Presentations Day 2 6/12

I saw that Moeka wrote in her blog that she knew she was going today. Same with me! When Koji chose the number, I had this feeling that it was going to be my group. And it was. After getting Rab’s lecture on presentation slides, I worked on fixing my slides for a long time, and I also did a simulation by talking to my computer. However, when I was actually up there as the first speaker, I got so nervous and left out quite a lot of the supporting details.

I took Rab’s advice and was periodically watching the audience while Moeka did her presentation. I saw that they were glued to her presentation! She also got many laughs from the audience, especially in the slides on the comments of the American Burger King, and this told me that she was successful in engaging the audience in her presentation. About the problem with playing her video… I felt that that was also part of my responsibility as we should have carefully checked each other’s slides before presenting.  I feel that Japanese businessmen value the quality of service a lot, and Moeka’s conclusion supported my hypothesis. I have gone to burger king overseas, and I remember how the attitude of the server wasn’t particularly good. However, sometimes I feel that Japanese business put excessive effort into this, for example, the hair salon. Once you get your hair shampooed, all the hair stylist bow at you and say “Oktsukaresamadeshita”, and personally I find it just awkward. But for food business, I really need them to sanitize their hands before cooking!

Megumi’s presentation was really easy to follow and understand. I was jealous of her fluency in her speech. Although she said in her blog that she used many “likes”, I didn’t actually feel that. The natural flow in her presentation told that she really knew her topic well. It’s hard to imagine some gym teachers teaching dance, as dance seems to be more an arts than athletics although I know that it requires a lot of physical exercise! I totally agree in her point that flexibility helps in other sports. I’ve also heard before that having flexibility helps you from major injuries such as when you fall as it improves your reflexes. I’ve always wanted to try dance, so I’d definitely enjoy it if it was included in gym class!

Hitomi’s topic was also something that I have thought about often. I was so astonished when she said that the U.K. government cut 68% of the budget on education, which lead to the dismissal of creative arts as a compulsory subject in school. From my experience, it does cost a lot of money to take music lessons, so if schools made creative arts compulsory, I believe that many students who cannot pay the music, art, or dance lesson tuitions would benefit from this. However, I also wonder that if creative arts was made a compulsory subject, it would still offer the same depth as in taking private lessons. Also, making creative arts compulsory subjects in school could mean more number of classes or a reduction in “essential” subjects such as math, English, or sciences etc. Would the education board, parents, and students agree to this? Overall, I admired Hitomi’s calmness during her presentation as it made her sound confident, thus convincing. 

I'm excited to hear the rest of the presentations!