Random musings

host family
Originally uploaded by sillyhapa.

Here's my host mom and dad, if you wanted a visual representation for all the crazy stories I tell about them. Most recently, though, I was having a huge craving for sashimi (how Japanese have I become?), and I stumbled downstairs to the shout of "SHOKUJI RORI" (like the robot I have become) and found what else, but a pile of fresh sliced maguro, mayonnaise-filled macaroni salad, fried chicken, steamed spinach, nashi, and miso soup. Ahh, my host father had assembled a fine dinner. It's okay that we don't talk; yesterday he satisfied my foodless soul.

Etienne Pierron, our resident Frenchy, has been providing many a linguistic challenge. I feel fantastically fluent as a translator, given that my mother speaks in simple Japanese and he speaks in simple English. Oh the semantic simplicities of 2nd languages. Or, as I like to say, it's really the blind leading the blind leading the blind. Brilliant. But, sadly, he lost his organ competition, and he won't be here for much longer, so things will be back to normal at the Kuzuma household. Did I mention that my host mother tried to extort money from him? She is so hilarious. And by hilarious I mean gruesome.

I have to write an essay about how I've changed since I was a child, and although I could delve deeply into the way that my perceptions of most everything in life have been altered by this experience -- as CrisHarris might ask, is life made of watershed experiences, or do we hack at it bit by bit? -- but more likely I will talk about how I used to not like mustard, and now I do. I also used to not like onions, but now I like them in big chunks (do you think I can mention that if they're in small chunks I still find them frightening?).