Last RW

Today was the last day of RW class and the last day of class for Section 1A :(

Out of all of the presentations that I listened to today, the three that I enjoyed the most were Moe's, Shiho's, and of course Yusuke's.

Talking about Soichiro Honda and Honda Motors, Moe seemed very confident about the material that she was presenting. I also enjoyed how she added in fun facts about Honda which made her presentation extra interesting. 

Starting off with the picture of Captain Underpants, Shiho presented about leadership in superheroes. I personally love superhero movies and found this topic very interesting. She was very realistic about how the appearance of leaders actually does matter. The common characteristic of how most superheroes have a sob story really intrigued me and I thought that the way she presented that part was really clever and drew me into her presentation even more.

And last but not least, Yusuke. I think we all expected him to have a good presentation because we know how great of a speaker he is, but it never fails to amaze me how he can actually make history seem interesting! I absolutely HATE learning about history but whenever he presents about it, I find myself really paying attention to the topic, in today's case dictatorship. 

Throughout this course, I feel that I learned many things about leadership, but the one main thing I felt was that know matter how much you learn about strategies, you need to have the confidence to step up to the plate and become the leader. 

Thank you Ken and all the members of 1A who made my last trimester as an ELA student a great one! 

Hectic week

A week after the ICU festival, it seemed like almost everyone was worn out and stressed about their upcoming finals and reports. Throughout the week, we focused on the final essay and how to make it as perfect as possible. The paraphrasing exercises we did last week and the citations exercise we did this week both helped me out very much when brushing up on my essay before turning it in yesterday. 

Take presented first about how intrinsic motivation would make work more efficient and life better for the salary men in Japan. I really liked how he started off his presentation with pictures of men in suits sleeping on the train. I see people like this on the train very often and was even lucky enough to see a person using up three seats to sleep comfortably on his way home. 

Takumi's presentation about Jeffrey Bezos was interesting as well and I noticed a similarity between Bezos and Shackleton in that they both had short term goals for their company/ team but still never set their eyes off of the final goal. It's amazing how Amazon.com has become such a popular shopping website for many people around the world, and it was great getting to know the details behind the company's success.

I heard that Kristi would be writing about Umeko Tsuda when we first gathered up into random groups to talk about our research proposals. Even at that time, I could really tell that she looked up to Tsuda as a role model. I didn't even know who she was when Kristi first introduced her but now that I do know, I feel that Umeko Tsuda is someone that both genders can look up to.

Hitomi went last on Friday and she talked about psychotherapy. This topic was of interest to me because I am taking a psychology class right now and because one of my relatives is a musical therapist in the States.

I was up third and was really nervous about presenting, but once I finished and turned in my essay, I felt so relieved and stress free!