El bailarín @ yorito_dance publicó un día como hoy hace tres años, estas fotos junto a Taemin en sus historias de Instagram.

💬: "Es alguien a quien respeto y admiro 🕊🌹

Agradezco tu amabilidad 😊

Gracias por todo"

The plan was that while I was in Berlin, I’d speak German with D. I was reading Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel at the time, and the first essay was in part about how he learned to speak Spanish faster than all the other American exchange students in Mexico because he spoke nothing but Spanish with his whole family.

“I do want to talk with you about more than just the basics,” D said when I suggested the idea to her. In the end, we decided that the kitchen will be designated German-only, and everywhere else in the apartment will be free for all.

That first week, the plan went quite well. “Wie sagt mann... auf Deutsch,” was a phrase I said quite a lot at the time. How do you say... in German. I made my first joke in German that first week.

But then life got in the way. Or maybe it was just laziness. 

Sometime around the second or third week being there, a delivery guy rang the bell when I was home alone. I opened the door for him. He asked if D lived there. I understood the question. I told him yes. He asked me if I could sign for her. I said yes. I signed, took the package, and then he said something else. Something I didn’t understand. So I just said nein and closed the door. 

I thought about that incident afterwards, and it occurred to me that “No” might be the most useful word you can learn in any language. Because, think about it, “no” will rarely, if ever, put you in a worse position than the one you’re currently in. “Yes”, a yes can raise you higher or pull you out of a crap situation, but a “no”, at the very least, keeps the status quo. And in a game of change, I’ll rather keep the status quo than take a chance on a possible worse outcome.

With the delivery guy, for example. If the question he was “Can I punch you in the face?”, saying “No” kept me from being punched in the face. Which, if you ask me, is a great outcome. What if the question was “Would you like me to give you a thousand euro for free no questions asked?”. Sure, saying “no” meant I didn’t get a thousand euros, but you know, I never had a thousand euro to begin with, so I’m fine.

"He was probably asking you if you could also sign for the neighbours,” D speculated when I told her the story.