Next Stop: America-Town

After seven months away from Freedomsville, my return is imminent. For 12 days in Oregon, I will eat pizza without corn on there, enjoy sandwiches with wheat bread, sample microbrews that don't cost six dollars a pint, avoid Japanese restaurants and sushi, read the Oregonian in print, and who knows what other things I haven't realized I've been missing.

Of course, the trip will be framed around visiting family, spread across Oregon, in Portland, Pendleton and Corvallis.

I will arrive in Portland next Friday, March 7, in the early afternoon, departing again for Japan on March 18. When I write that it seems like such a short trip, but it was quite a thing to squeeze it in amid a host of things happening here at what has become "home."

I am leaving immediately after my duties end for the final exam period of the third and final term of the school year. I will get back just in time to go along with the students and teachers to watch the baseball club participate in a national tournament, much like they did in the summer.

The baseball tournament, and one other major event, is what kept me from traveling during the proper spring break, though that would only have been about 12 or 13 days anyway.

The other option would be putting it all of until summer -- but summer would be more expensive to fly, I think, so I wanted to push for a spring trip.

Also, I want to do a little shopping for clothing, which isn't impossible here but is certainly inconvenient when it comes to sizes and styles.

But enough about shopping ... I nearly got a headache just thinking about it.

The key here is that in a week I will land in the U.S. -- in San Francisco, where I will change planes -- and enjoy what I have left behind. Exciting, much.

Vacation ends

It's 2:40 on a Saturday and I'm sitting in bed. Partly because I'm still a little sick and partly because, well, I enjoy sleeping in.

But vacation is over. I'm just a few hours -- less than 48 -- away from returning to school. That means waking up at the crack of 10, rushing to campus for this term's 11 a.m. classes, and then spending the rest of the day, until at least 10 p.m., either in class or in the newsroom.

Breaks are scarce. Occasionally, we muster funding and transport for a mission to Taco Bell. But Corvallis, in a major city planning fiasco, has only one Taco Bell, which often means really long lines.

But I digress. I just wanted to take this moment to note that vacation time is great. Because you can sleep until 3 and not feel guilty about it.

Now what's for lunch?