Flight from the USA

Once more to Japan I go! I've just booked my trip back to the Far East at Summer's end. It will be great to go back and see some old friends and to visit the places I used to call home little more than a year ago. Wow! Only a year has gone by yet it feels so much longer. The MBA program has really exceeded my expectations of the U. of Oregon. Mostly, I've been lucky to have worked on a two-term project for "a major online book retailer" (whose name I am forbidden to expressly state). Beyond that, I've found the professors very engaging and my classmates are top-notch as well. It's competitive yet a co-operative environment that truly enhanced my knowledge and skills as a result. Not that Im writing as an ad for UO...

Having gone through all that and an Internship and looking forward to another year of the same, I'm eager to return to Japan before too much more time passes by. I can see myself saying, "I should go back and visit Takamatsu Pond again, but maybe in December, when swans make the winterscape a scene like no other." Then when December comes, "I'm really kind of busy with my job search so I'd better plan on going in Spring. Hey, then I could join some hanami parties." But Spring would roll around and I'd be busy with some project or another and I'd put it off until Summer. Summer becomes Fall and Winter and Spring and Summer once more, only then I'm not in school, I'm working full time and begin thinking about visiting places I've never been. Time goes by and who knows when I go back to Japan? By then so much will have changed in my life and with my friends that it is not the same place anymore; the Japan I knew and called home doesn't exist anymore; my memories are confined to old photos and letters and trinkets of years before.

No, that won't happen. I've already booked my flight and looked into getting a JR Rail pass (Ride JR Trains anywhere, free for one week) and am renewing my lost passport. I'm laying plans and working my schedule. I will not let this time be wasted. I will go back and renew old friendships and visit old places as well as some new ones and refresh in my mind how it felt to live somewhere half way around the world.

-D