Inspiration For Longevity

Well, I am certainly not Paul McCartney! Regardless, I hope you enjoy my rendition of Let It Be! In this day and age of public strife and conflict, I think we can all take a lesson from the Beatles! I also hope you enjoy these photos from the Tama Cemetery. After spending many hours walking through that cemetery, I finally decided to get a map. Using that map, I discovered the grave site at which these pictures were taken. This has now become my favorite grave site in the cemetery! One of my all-time favorite lines from a song is the title of the song, "I Need Never Get Old," by Nathaniel Rateiff and The Night Sweats. I love the song and I love the title! That song title could easily be the title of a fabulous book I am reading, "Breaking the Age Code," by Becca Levy. Here are a couple of representative quotes from that book.  "Participants with the most-positive views of aging were living, on average, seven and a half years longer than those with the most-nega

Nothing like this good old classic Home on the Range! The pictures are all from a recent trip we took to the Urabandai Resort. We had a great time! Who was talking about retirement? If I talked about it, I totally forgot about that idea! I will be back in the classroom, starting this coming Monday. 15 hours a week. 10th grade language arts, 7th grade science, grades 4-8 reading comprehension, and helping with the PE classes. Plus grading and more planning. Definitely a labor of love! Speaking of labor of love, I have really enjoyed the 300+ hours of planning I have done this summer. I certainly have never put so much time into school class planning! I know those efforts will pay off as I feel really prepared to tackle these classes! There have been so many highlights when it comes to my planning efforts. At the top of the list have to be To Kill A Mockingbird and I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. I am super excited about teaching both of these wonderful texts. The quality of the writing

I hope you enjoy my recording of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel hit, Sounds of Silence. I just watched the iconic viewing of that song in the classic movie, The Graduate. Dustin Hoffman is still going strong! The pictures were taken at the Rikugien Garden. I photographed during the day and then stayed for the evening, when various parts of the garden were highlighted with flood lights. It was stunning! Yes, life in the fast lanes! As I previously mentioned, I accepted a teaching position for this coming school year with the Tokyo International Progressive School, otherwise known at "TIPS." What I did not know when I did my last update was my teaching assignment. I will be teaching 10th grade language arts, grades 4-8 reading comprehension, and helping with two PE classes. Please keep in mind this is a part-time position. Just to keep me truly on my toes, they added 7th grade science. Wow! Between the science planning work and my increase in reading volume, I have been going

I hope you enjoy my recording of "Love is All Around." I would like to dedicate that to my amazing and lovely wife Setsuko! Speaking of amazing, the pictures were taken during a wonderful day and evening of photography in Shinjuku. The building with the great shapes is the Yoyogi National Gymnasium. I have been wanting to get back to that building ever since I almost got thrown in jail! Several months ago, I was hoping to photograph that fascinating building. I was with a photographer friend who had been to that site several times. I got out my tripod and set up my gear when the fun began. This voice came through a loud speaker as follows, "you do not have permission to do photography! Please stop immediately!" What the heck!!!!???? All we could figure out was that the powers that be thought I was a professional photographer. So much for that photo session! For my recent session, I just used my iPhone. No loud speaker action! The evening pictures were taken at the T

Hello again! I hope you enjoy my recording of the classic, "Leaving on A Jet Plane." That song has always had special meaning to me as it was the first song I learned on the guitar. I only wish I could match the wonderful recordings by John Denver and Peter, Paul, and Mary! These photos are from Jindai Botanical Garden, such a gorgeous place!  As I think I may have mentioned, my current job at the American School is over at the end of this year. While I could stay and work as a substitute teacher, my preference is to have a regular position, so I get the joy of working with the same students on a consistent basis.  There is a wonderful web site that lists most of the top international schools in the Tokyo area: https://www.international-schools-database.com/in/tokyo Call it luck or call it persistence, I recently hit the jackpot when I discovered an amazing gem, The Tokyo International Progressive School, or TIPS, https://www.tokyoips.com/ This is from their main page: TIPS i