Chopsticks

I wasn't very good at using chopsticks when I got here. I could get the food into my mouth, but not very skillfully. I thought that the chopsticks here would probably be made out of acryclic or porcelain or something, since disposable wooden chopsticks didn't seem like a good idea for everyday use. I was wrong, though. The chopsticks here are metal, and flat. That made it really hard for me to get used to them. They kept slipping, and I kept crossing them instead of grabbing the food. And as I found out the first night I was here, you're supposed to hold the chopsticks towards the top, not in the middle, where I always held them. I notice that small children hold them almost at the bottom, so I'm thinking your hand position could be a reliable indicator of your skill at using them.

I've gotten a lot more practice since I've been here, so now I'm pretty good at chopsticking. I'm developing a chopsticks callous on my middle finger, actually. And now that I'm correcting papers and writing out my lessons every day, my writer's callous has returned on my ring finger. Oh, boy.