For years, I contemplated starting a blog. My hesitations and roadblocks were probably not very different from anyone else who has ever contemplated this endeavor: What would I write about? How often should I post a new entry? Would anyone read my work? and so on. As I sat at my laptop last night contemplating “to blog or not to blog”, a voice popped into my consciousness; the voice of  Robin Williams as John Keating in “The Dead Poet’s Society”. He whispered for me to lean in… “Carpe diem…carpe diem”. As I heard those words, I leaned into my laptop screen, put my fingers to the keyboard, and started typing.

Currently, I am a teacher on sabbatical. This is actually code for my wife’s job relocated us to Japan and there are no full-time teaching positions available at this moment in time. It has been a bit of a rough transition for me. I’ve been an educator for twenty-five years and during that time I have always had a classroom of students to teach. For now, I am teaching part-time at a private language school. That takes care of students to teach, but it is only part-time. Now I actually have free time, a luxury that I am not used to dealing with very much, summer months not withstanding! This new found time allows me to continue to teach and offers ample time to explore, listen to music, take photos, shoot video, and write. So, lean in everyone!

Tanesashi Coast Flowers, Northern Japan 2018    Photo by Greg Vessar

© 2018 Gregory Vessar