Ramen, 20th Birthday

Spring break! I somewhat regret not going home for the week because all campus cafeterias are closed and I will be shelling out $7 for steak fajita burritos at Chipotle on a daily basis. But aside from the expensive airfare and my general dislike for dragging luggage around, what really convinced me not to go home was the dread of taking the depressing 6 hr plane ride back to Cambridge in another week. It's a long, psychologically debilitating return to reality as reminders of work left unfinished and midterms untaken resurface. They say power is work over time, but when you are talking about the power of mental distress, extended time kills. Besides, eating Chipotle burritos won't be bad at all. It'll be a nice preparation for my bachelor lifestyle that lies ahead.

Technically I am already well prepared because I have been consuming loads of Korean cup noodles throughout this first year. It's a shame because cup noodles are unhealthy in so many ways, and they don't even taste as good as ramen cooked in the pot. In fact, I take great pride in making non-instant ramen because I can actually pretend I know how to cook, and over my many years of experimentation, have developed a unique recipe and technique tailored to my emotional needs. The ingredients, time, and vivacity required for this art are difficult to find in college experience, though, so I settle for the more convenient alternative. The only inconvenient part is that I have to make a bus trip to a nearby Korean grocery store about every three weeks to restock my arsenal. And once I have purchased the stockpile, I leave myself vulnerable to the judging eyes of society as I clamber up the bus for the return trip. One time, I was getting on the bus with three boxes of cup noodles, two of them for my entrymates who had become addicted (with no small contribution from me) when the middle-aged Asian bus driver, upon noticing them, engaged me in an annoying exchange.

"You must really like cup noodles," he postulated.

Some white folks in the back of the bus laughed and began taking notice. Why this Asian man chose to make public service announcements about me and my noodles, instead of announcing the bus stops as he was supposed to, beats me. It is probable that he, too, once shared my passion for gourmet spicy, and I politely explained I was selling two of the boxes to my entrymates. But then he proceeded to ask whether I was making a profit, to which I replied no, and then pried the exact pricing of the noodles from me. The most annoying part of the conversation came when he ridiculed me for paying 90 cents for each cup of noodles. He advised me to visit some store in Chinatown where each cup costs only 25 cents. The fact that he had the temerity to publicly challenge my ramen expertise and to espouse purchasing inferior, probably carcinogenic noodles thoroughly pissed me off.

So I simply replied, "Sir, these are not your ordinary noodles."

Since two weeks ago, I am 20 fucking years old. That's two solid decades. A lot of people say I am silly, but I really feel as though I have reached the prime of my life. Where did all those years go? Now there are only three significant "age markers" waiting for me, and none of them is pleasant: 25, 30, 40. I say 25 because when I play the franchise mode on NBA Live, I always trade away players who turn 25 for younger prospects, no matter how good they are.

But anyway, I got a very nice surprise the midnight I turned 20. I was chilling out in my bed, listening to "Life is a Bitch" by Nas (which references his 20th birthday), when I heard a knock on the door. I assumed it was one of my roommates who had forgotten his key so I yelled, "I'm coming" and then opened the door to the sight of my friends holding an ice cream cake with lit candles. They began singing Happy Birthday. I was genuinely, pleasantly surprised. The problem was, my face expression had hardly changed, and I knew I wasn't looking surprised at all. So when they started singing Happy Birthday, I desperately told myself to somehow snap out of my fucking complacent, stoic, unperturbed countenance, to manifest some visible sign of humanity. Hilariously, my first instinct was to widen my eyes and smile but the appropriate timing had passed and I think I appeared slightly intoxicated. Then about halfway through the song, I made a pathetic attempt to emulate the socially acceptable gesture of laying one hand on my heart region, to indicate I was truly touched by the surprise, which was true. But because I was performing this gesticulation for the first time and doing it rather spasmodically, the shit came off wack and I looked like I had angina. When they were done singing, I welcomed them into the room and had to explain I was indeed surprised even though I didn't show it. I have only three or four different face expressions, and clearly they are extremely versatile.

Don't think I'm entirely horrible about social conventions, though. I've been practicing the side hug for a while now, and I am now at a point where I don't look like I'm initiating hydrogen bonds with people. But I still prefer the full interlocking hug, especially when the girl has nice perfume on. God, a whiff of good perfume makes me feel young again.