Working at Emory, my favorite person is Oksana, the office manager. She's always polite and quietly funny. I think it was my third day at work when she asked me for help with her ESL homework. She has a ridiculous pile of PhDs in her closet, in things like Russian poetry and linquistics. She is an amazing person, and she speaks English very well, but she needs to improve it to teach in this country. So she took the job at Emory so that she could take classes on things like how to write research papers in English. In exchange for my help she's taught me a few sentences of Russian and bought me chocolates. She's Ukrainian, her husband's from the Congo, and they have the most beautiful, brilliant children I've ever met. She's invited me over for dinner a couple times. I mean, she's awesome.

She's been receiving these letters from the homeowner's association in her subdivision, and when she had me read them, I could tell they thought they could get away with charging her for ridiculous things and writing her threatening letters because she's an immigrant and I am just so appalled at that. I am so, so angry that they are trying to take advantage of her. She came into my office crying, letters in hand, and my jaw just set.

I'd like to airlift them all over to China and watch them flounder for a while. Try to get some food. Try to figure out where they are. Everyone who has ever been impatient with someone trying to speak English ought to go to a non-English speaking country and find out what it feels like to be at the mercy of strangers, because it's just so goddamned humbling that it forces you to be a better person.

Studying abroad, I learned kindness in a whole new way. I am not naturally patient, but when people would wait a half an hour to hash out what I was trying to say with the most elementary Cantonese, I'd feel so grateful for their help. So, when Oksana came to ask me for help with her ESL homework, I was so happy to help, because I knew what it was like to be smart but be completely immobilized by language. I think that my proudest moment in China, outside of being told I really knew how to handle my chopsticks, was the moment when after four months I successfully cracked a crappy joke in Chinese, and my friends all laughed because it was just so bad. That's what learning a language is. It's learning nuances. It's dealing with not being funny or clever because you just don't have the tools.

So, again, when Oksana came to my office crying, I was furious. We wrote this letter, my mom would be proud, laced with tiny, terrible criticisms in perfect English. I had her list her Ph.D., and I hope they feel like assholes because that is exactly what they are. They got back to her five minutes after we faxed it over, apologizing profusely for the misunderstandings. She gave me a high five, and I insisted on buying her a congratulatory coffee.

There's a beauty to the little justices, the one's you can help dispense and really see through. I find that I am continually frustrated in the quest for larger justices, though it doesn't stop me from trying. The little justices are the ones that make me hopeful.