Erin: 1, Russian: 0

That's right. Today, I took on Russian and dominated.

This doesn't happen very often, by the way. The Russian language is terribly intimidating to me, and I blunder through it on a daily basis. I hate to blunder anything; I really like to be on top of anything that I undertake, so this has been a huge struggle for me. I was definitely challenged last week at my conference to be more intentional with my language learning and usage. So, today, I decided to use my Russian, even if the situation didn't necessarily call for it.

For instance...

Today, was Rent Payment Day. My landlord called yesterday to tell me he was coming.
Pause right here.
I REALLY need to give you a visual/mental image of my landlord:

His name is Emil, which, by the way, is a really weird name for Ukrainians. He is probably late 60's and is very Soviet. He has a summer outfit and a winter outfit, and he heavily relies on the idea that garlic will ward off any potential illness. He wears a HUGE fur hat in the winter that looks just like you would imagine a hard-core Slavic man's hat would. He frequently critiques my cleaning job around here and feels that it is his duty to admonish my usage of electricity and water. He has also given me talkings-to about not wearing socks when he thinks I should. He's a character.

On Rent Payment Days, he comes over, checks all the meters (water and electricty), tallies up all the numbers on a gigantic calculator, and shows me all of my charges. He requires me to pay the actual rent in dollars and then utilities in grieven. When I hand him the dollar bills, he examines them super carefully, looking for any stray marks or stamps. Here's a task for your week: check out all of the cash you have in your wallet (if you have any) and see how marked up our bills are. I never noticed until I got here! They won't accept bills unless they are brand-spanking new. It's annoying.

Over the past couple months, Emil has decided to learn to write the names of the months in English. It's really cute how painstakingly he writes out the month at the top of the bill. I thought that his efforts to use my language deserved a stronger effort on my part to use his. Unfortunately, I have to work extra hard because he's hard-of-hearing. Usually, if I'm not 100% sure of the pronunciation of a word, I can mumble it and people will figure it out. Not so with Emil. It has to be super clear. That adds to my stress level.

Today, ladies and gentlemen, I not only answered his questions, but initiated a few questions of my own about his family. I also made an effort to answer his questions with 3 or 4 sentences, rather than 1. He was very happy with my effort and didn't even critique my grammar. That is a victory.