In the Fall of 2018, Kitakyushu offered a speech contest for all exchange students to participate in. Throughout the Fall semester, I practiced my speech and rewrote drafts constantly. I had both teachers and tutors look over my drafts and worked on it as a project during the semester. Participants were split into two groups based on our Japanese level; Group A consisted of advanced level students and Group B consisted of intermediate level students. I was placed in Group B. Eventually, we submitted our final drafts and finalists were chosen based off of our written submissions. I was chosen as a finalist, and afterwards, finalists then memorized their speech and performed them in front of the board of the school along with teachers and students.