So this is my first week at EchoDitto, and one of the most important things you should know about me is that I love rice pudding. And I’m not picky. Kozy Shack? Yes. Kheer? Yes. Homemade? Yes. The kind at the bodega with a half cherry on top? Absolutely.
Which is why the email from my friend Phillip with the subject “Rice Pudding” probably caught my eye. And the URL was www.freerice.com. Free rice pudding? Sign me up.
Well… I don’t want to ruin it for all of you, but it’s not free rice pudding. Instead, it’s a vocabulary game that donates 10 grains of rice to the World Food Program for every word that you get right. Amazing. (My nerdy love of word games took the edge off my rice-puddingless-disappointment.)
And now I can’t stop. The trick is that for every three words you get right, you go up a level. For every word you get wrong, you go back a level. There are 50 levels. I’m hovering around 43, and the FAQs say it’s nearly impossible to get above 48, but that won’t stop me from trying. And it’s not just my competitive spirit—how do you stop when you know the answer? And how do you stop when you don’t? Won’t it bug me all day if I don’t know what “bole” means?
I think what’s genius about this site is the way the game gets you stuck to the cause. For all of the time I’m thinking about arcane vocabulary words, I’m also thinking about how to address world hunger. So, maybe less delicious than rice pudding, but more satisfying? Satiating? Gratifying? Pleasurable…?
