When I came to Sacred Heart, I was strictly a veggie sushi roll girl.
By veggie, I do NOT mean veggie, I mean cucumber and carrots. Absolutely no avocado or asparagus. It was veggie lite.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like truer forms of sushi, I simply refused to try them. Why mess up something good?
This was until I met my freshman year roommate. Let’s call her spicy tuna girl.
Spicy tuna girl would try any roll. She would sit and hear people talk about a roll they tried that they recommended. She would do something that not many people I had met yet would do, she would try the roll.
She would ask for a bite, she would dip it in her favorite sauce, maybe even adapt the order a little, making it her own. She would try it out and mix it around.
This encouraged and inspired me to do the same. Slowly, I started to try new rolls. I would try a piece of spicy tuna girl’s, I would order something slightly more adventurous, I would read the part of the menu that wasn’t just veggie.
This action that she did teach me more than just how to order sushi. I then thought about it in a new perspective. Yes, this was a simple sushi order, a way to try new foods and flavors, but couldn’t I take this and use it elsewhere?
Sushi ordering taught me to try new things. From this, I then taught myself to not only try these physical things, but also to see from new perspectives and combine my thoughts and opinions with others to collaboratively find new ones. This taught me openness.
Because of spicy tuna girls’ initial openness to explore and be adventurous with a food that many find scary, I no longer stay stagnant in my ways. I explore new ideas, concepts, or different outlooks.
This taught me the value of being able to recognize that, although something is good and meets your expectations, there are ways that it could be better. Opening your mind to new experiences and knowledge will rarely result in a negative reaction.
There is always more information, more opportunities, and more experiences out there. It is on us to push ourselves to have exposure to them.
Thanks to spicy tuna girl, I will now eat any type of sushi. Frankly, crazy types of sushi are my favorite. Salmon, tuna, eel, you name it.
Still, I have morals and refuse asparagus in sushi.
