『Unlimited Possibilities』
１年　西塚さん （大沢中出身）

　Do you have a dream? My dream is to become an actress. I want to give deep emotional performances that will influence many people. There are a small number of famous actresses in the world, so becoming one maybe difficult. But I won't give up following my dream. I am confident that I have the determination to be one of them.

　When I was in the 3rd grade in junior high school, I decided to participate in an English recital contest. It was a contest of reciting English sentences, and performed a 5 minute monologue without a microphone. During practice, I wasn't satisfied with my performance, so sometimes I wanted to quit.

　One day, I remembered that I had decided to participate to test myself. So, I swore that if I won first prize, I would follow my dream. If not, I would give up. From that point on, I devoted all of my time to preparing for the recital. There might have been people who thought I was strange because I was always mumbling something to myself.

　As a result of my effort, I won first prize! I couldn't believe it. Being the “champion" sounded nice, but I didn't think it was the most important thing. The fact that I could achieve it was most important for me. Truthfully, the trophy felt like a free gift. My heart swelled with happiness. That contest was the first experience I had that I could give myself a perfect score.

　Have you all ever felt like that? I think doing your best to achieve something is more important than the results. If you try really hard, you can see something you've never seen. Effort doesn't lie.

　I will never give up my dream because it drives me. I'm happy every day. I have lots of friends, and we all encourage each other. Sometimes there are a few bumps, but I can push my way towards my dream.

　Everyone open your minds today and ask yourself, “What do I want to be?", and tomorrow our star will shine bright.

『Cross-Cultural Understanding』
１年　野中さん （成田中出身）

　Have you ever experienced cultural gaps? When you go abroad, you will be surprised by different customs and practices of local people. At the same time, they will be surprised with you because you do differently than they do. Haven't you experienced situations like this?

　I was born in Japan, but grew up in Thailand. Four years ago, I returned to Japan. I entered a junior high school even though I knew very little about Japanese culture and customs.

　One day, I had difficulty with my lesson. I clicked my tongue unconsciously. Then, some of my friends close to me were a little surprised and stared straight at me. I said to them, "Is there anything wrong?" I couldn't understand why they were staring at me so strangely. Then, one of them said to me, "Why did you click your tongue?" I explained to them with my broken Japanese that I had trouble in studying. They told me not to click my tongue because clicking your tongue is rude. This time I was surprised. In Thailand, it's common to click a tongue when you get irritated or things do not go well.

　When we face unfamiliar cultures and customs, we will have difficulty understanding them. When we think each culture as a mixture of different customs, practices, sense of values, languages and so on, those different cultures must be understood as being unique.

　Then, what do we need to deepen cross-cultural understanding?
As you know, the best way is to have direct contact with local people in their countries such as cross-cultural exchange meetings and studying abroad.

　Every country has their own ways of thinking and customs. When I experienced my "clicking tongue incident", I came to understand the importance of cross-culture understanding. I'm sure we live in this world and we all have to understand cultures in other countries. The following is my favorite quote by Deborah, J, Levine, best-selling author and Editor-in-chief of the American Diversity Report, "If we are going to live with our deepest differences, then we must learn about one another."

『Let's Stand Together !』
１年　佐藤さん （青葉中出身）

　Have you ever thought about the importance of food?
I guess we usually don't think about it. In today's world, there are many people suffering from hunger. Every minute, 17 people die because of hunger. When I heard this I felt so sad that my heart sank. I wondered deeply why so many people suffer from hunger. "What can we do?", I said to myself.

　What do you think about the global problem of hunger? It reminds me of the relationship between poverty and food. If you are poor, you can't afford material needs or comforts. I think poverty is one of the main reasons for hunger. It is estimated that there are 14 billion people living in poverty today. Most of them live in the so called third world such as Asia, Africa and South America.

　When I was in junior high school, my music teacher showed us a video of Michael Jackson and other artists participating in the Live Aid project and singing a song called "We are the World". This is the big reason why I started to think deeply about the importance of food. Michael Jackson and a large group of artists performed this song. They donated the money earned from this project to the children in Africa who are starving because of poverty.

　One part of the song says, "There are people dying. And it's time to lend a hand to life. The greatest gift of all." When I heard that part, I cried and cried and realized how lucky I am, because every minute 17 people die in Africa because of hunger. In the video the children look very content while drinking muddy water. 　When I saw that part, my heart sank. I realized that I was wasting my time on some unimportant matters instead of helping people like them.　 We have difficult times in our life, but we have a greater responsibility to the Africans to help them escape from hunger.　 All of us should support the movement to get rid of the global hunger problem.
Let's stand together as one!