Self-imposed Curses

"You ever feel cursed coach? That no matter what, inside your heart you feel that you gonna lose? Like something's hanging over you, following you like a witch or a demon that just… You can't win. I feel like that all the time. Even when things are going good. When we're winning, it's there. And when we're losing, it's there.

What it took me along time to realize that a… There ain't much difference between winning and losing, except for how the outside world treats you. But inside you, it's about all the same. Yah know? It really is. Fact of the matter is I believe that our only curses are the ones that are self-imposed. Yah know what I'm saying? We…all of us dig our own holes.

Ain't no curses." ~Friday Night Lights

Day 6 - 3:00pm

I've managed to convince almost everybody here that I don't speak a lick of Korean. Little do they know, I studied for 6 years as a young adult and even more as a young child. It's been 1.5 years since I was last surrounding by a Korean-speaking community, so I have gotten rusty, but I could easily get by. I am elementary level efficient at reading, writing, and speaking, but terrible at listening. This is my self-imposed curse. I panic. The best way I can explain it is a sports star choking at the big game. I have done all the practicing, and I'm a pro with my fellow classmates, but when it comes time to speak with an adult, I panic. A mixture of my emotions and worries all intertwine with flashbacks of the millions of times I was told off or lectured by Korean people that I should know my own language. All the conversations I was left out of or couldn't take part in. And all the times my parents were villainized for robbing me of my culture. I am Roberto Baggio choking in the 1994 World Cup Final.

But my experiences at the shopping center have started to curb that. I was hesitant at first, to approach the salesmen at the Nike and Adidas store, and debating whether to just go straight with English or try some Korean. I used Korean. It worked out. I successfully had a conversation about soccer and bought some training pants. After I checked out, we talked about Hawaii and the Chicago Bulls. At the Nike store, the sales guy and I discussed the positives and negatives between trainers and running shoes. They weren't the most developed of conversations, but definitely an accomplishment. One step forward. I'm beginning to dig my way out of my own hole, if that's physically possible.