ON ROMANCE
Since Valentine's Day is fast approaching, I thought an entry on romance would be appropriate. Not a lot of romance happens in my life, though. I was looking at clipart the other day and saw a monkey kissing another monkey and I thought, "Man, even the clipart monkey is getting more romance than I am."

A few weeks ago, I started making visits to elementary schools in my area. Since I didn't know where any of the schools were, I had to have teachers show me the way. Usually, the school would call me a few days before my visit and arrange, in very, very, incredibly sadly broken English, for someone to pick me up at my base school. I was getting worried one Tuesday, as the school I was to go to didn't call me. I was relieved when I got a phone call at school in the early afternoon. The elementary school principal called me and arranged to pick me up himself the next day. I was surprised, but happy that it was resolved. The principal called back later that afternoon, though, to inform me that he had a meeting and thus could not pick me up. It was okay, though, he said, because there was someone else he could send. "I will send K-sensei. He is the 6th grade teacher," he said. Okay, whatever. He then continued, "He is 30 years old." Do I care? No. But thanks for the info. I got ready to say goodbye, but he was not done yet. "He is a very handsome boy." Whoa. Definitely didn't ask. But thanks again. "I think you will like him."

"..."

New rule to my life: In order to set me up, you have to know me first.The story then continues. Mr. K did indeed come to my school. I was flustered because of what the principal said and because I was worried that Mr. K didn't speak English. No worries, though, because he does speak English. His English was better than almost every elementary school teacher I had previously met. Thank goodness. But I guess that isn't saying much considering that most of the elementary teachers I know have issues handling, "Hello."

So I went to the school and the children there were adorable. The school only has 26 students. Literally. 26 students. That's it. The kids were very friendly. Many of them ran up to me and introduced themselves, shaking my hand. So cute! So I taught all the classes, then had lunch with Mr. K and his 5th and 6th graders (since there are so few students, most of the teacher teach 2 grades). I love school lunches. Today's lunch featured thin smelly soup and rice with mysterious tentacles. Yum. As I was focusing intently on chewing and trying to figure out if things were wiggling in my mouth that I wasn't controlling, some students tried to ask me questions. They kept asking Mr. K how to ask things like, "What ___ do you like?". Some of the girls kept giggling. Mr. K came and sat across from me once he was done with his lunch so he could better translate for the students. Finally, one of the girls whispered to him a few times, and he whispered back. She then turned to me and asked, "What type of guy do you like?" ... I'm fairly certain I turned a shade of red not normally seen in nature. Eventually, I said, "I guess I like guys who are nice." The students didn't understand, so Mr. K translated it as kakkoi (to my knowledge, kakkoi usually means "cool"). The girls all started giggling, and one girl immediately pointed to Mr. K and said, "Kakkoi, desu yo!" ("He's really cool, you know!"). Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match...

ON DIET
No, not DIETING, but DIET, like the food you eat. I don’t think I’ve ever actually dieted in my life (though I probably could have used it…). As I have talked to various friends and relatives about food here in Japan, I have heard almost all of them utter something along the lines of, "I didn't expect you to eat strange stuff. I mean, it is YOU after all." Now, I know I may not have been the most culinarily adventurous person before I came to Japan, but I've changed. I have eaten so many strange things since I came to Japan that at times, I feel well qualified for Fear Factor.

Foods I hated (or had never tried) in America
mushrooms, fish, radish, soggy vegetables, sesame oil, tea, coffee, cabbage, spicy stuff, etc. There's a long list.

Foods I’ve tried in Japan
mushrooms, fish, radish, soggy vegetables, sesame oil, tea, coffee, cabbage, sweet bean paste, more noodles than you can shake a stick at, crab, shrimp, raw fish, clams, scary dairy products, octopus (mmm, tentacles...), bread with pudding, ice cream that looked as though a fruit shop had vomited on it, raw eggs, et. al.

Foods I hate in Japan
mushrooms, fish (I'll admit that some fish are good, but some are really, really horrible), radish, sesame oil, soggy vegetables seasoned with sesame oil, tea, coffee, cabbage, spicy stuff, shrimp, raw fish, clams, scary dairy products, octopus (mmm, tentacles...), raw eggs, etc. I’m building a tolerance for most of these, but I’m sure that people can build a tolerance for cyanide.

Foods I suspect that I’d hate if I actually tried them
basashi (raw horse meat), fish testes*

*The fish testes is a fun story. I was at the bonenkai (year end party) for my base school. There was some weird white stuff in one of the bowls on the table. It was squiggly and looked like milk curds. I asked one of my English teacher was it was. She got a very strange smile on her face (HUGE warning sign. Many, many bells were going off in my head.) and said something in Japanese that I didn’t understand. I asked her to explain, and she couldn't. She got her dictionary (still with that freaky smile) and looked something up. She turned her dictionary to me, still smiling. I looked at it and saw the word "albino". Hm... I explained to her that that word means different things and really didn't help unless she was implying that I was eating a human. She got a confused look and entered something else into her dictionary. She turned it back to me, and I suddenly understood. Testes. I was looking at a bowl of fish testes. Yup. Not quite sure how to respond to that one. Fish testes. Yup. Um. Yeah. I pushed the bowl away and gave it" a look". The teachers around me laughed and kept trying to persuade me to taste it all night. They would tell me that it was delicious and it was considered a delicacy. I kept pushing it further and further away. There was NO WAY I was going to try it. And not for the reason most people think. I wasn't worried that it would be nasty or that I'd throw it up. Oh, no. What I was truly worried about was that I would actually LIKE it. Iwas scared that I'd develop a taste for it. Iwas that scared I'd be hanging out with my friends in America one day and suddenly say something like, "Hey, you know what I could really go for right now? A big plate of fish testes. Mmmm, yes. Can't beat a big plate of fish testes."