Small victories and negative thoughts

Must remind myself that some days are going to be better than others. Some days will simply feel much more victorious and exciting, and others will be exhausting, stressful, and upsetting.

Here are a couple small victories I have achieved lately that deserve to be validated/celebrated:

1. Speaking a complete sentence ("I go to Hoan Kiem Lake") in Vietnamese to the hotel staff working at the front desk.
2. Navigating my way back from Hoan Kiem Lake on my own after going for an early-morning walk there. (and not getting lost!!!)
3. Making friends with the woman at my favorite rice-and-point stall to the point where she anticipates what I am going to order, and points to it as if to say, "Fried peanuts again today? I know how much you love them!"
4. Walking the ~3ish mile walk back from school to the hotel today without getting lost!
5. Navigating the streets of Hanoi to figure out dinner with Sasha tonight, and trying a new food that I had never eaten/heard of before. It was delicious!

I am exhausted and pretty grumpy, but I know it's important to remember the small steps that I achieve every single day (even every single hour!) that lead to ultimate success. 

Homesickness is definitely getting the better of me, as well as a what-the-fuck-am-I-doing feeling which has been waxing and waning ever since I've gotten here.

Hanoi is beginning to frustrate me with the constant traffic, lack of personal space, and of course the language barriers. If I had to guess, I would imagine that I am right here in terms of cultural adjustment:

Not sure if I've hit the all-time low quite yet, but I am definitely feeling down. According to my helpful handbook entitled Survival Kit for Overseas Living, some of the best skills to cultivate in order to combat culture shock and cultural fatigue are:

• tolerance for ambiguity
• low goal/task orientation
• open-mindedness
• nonjudgementalness
• empathy
• communicativeness
• flexibility, adaptibility
• curiosity
• sense of humor
• warmth in human relationships
• motivation
• self-reliance
• strong sense of self
• tolerance for differences
• perceptiveness
• ability to fail

Perhaps for the next 16 days, I will set each of these personal skills to be one daily goal. Therefore, I think the first one that I will work on is ability to fail (hey, who said I had to go in order?!) because I need to constantly be reminding myself that there is no way that I will be perfect at this experience and that I am allowed to make mistakes. 

With that said, I leave you all for my much-desired rest and rejuvenation. Goodnight, all!