Mom, Sherry, and I all decided to try to this new class at the gym and move our trainer time to another day. This new class is all cardio (which sucks for me cuz my last 3 month class was all weights). So I got up early and we headed over- about half an hour into it, I'm extremely winded and my kness are aching when I say to mom "Shouldn't we be finishing up?" .

Apparently not.

"No, we still have half an hour left". Yep, my darling and loving mother negelcted to mention that the class was an hour. But I survived, got my wind back, and am not sore. I just get to look forward to it another 3 times. I'd like to take the class of DOOOOOM longer, but y'know I have to leave the country next week.

Oreintation in 13 days!
SQUEE

Then we went shopping and had a debit card fiasco where the machines wouldn't work, mom got locked out of her account, and we had to page the manager (Sherry's husband) to write a check for us. Excellent way to socialize, I say. 'SHERRY-PY THE MAN SO HE WON'T KILL US!"

Indeed

More university prep happened today- textbooks are now available online so I went and searched about but only two of my courses thus far are entered. Slow buggers. In the next few days I'll be taking inventory and shoving things in bags (that weigh less than 50 lbs. each else the airport punish us). I think I've made baout 12 lists of what I have to do in the next 7 days so I hope the rainforest will forgive me for decimating their number.

As of yet, exotic trees and dirt-like stuff haven't attacked people who consume them, so I s hould be safe. I'm not sure how I'd react to rampaging palm trees or whatever they grow down in dem rainforests...

Smack them with a blowtorch? Threaten to kill their cocoa nuts?

Strange, I say.

Got a newsletter from Vic today telling me about who our dons are, what we should bring, what to do, how to pay, etc. Great fun. I wonder if Vic is in danger of rampaging dung beetles. Certainly more trees have gone to their doom by its consumnation (like the word? I think its new...) of pulp and stuff.

I want to go to Shoguns.... Yum, tempura.

Sepaking of washoku, in Food & Wine mag (sept 05) there was an article about sushi etiquette. I share it with you now:

DO:

• pick up sushi using chopsticks or fingers. both are correct
• lightly dip the fish, not the rice, into a small amount of shoyu (Jap. soy sauce)
• Put the whole portion in your mouth, holding the sushi so that the fish touches your tongue
• use the bluntback end of the chopsticks when taking food from a shared plate
• rest the narrow, rounded ends of your chopsticks on the small ceramic holder, or hashi-oki, when you're not using them. One way to signal that you're finished is to place your chopsticks across your soy saucer (don't just rest the tips) parallel to the sushi bar.

DON'T:

• rub your chopsticks together to remove splinters (it's rude; a good sushi bar would never order chopsticks of such low quality)
• dunk the rice in the soy sauce
• bite the sushi in half and put the remainder back on the plate
• flop a pig piece of pickled ginger onto your sushi before eating it (eat the ginger between pieces of sushi, as a palate cleanser)
• dump wasabi into your soy sauce, turning it into a soup. Wasabi should be put directly onto the sushi, if added at all
• hand money to the sushi chef. the chef typically never touches money.

So now you know the proper way to eat sushi. And eat it right, else the angry chopsticks attack you (for everything that you injure or insult tend to chase you; i.e palm trees)...