The ones where the people speak slowly and enunciate clearly as they say things like "the bread costs 2 euros" or "my sister lives in a house in the center".  I feel like I'm overhearing people being recorded for those dialogs all the time.  Snippets of conversation slip into my consciousness and I'm like, "I understood that!  Are they speaking that slowly and clearly just for the convenience of eavesdropping, beginner level language learners?"  Since that's highly unlikely, I've come to the conclusion that German is just spoken more slowly and clearly than many other languages (and definitely Spanish).

So, here I am, muddling along, making mistakes as I go, but not really caring.  After all, when I was shoe shopping, the shop attendant went to find shoes in my size in the color I wanted when I asked if they had any.  The lady behind the counter handed me a napkin when I asked for it. I garnered some information about Kepler's life while reading signs at the museum.  I can make sure I buy juice with no sugar added.  My German is coming along swimmingly.  Except when it isn't.  Like the time I went shopping for a strapless bra and the saleslady asked if she could help me.  Somehow my vocabulary didn't seem to cover that. . .

The Measure of a Day

I like checklists.  They make me feel productive, and, a product of my American Protestant work ethic, I strive for productivity.

If my list looks like this at the end of the day, I feel satisfied

study German
study Finnish
class
read article for thesis
laundry
grocery shopping
dishes
clean the bathroom
homework

But, on a day like today, when my list looks more like this:

study German
study Finnish
class
read article for thesis
laundry
grocery shopping
dishes
clean the bathroom
homework


I feel like a failure.

But are success and failure measured only by what we do?  Isn't who we are just as important? I think I need to remake my lists, change my priorities.  So, learning to be instead of to do, here's a new list.