My pen pal, and insects

I should blog more often. 

Why, I ask myself, when I have virtually no views on this speck of an interweb space that is this blog?

The reasons are pretty simple. 

1. I don't have very good memory when it comes to remembering events (or anything really) - so I want to write down my thoughts & events etc before I forget them and be able to look back and remind myself of some of the things worth noting and remembering. 

2. I'm not very good at talking about myself or articulating my own thoughts and stories on the spot - partly due to reason stated above. Also I'm hoping this will make me a bit better at telling anecdotes. I was having dinner with my friend "Cheese" the other day and he had a ton of ねた. 

(side note: ねた is the topping for sushi, the fish...but also means "joke material". Cheese wasn't having lots of sushi) 

3. There's so much to learn, but I won't learn unless I remember - stuff to learn from myself & my own thoughts & mistakes, as well as writing stuff that I've learned from elsewhere. 

I've just been listening to a new NPR podcast about penpals - but before going into the stories, one of the speakers said how modern correspondence between individuals us become so mundane - phone conversations are reduced to "Yes" "OK" "I'll be there in 5 mins", and letters are hardly exchanged

So maybe this is me trying to improve the quality of correspondence there is out there. Even if it's correspondence between the current me and future me..  

On a completely unrelated note, a friend visited from Thailand and brought me some special snacks. So I brought them to a barbecue at one of this summer's surf sessions. It was the first time I intentionally ate an insect, ever. When I opened the bag and peered in, I did think it was pretty disgusting. After a minute or so, and after my friend popped one in and didn't puke, I tried one myself. It wasn't as bad I thought it would be - kind of like dried lightly-crunchy beans, a bit earthy after the artificial flavouring fades.

I offered it to the uncles and grandpas around me - with mixed reactions. From upfront refusal, to describing the snacks' flavours as "floral", "natural" and even "matcha". The younger men weren't as adventurous. They had to janken to decide who's going for it. Not unlike frat boys drawing straws to see who has to go chat up the fat chick at the bar. Except instead of a fat chick, I'm the weird chick who brought bugs to a barbecue.