Happiness is Warm Rice

Before today's entry, I just have to clarify a couple of things from my xiaxue killers post. First, the whole thing wasn't exactly meant to be a beauty pageant. While the bloggers in question definitely had to be pretty, I was also looking for certain elements that they shared in common with xiaxue which could possibly make them popular. In particular, I was looking for lots of photos, as well as a readable blog. Added points were given for the bloggers in question giving the illusion of availability or something to that effect. People like Little Miss Drinkalot or the gorgeous Adrianna simply don't post enough pictures to qualify in this category, even though they must undoubtably be babes, if only because their england is so blardee powderful.

Anyway, from the comments, I've found a blog that I missed out on:

Shoe Sessions: Daphne is an undergraduate at Purdue, and a certified babe. Also attached, but then, hey, being a chiobu like her, it makes sense, doesn't it? Purdue isn't that far away.

Honorable mention to Princess Gabrielle, who is also a chiobu.

Oh, yeah, I also happened to stumble across Sandra Ng's sister's (at least, she lists Sandra as her sister) blog; I've been enjoying that blog as well, but, seeing as to how its last entry was a plea to strangers to stop spreading her blog around, I'm not going to list it out of respect. Go ask Sandra, lah.

Ok, finally, on to my post:



I cooked dinner again tonight. I've been cooking at home a lot lately; the flatmate's boyfriend is away in Greece for the quarter, so the prodigal daughter has started coming home more frequently, giving me more opportunities to cook. While the flatmate wasn't around today, I invited a couple friends over and we had a simple, chinese dinner. I made pepper beef with asparagus, and stir-fried chicken, if anyone's interested. In my efforts to keep the food warm until my friends showed up, the meat dried up a little, but it was still pretty tasty.

I know, not everybody wants to read about my dinner, but I think it's important to talk about the things you take for granted when you're living with your families. While most people cite their hectic schedules as their reason for eating out through most of college, I find that it just doesn't make sense to cook when there's nobody to cook for. The good food I eat alone somehow just doesn't cut it; I find myself longing for a certain familiar set of walls with every bite of the eggs I scramble for myself, or the noodles I eat in front of my computer.

I've always believed that there's a very elaborate ritual that surrounds dinner, especially the dinners you share with your family. When I think of living with someone, I invariably associate this with eating together. Flatmates who don't share meals, it seems, are in many ways strangers; through eating together, you become so much more like family.

I once read an essay for chinese class which described happiness as a warm bowl of rice; for the author, the smell of cooking rice reminded him of the warmth of his family, of the depth of emotion that is not often expressed, and felt most acutely in its loss.

Sitting around the table today, chatting with a group of friends, I felt a bit of something that I feel so rarely now, living away from my home - I felt the warmth of a shared meal. I ate my warm, white rice, scooping it out of my faithful rice cooker and had one of those moments where for once, you really appreciate the depth of meaning that a bowl of warm rice can convey.

If my family is reading this, I miss you guys. Every day.

Everyone else, you can pretend you never read that. I'm not actually soft like that. I was lying. I'm a tough guy, I am.

Ok, maybe I can't be tough all the time.