Filling Oysters and Filler Words

Today was marked by a Colombian meal prepared by a REAL colombian, a fruitless hunt for chinese food and one of the more terrifying lectures about how to eat oysters.

Allow me to elucidate.

At dinner tonight, I was offered a plate with a single oyster, which appeared to have been fished out of the ocean in the last three minutes. Maybe two.

Now I like to consider myself as someone who will try most things. (For those of you who just fell of your chairs in surprise, know that a lot of things have changed chez my taste buds in the last year. I refuse to eat pickles still, because it is immoral and they smell nasty, but I've tried everything else set in front of me in France-The-Country-That-Eats-Everything. Including the oyster.)

What freaked me out was not the jelly fish like quality of the inner meat, or the seaweed-ish smell. Even the fact that there was still sand on the outer rim of the shell failed to deter me.

However, the lecture and advice I received from all ends of the table scared the crap out of me. Sometimes when one has too much attention and too much help, the idea of accomplishing a task is suddenly scary. So much pressure.

So when everyone's backs were turned, I quickly gulped it down. Sand and all.

Score one for the good guys.

Something I've been meditating on for the last few days is the parts of our language that we use but don't realize. For instance, Canadians say "ay" all the time, and fail to notice it. French people say "bah" or this really scary breathless "ouais" sucking noise, and are surprised when I jump in fright at such an inhuman noise.

And we Minnesotans say the word "so" at the end of practically all our sentences. The filler words of "like" and "umm" are also embarrassingly present.

From here on out, I will try to speak in complete sentences, without using fillers. Even thinking this way is difficult. Grrr.