"Edible Harassment"

I was invited over to a teacher's house today (Mrs. Nakabayashi-sensei) where she was hosting a B-day party for Maybelle, my Philipina friend. It was a great time, with lots of great food and good conversation. But as usual, there being only 4 people at the table, and Adam with having strange selectivity of what he can and cannot eat, questions started moving to my eating habits.

Everyone seems sceptical about Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) that doesn't have it. I can't really blame them. It is a weird thing. You'd think, by the laws of physics, everyone who eats a fibrous substance like lettuce or other leafy vegetables should, in almost all cases, feel the results of that fiber. Many with IBS, such as myself get terrible abdominal cramps that keep you from being able to straighten your back without even greater pain, and hours to days of diarrhea and continued abdominal cramping. This doesn't seem like it should be possible. But it happens. I also have alergies, and an acid-sensitive stomach. So when I'm picking around my food, avoiding super-acidic fruits, high amounts of butter, fibrous veggies, and staying clear of anything with Shrimp, Crab, or anise in it, or which makes my nose twitch angrily in allergic response to the very smell, I tend to stay away from it. So although the night was GREAT, and I really appreciate the hospitality, I am tired of people simply telling me that I am picky and that I need to get over it. This is what happened to me tonight.

As is more typical in Japan, Nakabayashi-sensei made a meal consisting of about 20 things to select. It is appreciated if you have some of all of them. I ate almost all of everything that was sent down the table, and considering the variety, that is quite a bit. I tried at few totally new things. After a bit, Nakabayashi asked me if I was going to finish one of the many things that I was eating, and took it as a signal that I was picky, in combination with what else she was seeing and had heard. She and her husband gave the advice that I shouldn't be picky and that I should eat breakfast every day, even if I am almost never hungry in the slightest and am perfectly functional until I have been awake for hours. Then they tried to attach my current health difficulties with food poisoning to the fact that I was picky, and that I should just eat anything presented to me, because it is healty for me to do so. Healthy?

I later brought up the point that I find it strange that people harass me about what I eat, which is obviously sufficient to sustain me, and which my father is paramount evidence that a man can be healthy and eat from a fraction of the food groups and be perfectly healthy (and if you didn't know--he's been training for half-marathon and has been bicyling, and he's healthier than almost anyone I know, almost never seems to gets sick. And he eats almost nothing. Not even cheese). In any case, people often tell me as "advice" in my eating habits to try eating the things that ail me. I've tried that. It is punishing. Article A-Digiorno Pizza. I rest my case.

The reason this harassment irks me so is that the people who pick on me about in are almost universally people who consume food and drink with a variety of narcotics, people who are often smokers, rarely or never exercise willfully, and consume alcohol in often harmful quantities. So how is eating that undercooked onion and getting gastrointestinal pain that will keep me from sleeping tonight going to improve my health? Why should I eat a half-dozen servings of fruits and leafy veggies if it will only empty my bowels of all nutrients that I am obtaining from anything else? How is being miserable from end to end of my body a good thing?

Maybe people should set aside their presuppositions about food and start really thinking, instead of belittling those with what amounts to a disability in edibility.

Self Introductions

Now that I am doing it in another language, I am realizing that "self-introductions" are my least favourite display required of people almost everywhere. I don't like them, in English or otherwise. I was put on the spot to do one today at a barbecue, as one of the first to do so...so I didn't really have a model or a feel yet on what I was supposed to say to this group of fellow internationals. I mentioned that my name was Adam, and that I was from America, and that I was a learner of teaching English. I thanked them and bowed. Then afterwards, I was told by some girls (mostly by their looks) that they thought my introduction was "cute" in whatever language was convenient.

One problem was that I also received this from a young man from China. He told me in clear Japanese that I my introduction was cute, then he discretely winked at me and walked off. The funny things is, he started talking to me a few days ago at commencement, and he was mostly talking to me but more or less facing Trang-chan. She's a charmer, so it seemed pretty obvious to me what he was looking for. His general body language was speaking to his effects too, but only because I was paying alot of attention to him. After all, he seemed like a nice guy and seemed quite interested in my friend Trang. What I figured was, he was interested in her, and that he was trying not to be obvious (it is Japan after all), and was befriending me to, you know, have a sort of...liaison? Not sure what the term is in English. So I'm up for helping her get a nice, attractive, well-mannered young man, so I was going along with it.

You generally go through other people for any romantic relationship in Japan, marriage or otherwise...there is usually a "connector" often 2 parties, male and female, consisting of one or more people each. But...now that I have heard that comment from him about me being cute and getting a wink from him, I'm starting to think he WASN'T using a middle person...I was the target! Hahaha. I may now understand how he has such a strong fashion sense. How awkward. And I see him all the time, too. It's a small campus after all.

The strangest of all things is this:

I tend to get more "looks" and friendly communications from women (and men) in Japan when I am clean shaven, generally. I haven't even so much as trimmed my beard in long over a week, I don't do anything with my long, thick hair which is typically a mess, and now, as it gets more and more unruly, I'm getting alot MORE comments about my attractiveness. Maybe because I'm thinking about Brandy so much? It may be reflecting on the outside. In any case, I NEVER expected that the unruly beard would actually be making me cuter at some point. Oh well. I guess the "wild man" look may not be in popular opinion, but apparently it is still popular! Now I just gotta find the balance of "sure I wanna be your friend" and "No, I'm not looking" at the same time!

Teaching

Well, everyone, I've completed my second week of the 15 week semester here at KUIS. At first, I was terrified, because Dr. Aliponga and Gerald are watching my every move. I was supposed to take over the class this week for Gerald, but I had a problem last weekend: food poisoning. Apparently, I ate something that was a little off. It started with stomach pain for about 3 days, but not severe. Then it went to my intestines. At that point, I called my advisor, Dr. Aliponga, to tell him I hadn't been feeling well. He contacted the International Affairs Office, and they took me to a local clinic. I was in and out in less than 30 minutes, WITH my 4 prescriptions for food poisoning, and the doctor was wonderful and even spoke Enlgish with me much of the time. And, even if I didn't have medical insurance, the cost would still only be about 34 bucks, with the medication. Because I do have insurance, it is only about 30% of that. So, it is cheap, fast, easy, convenient, and foreigner friendly. Could we say the same about any medical facility in the US? Not under the same roof, I don't think! And this is a country that is coming out of a market crash only now.

Now that I am recovering with the help of the drugs, I am little more dizzy and sleepy than normal. I am sleeping easier, which is nice. I was a little surprised that the drugs for cleaning me out aren't giving me any kind of digestive troubles, they are just making everything run smoother, from what I can tell. I was afraid they'd give me drugs to flush my body out in painful or inconvenient ways, but apparently that isn't the approach to treating food poisoning here.

I start fully taking control of Dr. Aliponga's Oral Communication class on Monday, but supposedly we'll switch on-and-off for that one by the week and I start taking over Gerald's fully on Thursday. Dr. Aliponga is really carefully research-based, and Gerald is research based but really chaotic. He's super charismatic. Even when he does something student centered, he is the driving force behind every class. Sometimes his playing on words confuses the students, and he does have fun picking on them sometimes, but even so, I do not feel I could compare to him! He's really quite good at everything he does here.

So that's it for now. I went through a "commencement" ceremony here, and talked to the President. He seems like a nice enough of a guy, but someone is pulling strings behind everyone's backs and setting him against alot of the lower-ranked (foreign) teachers in our department...not me, but all my supervisors. The people near retirement controlling our department, which I have NEVER seen near my own supervisors, apparently are avoiding mine like the plague. I don't know too much else. All I know is that blame is being moved somehow. I'm not sure if it is even wise to talk about it. In any case, I hope Gerald and Dr. Aliponga stay, at least til the end of my time here. It would be very hard to have almost no guidance in times of need throughout the rest of this quarter.

In other news, Sean is coming out to see me at the end of February. It looks like Mom and Nicole are coming out at the very beginning of April, and Enoch, well, I'm not entirely sure yet. I've got one bottle of wine for Mom, and one for Enoch though when they get here. Brian, well, no word from him yet! Hopefully he can come sometime in March.