7 people under one roof

My dad's parents, my grandparents, are here to live with us until next Spring. Since my older brother and I have both moved home after graduating from college, there are now seven people residing in my parents' home. Fortunately, personal space is not much of an issue, and everyone situated is in their designated room.

The transition from sharing a lovely one-bedroom apartment in college (Haste! freedom! friends!) with my best friend, and then moving home at the beginning of summer to a partially-inhabited six-bedroom house (my parents were in China and Taiwan for the summer) was tolerable. All I had to do was make sure my brothers were fed, safe, and clean (the last one is iffy). I could cook whatever I wanted. And if I didn't feel like cooking, slathering peanut butter on some whole wheat bread for myself and picking up In-n-Out for my brothers was the next best thing. 

I'm now beginning to appreciate things I hadn't four months ago.



Most noticeably, our food habits are changing. My grandparents can't eat anything salty, spicy, pickled, crunchy, oily, chewy, or creamy. That means that my mom shops at Ranch 99 every other day for vegetables to boil and steam. We've also started eating rice again, because my grandparents are strictly whole-family-sit-down-traditional-5-course-Chinese-meals kind of people, and we are more whenever's-convenient-whatever's-convenient kind of people. There really is no middle ground now. 

I've been helping my mom more with cooking and cleaning duties. Cooking five Chinese dishes every night for dinner is a nightmare. Cleaning up the pots, pans, dishes, and utensils for seven people after said meal is another nightmare. We stand in the kitchen for about three hours every night preparing and washing up. And you thought washing your roommates' dishes was bad. This is why every Friday and Saturday night, my mom says that our kitchen is closed and we order in or take out instead.

Another habit that is changing is my studying. Since the noise level is noticeably higher in the house now (we recently subscribed to AT&T U-Verse for my grandparents), I try to stay on campus as many hours as possible. It works to two advantages, since my car doesn't need moving after I park it. This is kind of a crucial semester in studying for me, as I am preparing for my first time taking the MCAT (why do people think I've already taken it? I haven't) and would like to put in as many uninterrupted hours as I can. I am still learning to weigh this task against the guilt of not always fulfilling familial obligations.

So for the next six or so months, I'm sorry if I can't hang out as much as I would like to. I realize that "I can't" as an excuse isn't always satisfactory, but with all of these things looming over my head, sometimes, I just won't be able to explain myself. But I will still make every effort to have much-needed adventures, so as to not go crazy.


It's bedtime now and I will be wearing earplugs because there is a television on the other side of the wall where my head is. It was nice to be away last night in Berkeley.