Saigon Modeling United Nation 2017 – Life-changing Experience

After participating ISPP Model United Nations 2016 (ISPP MUN 2016), Phnom Penh, I received another opportunity to participate in other Model United Nations (MUN) in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. It is called, “SAIMUN 2017.” This was another huge event for me since it has hosted many students from many distinguished schools around Asia. The ledger was one of those schools, including me and my seven friends.

I was the delegate of Sweden.

This year of MUN, our school got a student who was willing to join the Security Council. For another seven students, we individually joined in a different committee. I decided to attend in General Assembly Three with the focuses on cultural heritage sites, basic health care, natal policies, and social development. I must say that the topics were extremely difficult compared to ISPP MUN in 2016. Everything had gotten serious and complicated since this event was                                                                                                  international.

The schedule of the whole event was similar to other MUN events. But since there were four topics that were needed to debate on, it was a little bit tight and confused. We got only one month to prepare everything, including the resolutions, and many research. The event assigned all the Liger students as the delegations of Sweden in every committee. It was an honor for Liger students to be designated as the representatives of this country. In general, Kingdom of Sweden is a neutral nation.

My Liger Team.

On the 15th of March, 2017, we left Liger to Vietnam for the event. It was held on the 17th and the 18th. It was a long destiny and it was my third time visiting there. My memorial reflection once we arrived there, was that I just realized Vietnam is a communist country. My friends and facilitators were giving me a confused and shocked face. We got to travel around the city for two days before the event started. It was really satisfying to learn about Vietnamese histories and culture, including the people, food, religion, and all the fun activities.

It was the 17th; my friends including me were starting to feel the butterflies in our stomachs. I started to feel nervous, uncomfortable, and about to pass away. I mean we were really proud of ourselves for getting this far. We were extremely determined and prepared for the research for the whole event. Once we arrived in our committee, it was joyful to meet new people and got to be friend with most of them. Moreover, getting to observed other people were in their roles was also interesting and beneficial to regard those people as your role models.

General Assembly Three

Specifically, in my committee, there were a lot of good and passionate delegates with high confidence and strong ground. It was my first time joining MUN internationally and I could feel the intention and uncomfortable moments during the conference. I loved my committee so much and one of my favorite topics was about the health care system. I was chosen to be the main submitter for this topic and for sure that my heart was beating rapidly.

Being the main submitter of a resolution is not difficult. But it is difficult when you actually do it. After giving my speech of the whole resolution, I got a barrage of questions from the delegates. The questions were tough since it was all about the origins and the reasons. After all, I was feeling proud of myself. I appreciated all the people in the assembly, who sent many supporting messages to congratulate me. I was confident and happy to see and experience that taking risk is not a bad idea. It creates many memorials, small moments in your memory. Until now, I still remember the whole situation of how did I feel at that time.

Overall, joining SAIMUN was my life-changing experience. It was changing my view of the world, especially people. I got to meet and befriend with new people; in fact, I got to know them as a person in their amazing characters. Even though the whole conference was scary and the people were intimidating, there were also many hilarious moments we had with each other. After this conference, I started to see many issues and accomplishments of the world and I feel like it is my opportunity to be a part of solving those problems.

Check out the website: https://saimun2017.weebly.com/

 

My First Dancing Competition

          While waiting for the upcoming 2017 Christmas, Soliday and I submitted our dance one-minute dance video in a competition, called “Christmas Dance Challenge.” The rule of the competition was to choose a music or song to dance for one minute and it had to be Christmas theme. Soliday and I chose a song, called “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (Trap Remix).” We were really happy with the chosen music, but we were having a hard to think of the choreography.

          Choreographing a dance is not easy as it looks. It requires your stamina and thinking. Poses, styles, personalities, techniques, and expressions are demanded in dancing. The music we chose was a little bit fast and full of beats. Therefore, we need to choreograph a dance that shows our strength, sassiness, and coolness. Our one minutes dance choreographing turned into one day. We did not expect that it was going to consume a lot of our time, effort, and determination. Simultaneously, it was fun and silly because we got to create any styles we wanted and saw the inspiration from other competitors who were also submitted in the competition.

         I really love and admire arts and I really do love dancing. It is something that has become a part of life. By participating in this dancing competition has changed my life with arts. It helps to boost up my competitiveness and effort to pursue my dream in this area. This was also my first time submitting to the dancing competition. It is inspired to learn and try hard to my limits. But most importantly, this competition makes my best memory of all time, especially working with my dancing partner.

          For sure next year, I will try to join this competition again. As a matter of fact, we did not qualified to the top 5 in this competition. As a promise, Soliday and I will join this event again by bringing new dancing moves. Dancing is a beautiful talent. I am proud of myself and my dancing partner to pursue this dream together. If you want to watch our dance video, here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/yon.soliday/videos/555183261481097/

 

Creating A Hopeful Future – TEDX 2017

          On the 25th of November, 2017, It was an amazing day in my life. I got invited to an event, Ted X Phnom Penh by my friend, Dalin. She was one of the speakers at the whole events. There were other students, facilitators from Liger, and even the board! The theme of Ted X this year was creating a hopeful future. I think that this topic is a really important message to deliver around the world even though our contemporary world is still in mess, but simultaneously, we should think about our grateful future. By participating in this event, I could relate many world problem and my personal highlights toward this theme.

         During this event, Dalin talked about the LGBTQ+ community where it’s such a big and controversial topic around the world. By listening to her speech, I was tearing the whole time because it was really emotional and hopeful at the same time. I started to think about Cambodia of questioning when will our country has all of the recognition. Dalin was also coming out to the whole audience that she is a Cambodian bisexual girl. I was really proud of her, and I was thankful for her to manipulate the world with her strong speech. As I observed the audience, I could see how quiet they are. Furthermore, there were other speakers talking about the fourth industrial revolution, the encourage of being aware, preservation of our animals, how technology empowered individuals, and solar power.

         In detail, every speaker was amazing. They tried to make their speech best as possible with concise sentences, hopeful and inspirational messages. All of Liger students were doing their phenomenon job to improve their braveness within themselves. I could remember some of them when they were little; they had lacked confidence in presenting the ideas. And if you watch their presentation right now, it was mind-blowing. I also saw their inputs of emotion and expression to strengthening and empowering themselves, and trying to speak clearly and slowing as possible. Most of all, It was an honor to get invited and listened to all the speeches, and I do think that this world will encompass with lots of hopeful people and solutions.

       

          Overall, I do think that Ted X Phnom Penh is an event where it gathers people to collaborate and see what’s going on right now. It is our duty to distribute all the messages to the world. I will plan to submit an application for this event because I think that this one of many ways to change my country and the world. Once again, congratulations to all the speakers that put all of their efforts and determination.

 

Angkor Empire Civilization

Venghour Than

April 1st, 2017

Literacy D

The Golden Age of Cambodia History

Research Synthesis

          Civilizations always approach to the world with a thrilling view and curiosity of  phenomenon culture, including attractive arts, aesthetic architectures, strange religion and systematic social structure that are stained on the page under the title of “History.” Most of all, one of the conspicuous civilization in Southeast Asia is the Great Angkor Empire, known as the Golden Age. This is one of the civilizations that is shown the most brightness of its culture with a vast believing in many religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism and the extension of its territory throughout Southeast Asia. This civilization is the most memorable era in Cambodians and people’s mind.

         Angkor Wat is the greatest legacy left from the Great Angkor Empire. This gigantic architecture was built up to dedicate to the god Vishnu which is a Hindu god, but there was an abundance of changes of religion believing throughout Cambodian history timeline. According to the Smile of Angkor information, there are four changes and transformation of religions throughout many different reigns of Kings. During the 9th century until 12th century, the religion was Hinduism under the reign of King Suryavarman II. Additionally, in the reign of King Suryavarman II, Angkor Wat Temple building project was started. Afterward, the end of the 12th century, King Jayavarman VII, the new ruler also known as the greatest skilled and most memorable king of Cambodia made a switch to Mahayana Buddhism. At this point of information, there are many temples built up with the implementation of Buddhist statues instead of Hindu statues. Then, at the beginning of the 13th century, the religion experienced a brief reversal to Hinduism (Shivaism), but at the end of this century, there was a second form of Buddhism, known as the Theravada Buddhism. Not to mention, Neak Ta is a type of religions that is a part of Cambodian’s practices too, it is about the respect to the guardians of the land and water. So, there were a lot of changes of religions during the Khmer Empire and consequently affect Cambodian’s practices and festivals annually with a mixture of Hinduism, Buddhism and Neak Ta.

          During the Golden Age of Angkor Empire, many temples were built claiming with a specific reason. As stated earlier, Angkor Wat Temple is one of the greatest legacies all around the world and Cambodia that took about three decades to accomplish, but there are many other ancient temples, pagodas and sites constructed with gorgeous, inspirational arts, rock carvings and amazing building structures in many different regions. Bayon Temple is one of the most prominent temples in Cambodia with enormous faces that express the wonderful states of mind, which are Kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic, Joy and Equanimity (Darith Touch, Religions of Angkor, http://smiles-of-angkor.com). As a matter of fact, Cambodia has 4000 ancient temples and sites, but only 2000 of them had been found. The information of Khmerization stated that “There are 2603 temples and sites have been visited in 18 provinces and towns. Among the 2603 sites visited, 766 of them are temples, 996 are ancient tombs, 487 are ancient pagodas, 89 are ancient bridges and 265 are ancient walls and ancient sites.” This clearly shows how appreciable Angkor Empire is that it contains with many ancient sites and buildings with aesthetic arts and sculptures. Therefore, massive, blow minding architectures are taking a long time to construct, but they always come with the beautiful and enjoyable view.

        As always there are many collapsing moments of civilization in the world history such as Akkadian Empire, Hittite Empire, Mycenaean Greece and Angkor Empire. In the 14th century, Angkor Empire suffered a tragic moment and steady decline. Regretfully, this civilization declined in the 15th century. There are many curious and acquiescent aspects claiming about this big settlement of this Angkor Empire. In addition, according to the article of Wikipedia claimed confidently that “Historians have proposed different causes for the decline: the religious conversion from Vishnuite-Shivaite Hinduism to Theravada Buddhism that affected social and political systems, incessant internal power struggles among Khmer princes, vassal revolt, foreign invasion, plague, and ecological breakdown.” In detail, there were many opinions and events which are might cause this devastated, collapsing civilization that there are many neighboring kingdoms were taking control of Cambodia, for example, the Thai Kingdom and Dai Viet, known as Vietnam. Also the calamity of religious divisions between nations which are Hinduism and Buddhism. Moreover, the lack of control and power of the Angkorian kings which made a union of nations and territory were breaking apart to other nations.

           To conclude, as many believe that Angkor Empire is the best civilization that emerges to Earth planet. Also, throughout the information and evidence stated in this research clearly shows how great Angkor Empire is of displaying many best arts on the temples, specifically Angkor Wat temple and amazing construction structures of temples and different king reigns in the history which are really entertaining and fascinating. Sadly, this powerful empire declined with unrecognizable effects that left many great legacies to next generation.

Work Cited

Stark, M.T. (2006). From Funan to Angkor: Collapse and regeneration in ancient Cambodia. After collapse: The regeneration of complex societies. Pp.144-167.

“Khmer Empire.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 01 Apr. 2017. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.

“Religions of Angkor.” Religions of Angkor|Smiles of Angkor. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.

Khmerization. “Cambodia Has 4,000 Ancient Temples and 2,000 Have Been Found and Located.” Khmerization. 01 Jan. 1970. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.

 

Khmer – Pjum Ben Ceremony

          Throughout Cambodian calendar, there is many national and international ceremonies or celebrations filled in. Cambodia is a country that full of Cambodians under the practice of Buddhism. Relating to that, I just learned one of the ceremonies in Buddhism, Pjum Ben. It is a topic that almost Cambodian students learn annually. Generally, Pjum Ben is a ceremony for all family members to reunite, also to go to pagodas to pray for there ancestors. Personally, I’m happy to love, enjoy, and passionate to study expressly about this ceremony.

           In Khmer class, we’ve been doing a lot of teamwork with many topics. For this topic, we joined in team and created a short presentation. Additionally, we also combined our research into a research paper in a larger scale where you can find all of the information details about this ceremony. All the students were researching through many Khmer books, websites, articles, and interviews. Moreover, we were getting the significant help from our Khmer facilitator, Sokha (So-kha).

         

 

 

 

          Sokha had been working and facilitating us for quite a long time. He’d been bringing up many Cambodian learning concepts which are really thoughtful of him, also, it’s beneficial to all of us. We got to know tons of information about our history throughout many periods, folk tales, environment of Cambodia, etc. All the students are here today are very wise with Cambodian language and information, just by him. Also, it’s also our duty to create our own independent zone in order to improve our self independently.

Physics – First Lessons

          The half of our last year, the physics essential was cancelled out the curriculum. We used to learn with our physic facilitator, Alli, but there’s a new facilitator, and her name is Samantha. She is a great facilitator most of the time. For the first class I took with her, she started with a basic learning concept which was “kinematics.” In kinematic lesson, we set up the different and basic kinematic equations with motion. Additionally, we also learned many others physic concepts such as: graph of motion, vectors, vector components, 2-D motions, graph problems, and static equilibrium.

         Currently, we’re studying about force of friction and mainly focusing on static and kinetic. I can say that it’s a really confusing lesson in physics because there are many steps in a problem, complex comprehensions, and extra information. If you look at the picture below, this is how confusing it is to me, but simultaneously fun to learn.

Math – Pre Scholastic Assessment Test

Image result for PSAT

          On Saturday 14th, October, 2017, All of us took a Pre-SAT which is standing for “Pre-Scholastic Assessment Test.” It is an international test where students can assess their self of their study progression. On the day we took the test, I could see everybody’s faces were full of fear and anxiety, but at the end of the test, all of their faces were enthusiastic. This tough test was giving us stress and difficulty because you have to take it efficiently since there’s time limitation.

          During the some sections of the test, I didn’t get a chance to finish all the questions that it provided because I could evaluate myself; I took a lot of time in each question. There were complex vocabularies that we never learn before. Moreover, this whole test is the starting point of my SAT adventure. The result will represent how well I did, and how bad I did, but that’s OK. It will the start for me, and I have to get prepared with all the lessons that I need to improve.

          Basically, I felt happy about my result because I know my ability of how far I can go. I didn’t stress myself badly, but I’m just trying to confront with the truth. I heard some of my friends results, and it was turning out that I was really happy for them. I believe after taking this test, my math facilitator, Jeff, will work hard to get us prepared, but I would love to thank him a lot for getting us prepared and comforting us as best as he can.  

Literacy – Coming of Age Narrative Essay

          Generally, since the beginning of the literacy class until now, it has been covering up a lot of small lessons which are encompassing our narrative writing.  Through the studies of mini lessons, I learned and review about grammar, especially sentence structure and parallel structure. Furthermore, our literacy facilitator, Cara expressly taught us about punctuation including semicolon, comma usage using with subordinate conjunctions. Also, I understood about the connotation and denotation; it was really interesting to observe how words can define in other meanings that are totally figurative instead of literal.

          All of these listed foundation were helping us to be creative with writing the essay. The narrative essay I wrote was about my identity and it was really challenging and risk-taking to describe my identity because at the first time, I wouldn’t believe, I’ll decide to write this. The importance of writing the essay about my identity is that I need to stand my ground. I must be strong and confident with what I was stating in the writing to the audience with good evidence or meaningful and related moments as possible. Most of all, I’m in love with writing about my fantastic and beautiful paper.

         The bold sentences below are my spotlights of my coming of age essay, and the title called “What an Unexpected Coming of Age.” I hope that it will approach and grab your attention of having a great desire to read my whole essay (Link) in your worthy time. My friends and I have been working on this essay for about seven weeks through writing many drafts, editing, and self-checking. The spotlights of my essay will be able to illuminate you with concise information of the whole, actual writing.

If war is holy and sex is obscene, then we got it twisted in this lucid dream.” Dr. Martin Luther King inspired me, growing up as a young boy that felt different. […]

[…] He was laughing and turned to face me. “Hey! You’re gay!” I was shocked. I was lost in a deep, black hole. I got off the table immediately, ran to the house, and locked myself in the bathroom. I burst into tears and cried so hard, I was hyperventilating. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. Later on, I heard a knock from someone in front of the door. “Bong, I’m sorry.” […]

After being confronted by my close friend, I experienced a period of depression and confusion about my identity. I did not know how to feel and then one day, something very unexpected happened; I was attracted to a boy. […]

[…] I am now ready and comfortable with the person I am. I learned to forgive and provide second chance for myself and others, especially my one and only best friend. Also, learning to avoid the false statement about us because we’re the one who can shape our own path, describe who we really are, and conquer our own life with no hesitation.[…]

[…]  I’m bisexual.

2016-2017 Yearly Reflection

My Changing Cambodia of 2017

           “Life will flow and change perfectly for others and you if you make some gesture.” If you wonder the definition of the word “change” technically, it means “Make or become different or an act or process through which something becomes different.” (Google)  For my definition personally, the word “change” means the process of you making baby steps while changing yourself and others through the course of action and it doesn’t have to be successful. I like to dream big and make small steps and my dream is to become an artist, but there are other significant passions that I passionate and help to change this remarkable, beautiful country. This 2017, I have three main, conspicuous changes that I made for my country which are the three projects I’d been through, which are Preventative Health, Waste Management, and Game Design.

           Preventative Health is an exploration of promoting the workshop about health to kids in rural areas, especially in the islands. I was a member of this exploration and we did some research that related to science and health, mainly about human health. We also did meet with other professors from different locations. This project overcame with the idea of promoting and raising the awareness and the prevention of dental issue. We set up a field trip to Koh Rong Archipelago including Koh Rong island, Koh Rong Songlem island and Song Sea Island to share and bring our workshop with them. At that moment, I was enthusiastically eager to share all the things we prepared for those kids all the islands who had lack of education and health care. It was a great opportunity for all of us in the group to be there, we prepared a small skit about the science of dental issue for those kids. When we arrived the island, it amazingly amazed us with the environment, view and people, especially those kids who are welcoming and looking ready for our workshop. After sharing all the information about the dental issue to those kids, I felt alive and optimistic again because I knew myself that I’m in the process of changing my wonderful Cambodia. Furthermore, I change myself to be a better person in Cambodia. During the trip, I got to introduce to new experience and accomplish my dreams. My dreams are snorkeling to see all the extraordinary marine creatures and scuba-diving into a deep underwater world. In addition, my teammates and I got to learn about the three main ecologies, including seagrass beds, coral reefs, and mangrove forests. This is the part we also do change Cambodia and get small young Cambodians to know about their environment and really show the passions about their country’s ecosystem. Right now, I still have a motivation of proceeding more actions for those kids and currently, I’m working on anti-trawling artificial reefs in Cambodia. Hopefully, I will come up with a new project that relates to health. Lastly, the whole project is really special for me because it made me be who I am today, finding my passion and helping me to push myself to be a change agent of Cambodia.      

          The second change that I made is the project called “Waste Management 4.” This project also relates to promoting to people. It is about promoting to people in the community, Champukaek of the compost business or idea. This is the project that working in the course of four rounds already and all the students are in the project working and trying reluctantly and being resilience by helping to improve the community into a better place with all the possible solutions that they came up with. I’m also a part of this wonderful project, it gave me a lot of experience of working with those delightful villagers. In this last round, my team starts to host a workshop of presenting our project with compost, also information about compost including the benefits and how can we implement of compost as a part of improving the family’s livelihood. This conspicuously demonstrates of me trying to help to change Cambodian society. I would like to continue this project in this round, but due to time constraint, we have to delay it. Truly, I really have a passion for helping people in Cambodia because I love commuting. Also, I already know that Waste Management project is going to change me to be a better person with outside society. Simultaneously, it also changes and improves the community society. Consequently, the reputation of the community will spread out and it’s going to have many delivering with this special project. Lastly, I will try to continue this project as hard and smart as I can in order to help my people in the Cambodia. Also, trying to help myself to another level, which is one of the essential importance for myself and the people around me. In addition, taking baby steps with a Waste Management project is only the effective way to move fast, since this project is involving with a business which requires a lot of trust and effort from customers and yourself.

          The last project that I help to change Cambodia is Game Design. Game Design is a project that had three rounds focusing on establishing board games. The main theme of the board game is Climate Change. The main intention of this board game is to distribute all the climate change board game all around Cambodian government schools because it’s really significant to all the students in Cambodia getting to know the problem that’s happening around the world currently. I might know that some other people’s perspective might think that how does it change Cambodia when all the students are working in class? As I stated earlier, change doesn’t mean that you do something to get the outcomes, it also can be something you do in the process to make a change. So, this project fully demonstrates to what I’m trying to speak about the word “change.” In this project, we worked reluctantly of trying to find enough information from government educational curriculum questions to implement in our board games so, the students can learn and answer. Also, designing the prototype of the whole board game including the layout design of the board, components that include pawns, bonus cards, question cards, dices and more. These were the works that required a lot of effort and determination from you as a dedication to the project of changing Cambodia. As the next step, I still join to be part of this project next year as an expertise. I will try to come up with new designs by improving and give feedback to the old prototype. Therefore, this project is an endless project because I think that Cambodia in the future will need this educational board games everywhere, also in order to make the change with this wonderful project, all of us including me to dedicate a strong firmness and performance as simultaneously being helpful to the holding group in the project.

          In conclusion, this is the greatest year so far and everything is running smoothly. Changing Cambodia is always a duty for every student in Liger Learning Center (LLC) to carry every year by taking big and small actions with them, participate actively in the projects that can make a change. As I stated all the three main projects earlier, it obviously demonstrates how hard I worked to help myself and everyone. Preventative Health was incredibly changed my mind with its cool plan of educating poor students on the island of Koh Rong, Song Saa, and Koh Rong Sanlem. Also, Waste Management does helping to change Cambodia by distributing the idea of compost business and the education of compost to the villagers in Champukaek which is a great way to contact with Cambodian people. The last one is Game Design. Game Design had been a wonderful, adventurous process to help Cambodian students. In addition, it helps to educate and improve their knowledge and learning style. Therefore, my last word is change isn’t something that needs the outcome. It also can be a process to make the change to the country and world. In my opinion, there’s nothing beautiful that the effort that you dedicated to the wild adventure to change the world, especially Cambodia to a better place.

Animal Farm

          On the last term of my fifth year in Liger, Claire, our literacy facilitator came up with a new, interesting lesson to all of us. It was “Animal Farm.” Personally, I was being enthusiastic about this last lesson with her since I used to test on it during my reading test. There were other students tested on this book too. “ Animal Farm” is a book written by George Orwell. This book reflect the tragic situation during the Soviet Union which was Russian Revolution.

          The book was giving us of a lot of tastes of life experiences that we can it’s an allegory of the Russian Revolution. The author was being really creative about the characters in the story with its unique name that can relate to other famous people in the history or relate to the characteristic of each character. There were Napoleon, Snowball, Old Major, and Squealer as the pig, Mr. Jones as the farmer, Boxer, Mollie, and Muriel as the horses, Benjamin as the donkey and many more. In description, this is a book describing a life of all animals in animal farm trying to fight back the farmer or human who always takes the product that they made. They made the seven amendments, planned for the war to fight back to the owner, and working harder for the new invention.

           All the students including me were really enjoying with the story, they were instantaneously responding where there were questions. This clearly showed the attractiveness of the story that approach audience with great detailed information. Also, there were some times in class, my friend, Niron and I were arguing with each other about the story, specifically about the Napoleon. We weren’t confront each other, but we tried to communicate and deliver our opinion. I thought that it was the remarkable time in literacy since we never had this kind of conversation in literacy class.

          I also had the most memorable highlight in this lesson with my teacher. While everybody followed Claire’s reading and when it came to the dialogue part in the story, she made each distinguish sound for each character. I can say, she was impersonating. Sometimes, it irked me positively since it caused me to laugh so hard which I couldn’t focus in class. Another highlight is answering all the questions she provided us as an assignments or discussion in class. I really love it, it helps me to enhance my comprehensions.

         Last, this is the last lesson that we learned with her and she’ll leave Liger with Liger great experience with her. We love her, she’s a great literacy facilitator because she pushed us so hard that sometimes we couldn’t hold find anything to hold like a wind tries to blow us. She helped us with her best effort. We wouldn’t be resilience without her offer to Liger. Back to Animal Farm, if you want practice or try to improve your understand and elaborate your idea about this story, here are some of the topics.

  1. The Contrast of Animal Farm After the Battle of Cowshed
  2. Allegorical Meaning of Animals
  3. Similarities and Differences Between Lenin’s and Old Major’s Speech
  4. What’s in the Name of the Characters