What have I accomplished...

In the process of discovering and choosing (a very fluid reality right now) what I will do after Japan, I have decided to apply for positions within the United Nations that would allow me to do international humanitarian work.  One of the things you have to do is set up a Personal History Profile, which is essentially an on-site resume.  One of the things they asked me to fill out under the Employment section was a list of my 'achievements' at my current job.  I was raised (and genetically predetermined) to be modest about my own successes and praising of others, so I felt almost uncomfortable at first of speaking of my own successes or enumerating my achievements.  When I did punch through that akwardness, though, this is what came out.  I think its honest and true, and if you are reading this blog, then chances are you will care enough to read it.

 

"During my first six months in Daigo-machi, I have established healthy and friendly relationships with my coworkers and superiors.  One of my primary duties, according to the publications of the national committee which sets policy for the Japanese public educational system, is to provide as rich an international experience as possible for the students who will, statistically speaking, not have a chance to experience life outside their country (or even city in my case).
  I strive every day to make contact even with the students whose English skills are exceptionally undeveloped, and use my own broken Japanese, when appropriate, to show them that it is good to attempt to speak another language before they have achieved perfection.  Through demonstrating my own respect for Japanese customs and values and sharing the traditions and methods of my own country, I believe I have been able to broaden the horizons of my students, coworkers, and community.  That is, in fact, one of the self-beneficial reasons why I took this position: to discover and be changed by a fundamentally different way of approaching life and industry.  I believe I have achieved that to a great degree for myself, and have helped many of my students begin to do the same."

 

I hope you all get to travel.  'Your' world is exactly as big as your own horizons which are composed of your memories and the power of your imagination which is fueled and limited by those very memories.  There are other people out there, though; more than you can comprehend.  They laugh for different reasons, and suffer for far more severe ones if you come from a world as commonly blessed as mine.  They pray to different gods and celebrate different holidays.  Their methodologies and ideologies are founded on sometimes otherly and even diametrically opposed values.  And yet..

 

For all that, they laugh the same way (almost), they cry and console for the same reasons, they all want to find security and hope beyond this life, and they rejoice for the same reasons, even if the object is different.  I feel very blessed to be able to say these things from a personal experience and not just an academic understanding.

 

Again, I pray you get to travel.

 

May the road rise to meet you,

Joshua