Exotic Shells, a Test, the Office and a Halloween Surprise

I'm going to chase this feeling. Tonight we had some pretty exotic (and fun) food. I can only assume what you must be thinking. After reports of eating duck fetus, pig brain, chicken feet and cow blood soup, this must pretty out there, right? Well, it's not exotic in that sense; what we had tonight is called kinhason in the local dialect. I'm going to let the picture speak for itself. Please excuse the quality and orientation as the pics were take with my phone; I would get such a scolding from my web design professor from sophomore year.
Before I get ahead of myself, I walked home from school today to find a huge container of these things swimming around and crawling all over each other. I told my host mom that they looked like aliens but I was anxious try them. My standards for "fresh seafood" have risen substantially since I have been here.
If you look closely, there is indeed a safety pin to get the delicious inside out. It's a giant shellfish with tiger-ish looking stripes. These things were seriously HUGE, some the size of my fist, and we had to fish them out with the safety pin. I turned out to be quite adept at jiggering them out. Once removed from the shell, a lumpy piece of flesh, trailed by some sticky intestines which slurped out, you get the morsel as seen in the top picture.
One must carefully remove the intestines because, as my host mom put it, they are walay lami or not tasty. I tend to trust her 100% when it comes to these things so I made a little intestine pile at the side of my plate. As I have formerly described, Filipinos by and large will never let any part of the animal go to waste, so having a moment like tonight, when my mom warned me not to eat the entrails, reminded me of that Farside cartoon with the native american holding up a nondescript piece of buffalo saying something

to the tune of " we use all parts of the buffalo except this." When nanay says not to eat something, it is heeded, no questions asked.
The insides were delectable. It tasted like clams but 100 times richer and very tender. The entire time I was eating I was trying to imagine how they would taste in the San Francisco clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, which made me a little homesick for a second, but it was hard to stay that may, my mouth, nostrils and mind trying to wrap around this crazy-tasty food! To the right is a picture of my brother Johny going crazy with the kinhason. He asked me what we call them in English, to which I replied "sea monsters." He just laughed and that's when I snapped the photo.
My host mom said these become available about twice a year and this is the first I have seen them. I'm excited for a repeat performance. But now that she knows I like them, I'm sure she will keep a watch for them. She's so awesome when it comes to making things I like and keeping an eye out for them at the markets.
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In other news today, I gave my first big test, a unit test on computer troubleshooting. All in all I am very pleased withe the outcomes as the class average score was 77.15% for the whole unit, passing! It's an indication I am actually doing my job correctly. I have learned that tests are not only an assessment of the students' comprehension and attained knowledge, but also of the teacher's abilities to pass on that knowledge. So I am giving myself that grade as a teacher; in other words, I get 77% on my ability as a teacher. There is room for improvement, but I am quite satisfied as a first attempt. My counterpart, Sir Erwin, even taught me how to set up an Excel spreadsheet to automate the grading process. I have never had a reason to fire up Excel, having majored in English, but I think I am getting the hang of it (he still has a lot to teach me).
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I started watching The Office, seasons one through three, that I had previously ripped onto my computer. Just seemed like it was time to watch them again. Memories of sitting at Aaron and Jay's house with Brian, Kari and Malena started pouring in and it felt like we were all watching them together on Aaron's monitor just like the good old days. After a few days of obsessive watching, I felt like I had not only reminisced about my college social circle but also saw friends I hadn't seen in a long time: the characters. At the end of season three, I felt like I had to say goodbye again. But it was a weird feeling, it wasn't sad at all but a very sweet feeling that I'm not sure I can explain. I have spent the last three years with these characters and it's as if they were just stopping by to say hi, just to me. Naturally I began wondering what the old gang has been up to more recently than season three, so I found and acquired season four, which I am now devouring! Boy do I feel behind the times. I have discovered a means to acquire season five and by then I will finally feel caught up. I thought the Dinner Party episode at Michael and Jan's place was one of the best written episodes in a long time.
I will also soon be acquiring Arrested Development :)
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Today, I also received a Halloween package from the moms and, aside from the assorted Tootsie bag from heaven, I got a TY bear named Haunted. Now my bear from last year, the guitar-wielding Treatsies, has a friend. Honestly I have no idea where the TY bear thing came from; it's a new tradition since I have been in the Philippines, but you know what? I think it's dang cool. Thanks moms, and Happy Halloween!