Yesterday, I had an opportunity to have lunch with an old friend and colleague.  It was the usual exchanges of highs and lows of life, career and family.  After the quick lunch she invited me again to visit our office and once again have a quick chat with friends who were still there.   I worked for that company for 12 years and it was my first job.  It was there where I honed my skills in typing and learned speaking basic Japanese language,  a little of Chinese, Indian, and Korean.  I can't forget my first day, where the Japanese General Manager told me "Toness-San (they had difficulty pronouncing my name) one "coffee" please and handed me a sheet of paper. Bewildered, I kept asking myself why he wanted a coffee and at the same time, what should I do with the sheet of paper he gave me.  It was later on when I realized, he didn't mean "coffee" but "copy".  To this day, that incident always give me a laugh and I love looking back at that funny moment.  Going back there gave me a sense of happiness, it's like coming home again to the familiar place, meeting those familiar faces once again.  It felt good to be home again.  That home gave me countless memories and experiences which I will always be grateful for and cherish forever, where Ohayo Gozaimasu and Sayonara were the daily routines and the music to my ears.  It was really great and I felt forever grateful for being part of the Itochu Corp. family for 12 fruitful years.   It has been four years since I left but it only felt just like yesterday.  Time really slips so fast like sand in our hands. "Kampai" to the 12 years and to all the good friends I've left and great to find out they were still there.  Moving forward, I'm going to another home, an entirely different home.  This time, the boisterous laughters of children will be the background music and on the otherhand, a world that seems different from ours. A world where the children will call me "Pitcher" and the other world where nobody calls me and I will try to reach out and make the children part of the world we know. A place with contrasting features but with a common goal- making the disabled, able and be a part of the bigger society that we live in; live a normal life in spite of their differences.