Noodle bowl

I have two weeks left of this semester, which brings out a personal quirk. Whenever I'm really close to the time something ends, I'm already done in my mind. I think, with less than two weeks to go, why don't we just sum the whole thing up today and start our holiday break now?

When I lived in Japan, I spent Mondays sitting at my desk at the Board of Education. Twenty-five Japanese men in suits, and me. The highlight was lunchtime (when is it not?). We ordered our bowls of noodles and rice just before noon, and a tiny hunchbacked old lady delivered them in wooden baskets. Beautiful blue and white ceramic bowls stacked between wooden slats. At 11:57, with a steaming bowl of noodles on my desk, I reached for my chopsticks and began to dig in. But I noticed that no one else touched their food, and just went on with their paperwork. When the minute hand clicked to precisely 12:00, everyone reached for their bowls and began eating at once.