by
David Lewis Brooks
Photo taken June 2023 on the steps of Hostal Casa de Huespedes San Fernando, Playa del Ingles, Gran Canaria (Canary Islands), Spain
PREFACE: This article was written over several weeks from August 18 until September 20, 2023, after I returned from my second overseas trip that summer. In reality, my trip to Mykonos, Greece, was actually in June 2023, but I recently have re-written my Mykonos travelogue, assigning at being written in 2026.
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When one comes to end of his/her professional career, it is not always easy to decide what to do or where or how to find an avocation or a new vocation to keep oneself occupied productively in the last Third of One's (Current) Lifespan. Over the approximately three and a half years since I officially retired from work (university teaching and research job), I have dabbled a bit in several possible Third Life career moves, but none of them has panned out into any satisfying work or job offers.
Basically, I am staying at home and being the wise, but quite, granddad to the Brooks-Yamaguchi family. Our older son, also an Associate Professor at Asia University (not too far from our home) lives with his Japanese wife and two daughters, aged 10 and 8 years. His wife, Yuki, works as a student affairs officer ( for foreign student admissions) at KUFS (Kanda University of Foreign Studies), located a short bicycle ride from our homes. I say 'homes' since we live just a block away from our son's and our own family residence.
I had first joined the teaching staff at Kitasato’s Sagamihara campus in April, 1996, as an emergency replacement teacher recruited by Prof. Yukio Seya in March of that year to fill a sudden part-time English teacher vacancy. I was subsequently employed as a full-time teacher member of the English Language
Photo taken August 2023 at the circular road in Tama Bochi Cemetery, Fuchu, Tokyo. These are crepe myrtle trees in full bloom from July to October annually. It's a bit rare to have two large crepe myrtle trees growing side-by-side in the cemetery, so these trees are a favorite sight on our daily dog walks into the Tama Bochi (cemetery).
Unit (department) a month into the school following year, and have continued in the position of Associate Professor until my mandatory retirement in March 2019. Why a month's late start as a full-timer? Actually for the prior school year, I was a part-time teacher with 6 weekly classes, which was the same as a full-time teacher's workload. By then asking that I be made a full-timer (once I was already employed), meant that the university didn't have to open the 'new' position up for public applications from both presently employed part-timers as well as outsider. It was a cleverly disguised strategic political employment move by Prof. Seya, who obviously wanted me on the faculty. His innocent 'ruse' most likely stemmed from the fact that he sorely regretted having hired a second full-time foreigner (all three of whom were American men). The enmity between Prof. Seya and 'gaijin teacher No. 2' was palpable. So hiring a third foreigner was Seya's most feasible way to deal with his rather obvious disdain her had for the secondly hired American male.
I continued for three years as a contract (full-time) employee, before being made full-fledged faculty member (Assistant Professor), and eventually attained Associate Professorship in approximately 10 years further. I never considered even asking to be a Full Professor because I considered that my Japanese language skills were not sufficient to complete all of the duties required a full professor. However, I will never actually know if I was considered qualified to seek that promotion or not, because my own Department Head retired and I had several other colleagues that I would have had to compete with to become Professor Brooks. More money, but more work and many more headaches (if you ask me). Therefore, I happily remained an Associate Professor until I retired in March 2019. Retirement became mandatory at the age of 65 year-of-age for all, but esteemed Professor Emeritus, of which there were one appointed every couple of years.
After my official retirement, I was asked to teach one further year as an Adjunct Professor under a part-time teacher's salary for five courses on three days a week (Mondays - one class, Tuesday - 2 classes and Thursday - 2 classes). This arrangement, by the way, was how I started teaching part-time at Kitasato University first in the 1996-97 academic year.
Photo taken at sunset in August 2022 Diamond Head Beach, Honolulu, Hawaii
After his retirement, David L. Brooks had intended to remain as an adjunct professor at Kitasato University for one or two days a week, he'd likely be teaching part-time as well at Aoyama Gakuin University for two graduate or undergraduate courses, and may also be working on a volunteer basis in the part-time position at the University’s Office of International Affairs from April, 2019, until the 2024. In addition, Mr. Brooks would be managing director of a new travel company based in Hawaii that specializes in edutrekking, travel expeditions for small teams that combine travel with eco-tourism and humanitarian endeavors for potential customers in Japan, the USA, and Europe.
The LAST PLANS in the above paragraph DID NOT actually MATERIALIZE, and when COVID-19 hit the world, my Third Life Career is was now put on hold and is, therefore, being reconsidered. That is purpose of this entry: To review those three years of dormancy (rather like hibernation) would probably be a helpful move at this juncture of my existence.
Part I
January 2020 - June 2021
Photo taken February 2022 at the Diamond Head Road leading into Kapiolani Park, Honolulu, Hawaii
A) From January 2020 until June 2021, I was involved in the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Public Leadership Credential, where I completed six different six-week long graduate courses in an online coursework format that included weekly group work (for one of weeks of each course I was the group leader and completing a personally focused individualized weekly assignment, plus completing a challenging final written exam.
Along the way, I had three very distinguished, challenging, and interesting professors and got to work in detail with dozens of highly qualified and tenacious graduate students, who were also pursuing the same Harvard graduate credential.
Photo taken May 2022 at the Tama River side park, not far from Tokyo Parkway Bridge at Inagi, Fuchu, Tokyo
To be honest, taking the coursework (actually 3/5ths of a Master's Degree in Public Administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government) was a the fulfillment of a personal challenge that I had envisioned pursuing more than a decade ago. At the time, after designating Harvard KSG as my first choice for a graduate institution at the time of taking the GRE, I received a letter of invitation from Harvard Kennedy School asking me to complete the necessary steps to apply for admission. Probably the main reason was because I had scored a perfect 6 on the then newly instigated GRE Writing Test, which had only just begun the very year that I had re-taken the GRE.
There is no doubt that I found the six courses in the Public Leadership Credential at Harvard KSG to be academically challenging, but they were not impossible and I found the course content, the professors, and working with my fellow course-mates to be interesting, rewarding and a great learning experience (almost without exception). However, I believe that I came to realize that simply cooperating and competing with my other Harvard online classmates was not the activity that really excited my intellectual interests or challenged my internal soul-searching to find a meaningful post-retirement career.
Most of my own personally-meaningful assignments for those six courses were related to my current passion at the time: Finding or creating an organization (or group) that can assist impoverished families in Hawaii, particularly those living under stark economic realities of today's world (who can absolutely be categorized a 'poor' families and individuals who are economically disadvantaged, to find affordable housing (either by buying, renting, or sharing a portion of a group-owned lodging).
Eating at a nice (and expensive) restaurant near the Beach Boardwalk at Sitges, Spain in June, 2023
Being seated at Jackie O's Restaurant / Bar, located at the Super Paradise Beach, Mykonos Island, Greece in June 2023.
Actually, that leads me to my July 2021 - January 2023 phase, which involved trying to set up both a non-profit, called Philantropical.org, and simultaneously a for-profit travel-related business, called Rainbow Travel Network, Inc., both of which I have now closed.
Let me explain more about that in the next section.
Part II
July 2021 - January 2023
B) My Entrepreneurial Phase -- Starting Two Businesses that I closed even before they could actually start.
Part II-A From January 2021 through January 2023, I was busy trying to set up both a non-profit, called Philantropical.org, and also a for-profit travel-related business, called Rainbow Travel Network, Inc., both of which I subsequently have now closed.
Photo taken June 2023 at the Old Windmills Strand located near the main port / harbor on Mykonos Island, Greece
Setting up Philantropical.org (a non-profit organization) was not too difficult. In fact, inside the State of Hawaii, it was painless and virtually "easy-peasy-Japanesy" (as we often exclaim in the Brooks household). Even when I decided to make the non-profit be recognized nationwide (and in the US), it was not very difficult to secure the paperwork and to get registered and verified as a US nationwide non-profit organization by filing paperwork with the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The difficulty arose when it came to the actual details of the non-profit tax designation and assigned levels of tax compliance as a non-profit organization. While it was still recognized as a non-profit, for tax purposes, it was designated as a consider a public foundation form of a non-taxable public corporation, and the paperwork and tax forms required for such were just too laborious and time-consuming to be acceptable (at least for me alone).
I quickly realized that I could not sustain that level of complicated book-keeping and convoluted tax reporting that such a non-profit designation required. I subsequently decided to dissolve the non-profit organization, thus appearing to 'officially' abandon its mission: helping disadvantaged and underprivileged families to cope with the regulations and restrictions needed in order to live in a house on the Big Island of Hawaii.
To be continued.....
Part II-B Rainbow Travel Network, Inc.
Photo taken March 2012 at the Marine Park located near Playa del Cabrón
on the island of Gran Canaria, The Canary Islands, Spain (my own underwater photography with my own camera)
The second part of my plan was to establish a travel services company that acted as a 'travel planner and arranger' that help to arrange travel services to be provided to small groups (3-7 people) or medium-sized (8-24) people who banded together as fellow voyagers for a discreet number of days (one week to one month in length.) The 'trips' are not actually solely for the purpose of travel, but would have the ultimate goal of providing 'free' assistance to people, organizations (such as non-profits and public corporations), or alternatively to help the condition of animal and plant life in a specific region, and / or to improve the environmental conditions in a specific locale in order to reach their fullest (and highest) potentials.
The eco-trips or 'edutreking' sojourns could happen in my current home country (Japan) or any country abroad; they could be free to participants if a sponsor would pay their expenses, or the participants' costs could be reduced by donations and payments from various beneficiary groups (at home or abroad), or finally, the volunteer-participants could be totally self-supporting, paying for the volunteers expenses through their own monetary contributions. This last method was the one employed by the international volunteer worker programs engaged by Earthwatch Institute, which currently still exists and offers many opportunities for participating in earth science projects, ocean and land animal conservation efforts, and also
Since 1971, Earthwatch Institute has helped expand access to real environmental science and field research for educators, young people, and everyday people across the country. Earthwatch Institute is an international environmental charity. It was founded in 1971 as Educational Expeditions International by Bob Citron and Clarence Truesdale. Earthwatch expeditions pair researchers with volunteers to address some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges. Earthwatch expeditions empower participants to become more than just tourists through active participation in research and conservation projects. You can also join wildlife research expeditions for rare insider access to the natural world—and a real role in protecting it. However, they no longer even offer any type of expedition to help indigenous people anywhere on the globe. My participation in the Cameroon Community Health Project was one of the last such Earthwatch Expeditions to be focused on improving humans health and living conditions through medical testing and physical exams, particularly for early detection of malaria infection. through parenting education and childhood health care and disease prevention interventions, and through drinking water well installations and building sanitary latrines for isolated villages.
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One way to achieve optimal use development aid funds is to capitalize on the low-cost human resources through the humanitarian spirit found among students and teacher volunteers in developed nations. Effective programs that employ volunteer teacher trainers, student as worker-participants, and health care volunteers can bolster professional development of teacher and student work experience in local communities; thereby meeting part of people's basic needs in developing countries. Such low-cost, cooperative efforts can energize the professional and international work expertise of both the local native people and the visiting volunteers. Herein lies the mission of the eco-volunteers who participate in the Rainbow Travel Network’s ‘edutrekking’ journeys. This presentation describes how three such programs had and are having a positive effect on developing education and language programs and supporting community service in rural Thailand, on building a community health service in West Africa, and constructing homes for the economically disadvantaged in The Philippines. Discussion of how similar programs can be established and maintained. Further, some guidelines for planning volunteer programs, recruiting volunteers, and implementing a volunteer training program are outlined. |
Brooks, D.L. (2022). Edutrekking: Globalizing Eco-Travel Through Volunteer Humanitarian Projects. In T. Bastiaens (Ed.), Proceedings of EdMedia + Innovate Learning (pp. 960-967). Online: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved September 9, 2026 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/221398. |
Examples of such 'trips' could include any or a combination of the following eco-trips or 'edutreking' experiences:
a) Volunteer to teach life-skill English conversation to home healthcare workers who are assisting disaster relief for an Australian state;
b)Lead a workshop on polish one's job search and employer attractiveness skills for low-level, poorly educated individuals seeking jobs as migrant workers in a South American country;
c) Conduct an environmental clean-up workday in specific area needing human labor of volunteers (in Florida after the last major hurricane damage),
and
d - z) there are countless more examples, etc... But hopefully, you get the idea: human volunteers helping our planet and its environment, its peoples and the animal & plant livelihoods.
Photo taken February 2022 at the Beach 67 not far from Spencer Beach, near Kawaihae, Big Island, Hawaii
Part III
February 2023 - September 2023
C) My own travels overseas
Photos were taken August 2023 at the Hellabrunn Zoo outside Munich, Germany. Of course, there are hundreds of species of birds, fish, reptiles, and other animals at the zoo, but the birds and fish are easiest to photograph because you're allowed to be so close to them in an enclosed cage (bird cage in huge) or space (the aquarium).
From January 2023 until the present (Sept 2023), I was mostly at my home in Tokyo, helping with the chores of grand-child minding, cooking and cleaning house. I did find the time and resources (money) to travel abroad twice during that time. Both times, I visited Europe; actually, I visited Spain and Germany twice as my favorite European cities are Munich and Barcelona.
