Please, just a little longer.

"The peak of midsummer has passed," the weather forecaster said on TV.

This song, sung by Fujifabric, hasn't left my head since September began.

The high temperature last Saturday was 33°C. The summer I thought had passed is stubbornly lingering. It seems it doesn't want to end just yet.

Minato Mirai was lively that day, filled with university students singing a cappella and people dressed in Yosakoi costumes. When I came last month, there were lots of Pikachus. I only come once a month, but this city always seems to be having fun.

As usual, I bought a Kiyoken fried rice bento and headed toward BUKATSUDO. I felt a little relieved to see another student from the program on the stairs leading down to the basement.

Well, only two sessions left. I opened the door with a feeling of challenge.

◆ ◆ ◆

The theme of the fifth 'Kotoba no Kikaku' (Word Project) session was 'Creating from the Method of Creation.'

For this, the assignment given in advance was to 'create a Naver Matome (curated summary) about movies in your own way.'

I wasn't fond of the Naver Matome platform. It's cluttered and hard to read, anyone can make one, and the credibility is questionable.

Especially since I work managing comparison sites, where primary information and the EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) of articles are considered extremely important, I even avoided Naver Matome, which is nothing more than a cut-and-paste collection of gathered information.

So, honestly, I was a bit heavy-hearted about this assignment. Moreover, I was told to do it 'in your own way.' Oh boy, what should I do? I held my head in my hands for a while.

However, I did love movies. When I was a student, I would go to the movie theater alone whenever I didn't want to be at home or had some free time. Even now, I lazily watch double features at mini-theaters or go see movies I'm interested in with friends or a partner.

Because I love them, I was also very worried about what and how I should summarize them.

I searched for 'movies' on Naver Matome and looked through the vast number of summary headlines that appeared. Looking at the popular summaries, I could somewhat understand what Naver Matome users were looking for.

But who exactly did I want to reach? When I stopped for a moment, exhausted by the vast amount of information, the person who came to mind was a girl just like me.

I honestly wanted to reach someone who lacks self-confidence, is clumsy, or feels that living is a bit difficult. That's because I myself have been saved by the sight of girls struggling and grappling with life in movies.

What is popular on Naver Matome and what I want to summarize are different. But I was taught in this course that I should just write what makes me happy to write and what the reader will be happy to read.

So, I respected that feeling. Here is that summary.

They are all movies that I have watched with my own eyes, that have moved my heart, made me cry, and given me strength.

As a result, in the "Did It Get Through? Championship," where we voted for the person whose assignment for 71 people we felt truly communicated their message, I received the second-highest number of votes overall. I was so surprised I actually trembled a little.

I'd like to share the positive feedback I received from our instructor, Kotaro Abe.

Ah, I wasn't wrong after all. It really did get through. When I read this, I was so happy I almost cried.

I have so much I want to write, and since being overly wordy has always been a challenge for me, I want to keep searching for that perfect balance. Having said that, this very sentence I'm writing now has ended up being long, too. I still have a long way to go.

But I feel like I was able to get a slight sense of progress. I want to hold onto this feeling and build on it.

I used to avoid Naver Matome, but in the end, depending on what you curate and how you do it, it can become content with plenty of originality. I still can't bring myself to like mass-produced summaries that prioritize going viral above all else, but summaries that convey the writer's passion are fun to look at.

After trying to make one myself and seeing the summaries by Abe-san and the other students in the program, I finally understood.

If you want to become a professional creator,
learn from what is good, and keep layering on how you would do it yourself.

In your own way,
bring your own uniqueness to the surface.

I feel like I'm just about to grasp the core of these words that Abe-san spoke.

◆ ◆ ◆

This is a bit of a tangent, but after the lecture ended, the other students in the program came up to me and said, "Your summary was great."

And they also said, "I like your sensibility, Aki-chan."

Being told that someone likes my sensibility actually makes me very happy. It makes me so happy I almost cry.

For me, my own sensitivity is something troublesome, annoying, and at times, it feels like it's strangling me and making it hard to breathe, so I thought it was very fortunate that there are people who say they like it.

The Word Project is full of people who deliver loving words so directly like this, which is why I end up saying things I wouldn't normally say.

Perhaps I am changing, little by little.

Before I knew it, there's only one session left. Going to BUKATSUDO once a month and eating bento (Kiyoken's fried rice bento) with everyone after the lecture will be over after this.

It's sad. But I'm also looking forward to it.

I wonder if the scent of autumn will already be in the air on the final day. Over the past two days, it has already become significantly, unmistakably autumn-like.

I dislike summer, but I feel like I don't want this year's summer to end just yet.

Thank you for reading this far.
On the final day, I hope we can meet in this place once more.

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