Final Day at Home

It's early Thursday morning and I will be heading to the airport in 24 hrs. Today is house cleaning day and I have to do some last minute banking as well as shut down my phone/TV/Internet service. I think I have all the details taken care of but I know there are some things that I have forgotten to do. They will come to me when I'm 30,000 feet above the Pacific.

The past few days have been spent mostly on saying good-byes to family and friends and getting my bags packed. It is not easy to fit a year of needs into two suitcases (two large suitcases). However, I find some satisfaction in knowing that I am shedding all the clutter that I have become buried under. I think of George Carlin's routine on "Stuff".

I will arrive in Saigon on Saturday night a 10:00 pm and spend a couple of days there before flying up to Da Nang on the 29th. The school where I will be teaching is called AVIEC (American Vietnamese International English Center). Though I stil don't have all the details, I will be teaching business professionals who already speak English but want to polish it. I will be teaching Monday through Friday from 5:30 -8:30 pm and am supposed to begin around the first of June. I have an appointment set up to meet with the school on May 2 and also need to sign the lease on my house that day.

Before I begin teaching, I will be meeting up with four American vets who want me to show them around for a couple of weeks. We won't be traveling though the entire country as I normally do but will be spending our time in Da Nang and in Hue. We will get up to the DMZ and other places where we spent time during the war but won't have enough time to get up to Hanoi as a group. It's too bad because I really like Hanoi. If time allows, I will head up there on my own for a few days after the men go home.

Well, it's almost 5:00 in the morning and I had better get started with my day. I wanted to make this entry early because I won't have Internet access this evening and it will probably be a week before I can make my next entry on the blog.

Take a deep breath, Billy. Here we go!