Rats For Homework

So, I was on my way to work early in the morning, half awake of course, and I see a big fat rat boot under a steel fence. Eeew. After my disgust fades I decide, 'rats...good discussion topic', so the next day I prepared some info and questions and brought it to class.
Apparently, Korea had such a bad rat problem about ten years ago that the government mandated that all students (for homework) should catch three rats. As proof, they were to cut off the tails and bring them to class.
In true Asian style, most of them faked it; bought squid and blackened the squid (tenticles? is that the right word), either by cooking it or with black paint. I imagine a some of them actually had to catch a few though.
They say now rats aren't a problem in Korea. Oh, in my research of rats I discovered they serve fried rat at restaurants in Chile. It made the papers because the Chilean people are all disgusted this new restaurant is serving it but the chef argues (he's from neighbouring Peru) that "they've eaten rat forever in Peru". Mmmm.
"Kevin" (his english name) is one of my students (works for the PR dept at one of the hotel's here) mentioned that he likes to snack on cow liver, which in and of itself isn't that disgusting, except that he eats his raw!
"Oh, Kevin" I said.
"Don't look at me like that." He laughed. "My wife said the same thing as you until one day she tried it and said: 'not bad'.
To which I thought, 'well Kevin, she must love you very, very much.'
It's been really dark here the past couple of days. I mean, it looks like 8 p.m. at noon. They keep saying it's going to rain but it doesn't, just spits a little and the wind blows strong. It isn't really cold though. The leaves are finally starting to fall from the trees now, I swish though them on my way to and from work day. And the stink in the air -- I mean the smell of the sewers has faded, so there's a nice, almost fresh smell in the air now.