Rice & Shine

After four years, our show has come to an end. Thank you so much for listening to us--whether this be your first episode or your 119th, we hope we've been able to provide insight, encouragement, and laughter. For our final episode we reflect on our four years of hosting the show, go over our ups and downs, get emotional, and give thanks. All our best,Sophie, Ava, and Lauren

In our penultimate episode, we sit down and reflect on how our cultural identities have changed over the years. We discuss how the role of culture has shifted in our lives and how we've matured since our second episode (The Reality of Cultural Identity and Being Mixed). 

In this episode, we chat about growing up and how our middle school days have shaped us. With the prospect of college looming, we ponder what life may have in store for us. 

As second semester seniors, the school year is winding down, but our brains aren't. In this episode we talk about toxic productivity and the culture of workaholism Mercer Island has created for us and how it will impact our futures. 

Inspired by the clickbait videos we used to watch when we were younger, we decided to make a less-clickbait version of the "How I Got Into College" video. We talk about our GPAs, standardized testing, do an essay reading, and give advice for both prospective college students and their supporters.

After months of stress, we have finally all committed to college and are proud to announce that Ava will be attending Stanford University, Sophie will be attending UC Santa Barbara, and Lauren will be attending New York University. Listen in to hear how we made our decisions and how we're feeling on the cusp of a new chapter in our lives.

Past the stress of college decisions, we sat down to play the game We're Not Really Strangers again with our new mindsets. The game prompted us to talk about how we really felt, our favorite childhood shows, unpopular opinions, and our anxieties around this upcoming chapter of our lives.

With college results back, Ava emcees a dating show (think The Bachelor x Love is Blind) where Lauren and Sophie speed-date their potential colleges. Listen in to hear the schools the two are leaning towards, and stay tuned to hear which school they end up committing to!

Lauren, Sophie, and Ava are back to talk about their new love stories in their lives! Make sure to listen until the end to hear all the twists and turns of this episode...

In this episode, we tackle the dilemmas of overconsumption and consumerism. We discuss American issues in comparison to other countries, the impacts of fast fashion, food waste, and how to mitigate these issues.

Naomi Ishisaka is The Seattle Times' Social Justice Columnist and Assistant Managing Editor for Diversity and Inclusion. Lauren was able to interview her and ask questions about being a Japanese-American woman in journalism, how the idea of race has evolved, and how to tell stories thoughtfully and respectfully. Take a listen to hear this extended cut of the KMIH feature!

With Sophie out, Lauren and Ava talk about one of their favorite things: cute characters. They talk all about their love for these characters, dive into why the brain loves cute things, and unpack the marketing scheme of cute that they fall victim to every time. 

The Rice and Shine team has come down with a serious disease... senioritis. In this episode, we go over our struggles to stay motivated as freedom calls our names, and the stress of college decisions being released this month. 

Are you into hypothetical scenarios? If so, you're in for a treat! This week, we put ourselves in the shoes of the victors and losers of the Hunger Games. Listen in to see how we hold up!

Happy (week of) Valentine's Day! To celebrate, we chat about our favorite things growing up and to this day. Take a listen to hear us rave about Sanrio, Doraemon, pirates, dragons, Where'd All The Time Go by Dr. Dog, Beethoven, and more. 

In today's episode, we revisit an old topic to start off our reform series: parenting! We explore the iPad kid phenomenon, discuss the Sephora kid epidemic, and reflect on how we were raised. 

We're officially in the second semester of our senior year! As scatterbrained as ever, we go on tangents about our finals, study habits, and our hopes for our final semester as high schoolers.

Kids are weird... But I can guarantee we were weirder! Tune in to hear all about our irrational fears and silly tendencies.

We're back! After a long winter break, our team is reunited at last. From college acceptances to island getaways, we've got some recapping to do. Listen in to hear about our recent adventures.

3rd year anniversary of being on podcast platforms, the 100th episode, the holidays, oh my! This episode is a special one--with our 100th episode and anniversary, we reflect back on our growth as people and on the show, react to our old episodes, and toast to our accomplishments. 

How well do we really know each other? Today, we play a game called "We're Not Really Strangers" in order to answer this question. Listen in to hear some of our secrets, advice, and favorite memories.

It's the most wonderful time of the year… Spotify Wrapped is out! This week, we review the surprises of this year's recap of our music taste. Listen in to find out how accurate we think our wraps are.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we decided to go over our family traditions and discuss what we are thankful for. From skiing to sushi, we cover all our unique customs in this week's episode. 

With Ava out for the week, Lauren and Sophie sit down to remember their time in quarantine. They reminisce as they talk about their nightly FaceTimes and antics that kept them sane.

In this episode, we sit down to talk about femininity. We discuss our relationship with pink and being girly as we've grown up, internalized misogyny, internet trends about being a girl, and reflect on the community of girlhood.

We couldn't record this week, so here are some of our favorite moments of Senior Season so far!

In this week's episode, we talk all about eating habits; being a picky eater, vegetarianism/veganism, foods we hate, and the privilege of being able to have food aversions.

To learn more, check out these articles:Timeline- https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/israel-palestine-conflict-timeline-history-explained/Live updates- https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-67165505Recorded October 12th.

Life is a movie, but are we really the main characters? This week, we discuss main character syndrome, the benefits of romanticizing life, and TikTok affirmations.

In a more lighthearted episode, we decided to talk about our favorite fall things! We talk about the pumpkin spice craze, debate the best fall pie, and talk about potential Halloween costumes.

In this week's episode, we talk all about beauty: the price of beauty, how the beauty standard is unattainable, and a bit about fast fashion and consumerism.

YOLO, FOMO, HOCO, WOFO... What do all of these letters have in common? They're all acronyms that represent high school! In this episode, we break down each acronym and how it relates to everything: how we approach our social lives, our thoughts on being seniors, and school-sanctioned events.

Let's be honest--everyone's had an obsession with a celebrity before, right? Well, this week's episode is about that--parasocial relationships! We debate what really defines a parasocial relationship, discuss celebrity façades, and talk about our own experiences with parasocial relationships.

With the stress of senior year coming in full force, we decided to talk about crying! We discuss our crying habits, different kinds of tears, and reflect on our past emotional experiences.

It's Rice & Shine's senior year and we are back and better than ever! To ring in the new season we talk about our summers, what we're excited about/dreading for our senior year, and our goals for the final season of Rice & Shine. 

On our last day of school (and end of season three), we sat down to review our junior year. We confirmed the myth of junior year being the most difficult academically, talked about our personal growth this year, and commiserated over the upcoming college applications battle.Keep up with us over the summer on our Instagram! @riceandshinepodcast

This week, we're joined by fellow KMIH podcasters Chloe and Hayley. In combining their food show, Eating Adventures, with Rice & Shine, we chatted about childhood foods, food in the PNW, McDonald's across the world, and debated the age-old question: what instant ramen is best? 

In our last episode, we talked about movie sequels and spin-offs. Continuing that theme, we decided to give our opinions on the new spin-off show "XO Kitty", which has dominated social media lately. Is it worth the watch? Listen in and find out!

With Ava out, Lauren and Sophie talk about movie sequels, spin-offs, and live-action remakes. We talk about the various Disney princess remakes, rank the Star Wars movies and series, and ask the age-old question: "Can a sequel ever be better than the original?"

Throughout our 3 years hosting this show, we have talked about TikTok countless times. With the app being banned recently in Montana and a possible nationwide ban on the horizon, we return to the topic once again. In this episode, we question how likely the ban is to be upheld, talk about our TikTok usage, and wonder about privacy concerns.

After a great 3 years of Rice & Shine, Grace is stepping away from the show. For her last hurrah, we reflect on our personal and professional growth as Rice & Shine and discuss what comes next for each of us.

In this episode, we talk about social media's role in our lives as teenage girls. We get into our over-usage, which apps we each have, and different phases we've had in the world of social media. 

With college decisions being finalized among our senior class, Grace decides to talk with current Mercer Island High School senior Ryan Hsi. In this episode, Grace hopes to gain insight into his high school journey, thoughts on navigating the college application process, which colleges he did or did not get into, and affirmative action.

With Grace and Ava being unavailable this week, Sophie and Lauren take this opportunity to compile all of Rice and Shine's unused topics into one mashup episode. To hear about anything from weird food combos to celebrity crushes, make sure to listen in! 

In the 3rd edition of our brief series, Cultural Connections, Sophie goes over what it's like growing up as a Filipino in America. She reviews a recent family visit and what she learned after being surrounded by Filipino culture for a full week.

In this second episode of our new series, Cultural Connections, Grace and two of her friends at Washington's Korean Community Service Center discuss a pressing issue of their culture: toxic beauty standards. At 10:30, they start to dive into eating disorders and body image issues so we recommend clicking off if that's a trigger for you. 

As the year heats up as juniors we have decided to launch a new series: Cultural Connections where we talk about connections we've had with our respective cultures. Lauren is up first to talk about her experience going back to Japan (specifically Hokkaido) after 5 years and what differences she found between Hokkaido and Honshu, the mainland. 

You may remember "Music that Made Us" from season 1 in our freshman year, so we decided to bring it back and see how things have changed. We compare/contrast our music taste from then versus now, go over our Spotify Wrapped results, and play some of our favorite songs for each other. 

It's our junior year (aka the most stressful) and so we sit down to talk about how our first round of finals as juniors went. As we talk, the conversation turns into the pressure for us to succeed. The conversation gets deep as we talk about our competitive school, being compared to our siblings, and the pressure we put on ourselves. 

After a week of finals, we decide to make a short and sweet episode about the generation gap between us and our grandparents. We discuss the factors that play into our distance from them--the language gap, geographical separation, and differences in attitudes. 

Being fed up with Tik-Tok "Glow-Up" challenges, today we decide to talk about what glow-ups mean to us. We reminisce about our glow-ups whether they be physical, mental, or emotional.