It’s been a while…

I must admit, I am a lazy person. And while continuing to write Grey Notes has been an almost daily thought for the last four months, the marathon that is COVID and the joys and stress of family and work exhausted my will power to keep jotting down my thoughts into Notes. So what brings me back now? Well, currently I literally have no valid excuse not to write:

“I am alone in a 14 day quarantine after returning to Japan from the West!”

So, at least for the next 14 days, I plan to be a prolific writer and hammer out a number of Notes that I’ve been wanting to publish.

At the end of this Note is a list of some of the topics I plan on unpacking. I may not get to them all and others may pop-up as well, but hopefully this provides a good sense of what’s brewing in my mind.

But before that, let me quickly show you my swanky quarantine pad! Calling it my own Walden Cabin (where Henry David Thoreau spent two years on his own observing and writing) would be an unfair overstatement, but this place really does feel like my nice own urban retreat to read, think, and now….write!"

My own Urban Cabin

Here is a Note on my Urban Cabin (posted on day 10 of quarantine).

Now for the list of some of the topics I plan on turning into Notes over the next 14 days:

• Thoughts on my education, specifically how a mixture of work and study is the ideal approach to education

• Importance of trips to reflect and recalibrate your life (this is obviously speaking from direct recent experience)

• Lives Lived - Jack Dye (Canadian Air Force hero who tragically lost his life while saving his crew)

• Lives Lived - Elizabeth Gray Vining (remarkable woman who was tutor to Japan’s Emperor Emiteris Akihito)

• Japan’s Health Care System - an ideal model for the West?

• Japan’s Hometown Tax - innovate system to encourage rural revitalization

• Book Review - Atlas Shrugged

One final thing to sign off with; I am growing sprouts to help pass the time. I will end each Note from my quarantine with a daily progress report of my broccoli and red cabbage sprouts!