The Week of Rice
At twelve o�clock ante meridiem today, a group of young adults began the Week of Rice. Of this fellowship I am a member; in fact, you can call me Ricerite Number 3. We can eat nothing but rice until Saturday comes. I don�t even particularly like the food; in fact, I don�t recall that I�ve ever really liked it. However, I eat it anyway�breakfast, lunch, and dinner (or breakfast, dinner, and supper, as I like to call them, but perhaps that�s just my midwestern heritage).
Our puroses are four-fold. I hope I can remember the purposes and not look like more of a fool here.
Purpose 1: Experience World Hunger
Purpose 2: Build discipline
Purpose 3: Some spiritual growth, community, or something
Purpose 4: What kind of wuss would I be if I couldn�t eat only rice for a week?
You may be thinking that Purpose 1 is a little weird, I mean, we�re still eating. Some places, though, rice is all they have to eat. And I have a feeling that if rice is all I can eat, I will end the day feeling a little hungry.
I don�t really know how it started, I think that my neighbor and a female friend of his thought to do it, and then my neighbor tried to talk me into it. I was kind of afraid to at first. I know, it sounds stupid, but just think of what could happen without some of your essential nutrients? That may sound overly nutritionalistic, but I�m talking mainly about fiber here. It�s not wise to be without that.
That night as I lay down to sleep, only the first three purposes existed. Then purpose four came to me, and I became a Ricerite.
To say we can only eat rice is a tad deceiving. Spices and seasonings are allowed to flavor the rice. We can drink pretty much whatever we want�so juice, milk, and pop (more midwest talk) are allowed. Malts, however, are forbidden because they have too much substance. These rules are a little shaky, but when you have just twenty or so people freely willing to abide by them for five days, there�s not much to worry about.
The Council of Ricea has also declared that Rice Krispies are cosubstantial with Rice itself, being merely puffed rice with minimal additives, and are permissible for consumption for breakfast or in the absence of regular rice. I fought hard in the Council for this allowance, in case that our rice should run out, rice for breakfast felt a little weird, or some among us were just too weak of will to eat rice only. However, purists among the Ricerites plan to eat regular rice at all meals, as Rice Krispies are too commonplace for us and seem a deterrant to accomplishing Purpose 1. Purpose 4 is also commonly cited among them. I too, am a purist, but wish to allow for weakness that may occur in myself or others.
By now any reader is thinking that I�m crazy. Well, I guess you could say I am. Not only have I only eaten rice today, I�ve also been part of one of those assassin games where you get someone�s name and then have to shoot them with a water gun, and then you get the name of who that person was supposed to shoot, and so on. And I�ve been reading Catcher in the Rye and philosophic essays on suicide. This combination of things sounds kind of scary, and my picture here looks kind of scary, too. I�m not really a killer, in fact my assassin got me before I could get my target. Besides, all that reading is for classes I�m taking. No, I�m not in some terrorist training camp, although I did have to read an essay on terrorism last week.
I think I should stop now.