Boiled Buckwheat and other food for thought So. The first day of school was wonderful, albeit a tad long (an hour later than usual, with the added one hour meeting as soon as I got home). My favorite part: observing Ryo, a 7th grader, locomote down the hallway, index fingers inserted in ears, vociferously chanting something to the effect of "laaa laaaa laaaa laaaa" as Tamaki sensei (his English teacher) followed closely behind, belting out the "ABC" song. Aaaah. It's good to be back. And today was the official welcome lunch for the new teachers. Today was the "small" lunch (an official tummy stuffer will be coming in a few weeks) including tempura (fried vegetables and/or things like shrimp), and soba (noodles, eaten cold in the summer, made from buckwheat). The meal also included soba cha, a tea made from the leftover boiled buckwheat noodles water. I humbly declined. And during the meal, I had the privilege to sit across from two of our new teachers, Mike and Ben, both of whom are extremely intelligent and extraordinarily witty. Ben is full of more random language knowledge than any person I've ever met in my life, and Mike uses words that just make my ears happy to hear again. Feeling a little intellectually inferior, at some point in our conversation, I seized the opportunity to offer a random smart-sounding fact of my own. Apparently, according to my genius, Physics Education major brother Nathan, as of two days ago, Pluto is officially no longer considered a planet. This got us to thinking. Our cute acronyms no longer apply to the planet order. We pondered this: My Very Excellent Mother [no longer] Just Served Us Nine Pizzas. Rather she Just Served Us Nine. That's it. Nine. Sad day. Feeling the loss of such an imperative component of our childhood astronomy education, Mike responded, "Yeah. NOW My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nothing!" I feel he captured the emotion of the situation quite well. Goodbye Pluto. We'll miss you.