Week One: Self Introduction

Hello everyone. I'm Moeno Kiuchi. Please call me Moe or Moeno. This is my first post, so I'd like to introduce myself.


My hometown "Shin-Kemigawa" is located in Chiba, Japan. It looks nice, but nothing special. Even it looks like just typical small town, I love it. Especially, I love "Green Belt" which is long road where a lot of cherry blossoms are in bloom every spring. As a typical Japanese living in this typical small town, I have a picnic under these trees every year since I was a child.

Cherry blossoms at "Green Belt"

Last year, I decided to leave here and live alone because it took 2 hours from my home to ICU. So now I'm living in Higashi-Koganei. But I am sure to go back my home to watch cherry blossoms during spring vacation:)

My hobby is traveling abroad. Here, I want to introduce my favorite countries:)
Last autumn, I went to Vietnam and Laos. I didn't make a solid plan before visiting there, I just thought going only Vietnam. But after arriving Vietnam, I came up an idea of visiting Laos, so I decided to across the border and enter Laos. I like traveling without any special plans like this:)

Hanoi, Vietnam

Laos. I used boat to move.

Also, I visited Israel and Palestine this spring. The reason why I went there is for my job as a member of student organization(I'll explain later), and just I was interested in this place.
It was amazing experience I ever had. Israel and Palestine have a lot of holy places. Especially Jerusalem is known as holy to the three major Abrahamic religionsーChristianity, Judaism and Islam. As you know, there is a conflict between these two states. When people think about Israel and Palestine, negative images like "terrorism" or "dangerous" will be come up. In fact, however, people living there are so nice and leading a daily life like us. Hope peace will come and no one will be killed anymore in this beautiful place.

Jerusalem

Separation wall between Israel and Palestine@ Bil'in village, West Bank

Old City, Jerusalem

Last, I want to tell you about why I chose this class. As I mentioned above, I was a member of JIPSC(Japan-Israel-Palestine Student Organization), and my position was executive director. JIPSC invites Israeli and Palestinian students to Japan every summer and we have discussion related Israel and Palestine conflict(HP: http://jipsc.org/). 

This year's conference was held in Hiroshima

As a leader, I faced many difficulties to manage my organization's members and middle eastern students. I didn't know how to manage organization and people at all because it was almost the first time for me to be a leader. I learned how to do that slowly and slowly through many mistakes. Now, I think I'm better than before, but still I'm immature as a great leader. My job as an executive director of JIPSC has been officially finished this month, but I want to learn more about leadership to go to the next step. That's the reason why I took this class.

I felt loneliness because there was no one who I know in this class. But after taking classes 4 times, I noticed I shouldn't be nervous because everyone was so nice and friendly:) I want to know and talk more with you, so feel free to talk to me:DD
Grad to see you all!