Picture: Everybody assembles at Morning Assembly.
It is usually held inside, but only onetime outside too hot.
We had various experience on the ship and I truly enjoyed life on board. Let me introduce you some examples from various points of view.
I love Japanese Drums and Soran Dance. I enjoyed practicing these activities and performaced very well at Exhibition. I like making speeches at Morning Assembly, which was a good challenge and made me a bit nervous though.
I still remember talking with Muslim participating youths. We talked about religious matters which we don't talk so often. I was impressed that they said they believed in God without exceptions and with no doubt. It also made me surprised that in UAE her citizen had been provided with a residence, which has recently changed nevertheless. In addition, I was amazed that Ali from UAE would marry a girl soon who he never went out with and met only in her house with her family.
I can't forget dancing with Emily in National Presentation of Australia. That was fantastic. One more thing I was so stunned was when Isabelle said that she voted for me as "the most handsome man on the ship."
A program in PY Seminar, "In the sky", organized by Nabe, embarrassed me, because when we were free to draw anything on a large piece of paper under the strong sun-shine, I had no idea about what I would paint, and I thought that I had been losing my creativity and that I should do something against it.
We celebrated shoulder to shoulder in a circle when we won at tag of war. It felt unordinary to me, because we usually do not show our happiness that straight way. We also embraced together when we did a great job of Japanese Drums at Exhibition, especially because we practiced so hard until the last moment.
I chose the topic of my presentation in the UN course discussion very carefully. I picked up "Should the WHO hire smokers?" (see Attachment-1 in PDF) because it is very controversial and I thought our discussion would be interesting. I am proud that this topic was selected for discussion in UN course.
I was so disappointed when we did not see any wild lives like shimbas, zebras or elephants in Kenya. I feel I have to go back there to see them. In Mauritius when floating in the ocean, the beach was incredibly beautiful, even though I was there for only 20 minutes. That wonderful view is still behind my eyes.
I like diversity on board, because there were so many things different from counterparts in Japan. I found something common in Japan is not so in other countries and vice versa. One of them is "What Does Silence Mean?"(See Attachment-2 in PDF). Some people felt annoyed when they met these differences, but I love them, because it makes me think of everything again out of the box. As you may know, Japan has long history and her own culture, which we do not think so much of and we accept as they are.
"If you wish, this program will change your life", said National Leader of Sweden. I feel this might be true because this program gave us good opportunities to see ourselves with different values from our owns. Luckily I could join this program and through this seeing-ourselves-with-different-ways process I have found one thing to try. This program has just finished, but I really appreciate this program for giving me this dawn.