My Five Most Irrational Fears Going Into Peace Corps Philippines:

5. Seafood. I am moving to an island chain and I have never had a palate that was acquiesable to seafood. I’m afraid the only type of seafood I like is southern…deep fried and battered. Gets the fishy taste right out. I will make a rare exception to this anti-seafood agenda, BUT the important facet of the exception is that it must not taste like seafood. Has to be heavily seasoned/sauced (like bang bang shrimp at Bonefish…WHICH I LOVE!). If I wind up with a family of fishermen I’m going to be bummed.

4. A host family of thunderous, earthshattering, earsplitting, cosmos sundering snorers. I am a retardedly light sleeper. I will wake up if my roommate rolls out of bed and moves around his room at the opposite end of the apartment. It’s not like my host family can help it either, which makes it a difficult issue to solve. I am taking the best pack of ear plugs I can find just in case...but with the sincere hope I won't need them because I don't want to be sleepless in Manilla.

3. The ‘Golden Era’ for my favorite sports teams. As soon as I leave all of my favorite sports teams for whom I have lived and breathed for the length of my fanhood go on championship winning tears, and I can’t see any of it. I’ll break it down easily: The Gators win something like 4 national championships combined within the following sports: FOOTBALL, basketball, baseball. The Colorado Rockies win their first ever World Series. The Denver Broncos are led to a Superbowl by Tim Tebow. If that happens and I’m not there to see it I will be seriously devastated. It’s rough enough surrendering Saturdays in the Swamp for 3 seasons…

2. The death of my iPod. I love my music. My iPod’s already pretty old and if it goes and I have to wait on a replacement, if it’s even possible to get a replacement, I will probably be, inexplicably to my host family and community, exponentially more grumpy.

1. SNAKES! I have long had an extremely…tangible…fear of snakes. Like all good phobias it goes back to a childhood scarring incident involving a wayward football, my unsuspecting hand, an unsuspecting and probably startled garter snake, and close contact of the wrapped around my hand variety. I don’t want to see them, hear them, feel them, EAT them, or have anything to do with them. Go ahead and google search ‘snakes in the philippines’…two of the first seven links have to do with giant snakes.