30.11.2007., petak
United Nations Culture of Peace Forum day 2.
Today was long day and I wake up at 4AM to get ready until 5AM.
As we went half hour earlier today than yesterday, traffic was not bad at all and we reached New York around 7AM. At 8, we went to CBS and we were part of morning show again. It was freezing.
At 9AM we reached UN and our 2nd day of conference could start. Our first speaker was Terry Pearce, well known author of many bestsellers. He spoke about how we can make change first in ourselves to make change in others.
After that we had discussions with our color groups and we came back to hear few more opinions from few professors from Polytechnic University of New York and it was really interesting to hear about projects where new technologies, like Web, are bringing peace in communities.
After lunch we had speakers from Israeli and Lebanon, talking about Israeli-Palestine conflict. It was really interesting to hear their stories and how it is possible to resolve conflict in that area of the world.
At the end of our conference, we had a chance to discuss within our groups how we can make change in world and what can we do to make visible changes and after coming up with ideas we presented our ideas in front of everyone. I still cannot believe that we were presenting our ideas in one of conference rooms, sitting at real chairs where leaders of all over the world are sitting and discussing about similar issues and complex ones.
I was really satisfied with our 2 days in UN. I enjoyed every minute and I hope that ideas we talked about today are going to become real things on which every each of us is going to work on in future. World really need peace and only by accepting differences and working together we can make peace at world.
How did the conference and discussion look like?
Me presenting Croatia
Here are all photos from 2 days at UN.
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29.11.2007., četvrtak
United Nations Culture of Peace Forum day 1.
Today’s day was amazing!! I still cannot believe what happened and it will take me some time to reflect what just happened today.
I had to wake up at 4.30AM to get ready and be on bus at 5.30AM. We went into traffic jam and before entering Lincoln tunnel which connects New Jersey and New York, we waited at least 20 minutes without moving anywhere.
When we come to New York, at one traffic light, one man come to our bus and said that he needs people for Morning show at CBS, so we went out of the bus and we were part of audience at Morning show at CBS TV station. We made signs and we talked with reporter and we singed Up with People song. It was really cool. Well, read carefully.
Tomorrow, Friday, we are coming back to CBS TV station and we are actually going to be on TV again so watch carefully from 7.30AM CBS morning show.
After visiting CBS, we went to visit International Youth Alliance house where we had breakfast and we talked about what they do, as they are founded by United Nations.
At 11AM we finally come to UN and we had to pass security check. After that we got our passes and we went to have lunch at UN cafeteria. I was feeling really international at that point of time.
After lunch, Iliana and me, we went to make our own personal UN postal stamps with our own pictures. Interesting fact about UN is that UN doesn’t belong to USA property… it is international territory so you need to have passport to be inside of UN.
Also, UN as international territory has their own post office with own postal stamps which are only valid inside of UN.
At 1PM we went for UN guide tour which was really cool. We went to visit chamber of Security Council and chamber of Economic and social council and at the end we visited The General Assembly Hall and I managed to find seating places for Croatia.
After the tour, we had opening of the forum and we had some really good speakers like Mr. Joseph Netakiratimana, Ambassador of Burundi, Dr. Hope White-Davis, WAFUNIF, Mr. Yiping Zhou, UNDP Director of South-South Cooperation and many more.
Tomorrow is for sure going to be exciting and interesting day at UN as tomorrow our conference is continuing.
Security Council
Economic and social council
The General Assembly Hall
Croatian place at The General Assembly Hall
Here you can see the rest of the photos from United Nations.
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28.11.2007., srijeda
Update on Macy's Thanksgiving Parade
Stand for Peace day
Today was “Stand for Peace” project day again. Today we were working with 6th graders and it was really fun. Students were really nice and interested in what we are doing and morning passed really quickly.
In the afternoon we had some kind of free time so we started discussions about United Nations and things what we are going to do tomorrow there.
Next 3 days it’s going to be crazy schedule. Every day we have to be ready in bus at 5.30AM so that we can reach New York at certain time. Also, in Saturday I’m part of set up team together with my roommate Jaakko. I’m not going to get too much sleep in next few days, especially as end is coming closer and closer and I still don’t want to think about the end.
I’m going to sleep to wake up tomorrow fresh at 4.30 and be ready for UN conference. Yeeee!!! :)
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Update photos on Hartford
27.11.2007., utorak
I'm in New Jersey
Yesterday we finally came to New Jersey. It’s been a long traveling day from Suffern to Bernardsville and only reason why it was such a long ride is because we spent whole day at Ellis Island and Liberty Island where we went to visit immigration museum and also Statue of Liberty. What an amazing day!
Weather wasn’t very good. It was pretty foggy and a little bit rainy and we couldn’t see New York very well from Ellis island because of big fog, but at least I could get a feeling how was it to see Statue of Liberty for new immigrants coming from long ship ride to US. Museum at Ellis Island was awesome and I learned so much about immigration history to US.
Today was good day. We were working in Middle School in 5th grade with students and we did “Stand for Peace” project. It was very fun and I enjoyed very much. We also did 2 BTS shows for elementary school and middle school kids.
Special thing of today’s day is that we had whole day only for ourselves. Our stuff members disappeared and we had to run everything by ourselves and we did great job.
As I was pretty busy and tired during last weekend I didn’t have chance to write anything on my blog so I will just go through weekend days very quickly.
In Sunday, my host family took me and Jin A to New York. We really had great time and by the end of the day I just fall in love in NY City. We went to see Ground Zero, place where WTC used to be before September 11th. It was very meaningful for me standing there and I tried to imagine WTC buildings, but it was too hard.
After seeing Ground Zero, we went to see Wall Street and NY Stock Exchange. Unfortunately, as it was Sunday, we couldn’t take tour in Stock Exchange but I felt really happy being there. Streets took us to City Hall building and after that we went to walk to Brooklyn Bridge. Amazing!! I loved it!!! This part of NY is really nice and kind of clean.
After lunch we went to Rockefeller center and our host family gave us a top building tour. When Jin A and I finally come up to the 67th floor and we saw sunset, I just fall in love of NY. It was the most amazing view of city I saw so far. On one side I could see sunset with Empire state building, while on the other side was big red moon. I definitely want to come back to NY.
Saturday was show day and we had amazing show. As Suffern in birth city of Up with People CEO, Thomas Spaulding, he had very nice and inspiring speech.
Friday was so called “Black Friday” which basically means that everyone goes shopping because there are always big discounts on that Friday after Thanksgiving Day. We had our BTS promotion in one of the biggest malls around and we did 5 BTS shows in row. It was hard to do it, especially after Thanksgiving Day, but we managed to do it. In the afternoon we kind of had free time, but we did some education about immigration and epilepsy.
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25.11.2007., nedjelja
Happy Thanksgiving Day !!!
[Update on November 22 - Thanksgiving Day!!]
Imagine waking up at 3AM and having exciting day whole day with a lot of adrenaline and you will know how I was feeling on Thanksgiving Day.
Thanksgiving is big holiday here in USA and everyone is celebrating it. My day started really early and around 4AM UWP started our trip to New York to reach Museum of Natural History where the meeting point was and where we started our Parade. It was middle of the night and we saw how did they blow the balloons and it was pretty exciting. Once we rehearsed one more time everything we had like 2 hours just to wait parade to start and at that point I started to feel a little bit cold.
There were many famous people on parade, but unfortunately I don’t know who they were as all Americans went crazy, but I never heard of some of them. Either, I’m getting old or I’m just not keeping the track of all new born stars.
At 9AM Parade started and I even wasn’t aware and it was already the time for Parade show on NBC TV. Two and a half miles just passed so quickly. I didn’t feel pain or tiredness in my hand by holding the flag any time. We were marching for 2.5 miles and our time on TV finally come exactly at 10.22 AM as it was announced few days ago.
Our performance on TV was great!
Next minute we were in bus changing our cloths and having 2 hours free time in New York. Sherlock and me, we immediately went to take a lot of photos and we enjoyed every minute staying in New York. We went all around as far as the time let us go and every few meters we stopped to take photos. It was really crowded around 5th Avenue and Macy’s store because parade was still going on.
After spending 2 hours in New York, our host family picked us up at 3PM and after that we had free time to spend with our host family on Thanksgiving Day.
Finally we met our host sister Sumi and her husband and 2 sons. They came to have dinner with our host family. We all were sitting around table and talking and getting to know each other until the time for dinner came.
We had nice Indian dinner with a little taste of American Thanksgiving culture. Only thing I could say that I ate too much as I loved the food.
After dinner our host family took us to their friend’s party in huge house. It was around 9PM and I was feeling tired and Jin A, my roommate, didn’t feel much better than me. We had good time in party. We didn’t know anyone so we just stick to each other.
Total impression of the day is that I love American Thanksgiving Day. I enjoyed having dinner with my host family and it will still take me some time to realize that we were performing for over than 200 million people all around US on Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Marching time went just too quickly.
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21.11.2007., srijeda
One more day and we are…
…going to be in Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade!!
That is so exciting!! I still don’t know if I’m dreaming or not, but excitement about Macy’s Parade is rising every minute more and more.
Today we were practicing for Macy’s Parade and as well we did 2 Backtrack Shows for Suffern High School students.
Today we finished earlier and around 6PM we were back home and we had nice dinner with our host family. It was all Indian food and I just love it. I’m still getting used to spices, but I love it.
This night is going to e short one as we are getting up at 3AM to reach New York at certain time and rehearse one more time with our balloon which is big planet Earth.
I have to get some sleep as tomorrow it’s Thanksgiving day and our host family is going to have guests. Our host family’s daughter, or to be more exact, mine and Jin A’s host sister with her family is coming and we are going to have big Thanksgiving dinner.
I’m so excited to be here in US during Thanksgiving and experience what is Thanksgiving.
Tomorrow...
Tune into NBC for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade,
on Thursday,
November 27, 2007 between 10:15am-11:00am Eastern Time.
10:22 a.m. - approximate time for UWP TV performance (immediately following "Hello Kitty" balloon and a commercial)
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20.11.2007., utorak
New York, New York
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Start spreading the news
I'm leaving today
I want to be a part of it, New York, New York
These vagabond shoes
Are longing to stray
And make a brand new start of it
New York, New York
I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps
To find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap
These little town blues
Are melting away
I'll make a brand new start of it
In old New York
If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you, New York, New York.
I’m still feeling overwhelming from visiting New York for the first time. As we went to do business we didn’t have time to explore at all, but at least we were there…standing in the middle of Broadway Street, rehearsing in front of Macy’s big department store for Parade and feeling like it’s just a big dream.
In the morning, logistics team had a little sketch on New York’s issue today as logistically, we didn’t have time to wonder around taking photos (although that was the hardiest part for me).
In the morning and after lunch we were rehearsing for parade and also during lunch time we had big cast lost&found auction sale which was a lot of fun. Finally we got rid of all stuff from lost&found and we raised some good amount of money for final banquet.
Around 4PM we hit the road to New York. Wow, it was really exciting driving in bus in 5th avenue Street and seeing all shops and just feeling from bus how is it to be part of New York is. Everyone warned me that New York is quite different culture than every other part of US and that New York is culture by itself and so far I can say that no one lied about it.
At 6PM we were at Broadway Street and we were waiting for our line of rehearsal for Macy’s Parade. We rehearsed twice in front of Macy’s and it was much fun. I still cannot believe that this is happening. I mean, for us Europeans, Macy’s parade is not big deal at all as I have never heard about it before, but for US people its huge deal. Today we got a little bit of taste what it is Macy’s parade and I really got super excited about it.
We had our dinner at Macy’s restaurant and after dinner we left New York to reach Suffern until 10PM.
Last days are so busy and education team assigned us paper work on theme Peace for UN with tomorrow’s deadline and it’s so hard to find time to write that, especially as I don’t want to do lousy work. Well, if I want to go to sleep soon, I should probably start writing it.
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19.11.2007., ponedjeljak
New York, New York…
We are in Suffern, New York. In only few days we are going to be part of big Macy’s Thanksgiving parade which is awesome.
Today’s traveling day was only 2 hours long, but we had Macy’s rehearsal whole day and also we were trying on our costumes and matching shoes.
Crocs shoes are our big sponsor and they donated shoes for whole cast to wear them in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. They are so comfortable.
Macy's Thanksgiving Parade previous photos (Source):
My new host family is coming from India and they have really nice house.
Last night, my host family day with my host family from Hartford, we spend sleeping in and in afternoon they took me and my roommates to Yale University. Wow…that was something. I was impressed with Harvard, but Yale is really something special. It’s mostly build with stones and it looks like really elite and nice campus.
After visiting few places around, we went to have dinner in Mexican restaurant. Food was really good and I liked my spinach enchilada. After nice dinner we went to some bar to watch belly dancing which was really fun. I really enjoyed staying with my host family from Hartford as they were young couple.
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Update on Hartford, Connecticut
November 17 – Show day
Wow, it was hard show day especially as facility was a little bit hard for performing. We were performing in church and it was just too hard as we didn’t have real back stage.
During lunch time we had guest speaker Mr. Penny, father of our cast members. He was involved in Up with People for a long time and he came to talk to us about that experience and it was really fun speech especially part what to do when we come back home one day after our Up with People experience.
After lunch we had rehearsal whole day and at 19.00 our show was started. It wasn’t as hard as I was thinking it’s going to be because of strange facility and it was fun. We have 4 more shows to perform and we are finished. I don’t how to feel about that. I’ll come back to that subject in few days.
November 16 – Regional learning day
After morning meeting, we had guest speaker about globalization. It was really good speech and at the end because of so many cons and pros globalization is bringing to us, it was hard for me to decide whether is good or bad.
After lunch we went to our regional learning place. It was like a reality. Going back to 19th century and living Mark Twain’s life in his house. Mark Twain’s house was big really nice house. Our tour guide was really good in telling the stories and listening her words, I was daydreaming how it was to live in 19th century and visit Mark Twain. His wife really had style how to decorate house. Amazing!
I really enjoyed being there and it was like coming back to Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer time. It was like being kid.
Day wasn’t over when we finished Mark Twain tour. After tour we went back to Artiste Collective and we had some classes assigned. Half of the group could be part of African drums classes and half of the group could learn hip-hop dance. I wanted to learn hip- hop dance and I will just tell you, it’s not as easy as it sometimes seems to be. I really had fun and no matter it was hard, I enjoyed every minute of my classes and it was fun.
November 15 – CI day
First thing in the morning we departed to Food Harvest Food Bank where few us were volunteering there.
First we were packing potatoes in smaller bags and after potatoes we started packing onions. It wasn’t hard job and we had time to talk to each other. As there were not so many volunteers working on same job, we were mostly talking with each other and just had fun.
After lunch we had to go to do promotion, but it was raining really badly, we stayed at facility where office was and we just tried to spend 2 hours of free time how we liked. I was talking and watching movies with few people.
In the afternoon we had UN preparation presentation and Jin A from South Korea made really good presentation about United Nations. Well, I don’t remember telling you about it, but in 2 weeks we are going to UN and we are going to be part of UN peace conference for 2 days.
November 14 – Logistic/BTS day
Today I was sign out and I was working in logistics whole morning. We had to move to 3 different facilities and it was had to work.
I managed to book my flight ticket from Boston to Washington as I had internet finally and December 10th is the day when my tour is finishing.
In the afternoon we had BTS (Backtrack show) in Artiste Collective. We were performing for kids in after school program. After BTS, they surprised us and they performed for us to show us what they do in after school program. We had African drum performance and it was really cool to see that. After that, another group performed in hip-hop dancing which was really cool.
November 13 – Internal day
Today we had education day.
In the morning we had 2 presentations. Vania from Bulgaria was presenting her country and she talked about situation in Bulgaria. After Vania, Sokhune from Cambodia presented us Cambodia and she talked about history of Cambodia and how history did affected her and why did she have to move to US. Both presentations were really good and I liked them very much.
After lunch we had promotion time and we went to downtown of West Hartford to do some promotion. Town is full of cows as there is Cow Parade going on. Cows are really cool, all with different theme and drawings. My favorite one is ballerina cow.
After promotion, we went back to facility and we had our cast meeting. It was one of meetings where we discussed about feedbacks and how did they affect cast.
November 12 - Goodbye Rhode Island, welcome Connecticut
We left Rhode Island today. This was shortest travel day so far and it us only 2 hours to reach our new place, Hartford, Connecticut.
When we came to Hartford, first we had Macy’s Parade rehearsals outside on cold air just to get used to how it’s going to be to walk for 2 miles around New York in Parade next week.
After lunch we had some conflict management workshops and lessons and than we were split in our home teams and we were working on giving feedback to each other. It was very good activity as it’s something with which we are going to deal with our whole life when we once come back home.
Today I also received nice gift from ammoniums friend – very colorful socks which I love. And I received also nice colorful scarf from Wiebke and she knitted it by herself.
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10.11.2007., subota
Socializing with squirrels in Boston
Today we were in Boston. What a day!!!
Last few days it was crazy. In Wednesday I went to do volunteer work in Food bank and I was sorting onions, good from bad ones. It was really nice work, a little bit onion smelly but we had a chance to socialize with each other.
Thursday and Friday we had show day. We really had 2 good shows and both days auditorium was full.
During rehearsal in Friday, we had so called “expression session” where every cast member had a chance to present something to cast just to entertain ourselves. I decided to play guitar and sing song. It was my first time singing and playing guitar on stage with microphone in front of larger group of people and it was really exciting and I’m happy I did it.
I was also part of local radio station interview and I and Jonathan from Sweden were having interview in local radio station not so far away from show facility.
Today, luckily, as regional learning day, we had a chance to go to visit Boston. I decided to walk with Sherlock around and we first went to visit Harvard.
It’s really nice “town” and Harvard campus is really nice. I have been hunted by squirrels lately. I see them where ever I go and here at Harvard campus I even had a chance to socialize with squirrels. I went down and I called one of the squirrels and I didn’t even think that it will respond and so, she came near me and she put her little hands on my knee and look at me. She was soo beautiful with her fluffy tail.
After visiting Harvard, we took subway and we went to visit MIT or Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is also big campus in that area and I loved it. As both campuses are really big, we didn’t have time to explore every each in big detail but at least we got a chance to experience a little bit of taste of both campuses.
Our last destination was “Fenway park” where is big Red Socks stadium and Red Socks baseball club is really big deal in Boston and surrounding area. Everyone is in love in Red Socks and they won 2007 World Championship in baseball. We unfortunately didn’t have time to go on tour of stadium because of lack of time, but it was amazing even standing there and feeling Red Socks fans excitement while standing there.
We arrived to Woonsocket around 6.30PM and after that me and my host family went to Japanese restaurant and I had really nice miso soup and some other different Japanese dishes.
Here are some photos from Boston and here you can find the rest of the Woonsocket photos:
A little bit of taste of New York from highway on our way to Rhode Island
Expression session
My host family
Harvard University and campus
MIT University and campus
Fenway Park - home of Red Socks
I also updated Easton, Maryland photos:
Halloween party
CI project
My host family
Also, you can see some Washington D.C. photos:
World Bank
Visiting Lincoln Monument
Visiting Arlington Memorial
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05.11.2007., ponedjeljak
Show day + Host family day + Traveling day
November 5th – traveling to Woonsocket
I’m in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. It’s been long traveling day and we spent more than 8 hours in bus.
It was really fun and exciting for me as we were passing by New York and I could see New York from highway. I could see all skyscrapers and Empire state building. I cannot wait to go there.
This time I’m rooming with Kristen from Pennsylvania.
November 4th – host family day
We spend amazing day in Washington DC. We woke up early… and you are not going to believe what happened in the morning. Today was the day when everyone in this area of US changed their clocks for winter time and I knew that. But…I forgot to change clock, so instead of waking up at 7.30, I woke up at 6.30. I was the only one awaked and I was wondering why the rest of the people are not waking up. That can only happen to me.
After quick breakfast, we went to visit Annapolis, capital city of Maryland State. It is nice and cute city with navy academic university situated there so we saw some nice navy students walking around.
After Annapolis we went directly to Washington DC. Host dad was telling us interesting stories about Washington and about September 11 and how one of the planes also reached Washington - Pentagon and he showed us where the plane crashed.
We went to Arlington National Cemetery. It’s a cemetery of military people and also we’ve visited grave of President John F. Kennedy and his wife and his brother Robert. We also went to visit Grave of Unknown solitaries and there we had a chance to see change of the guards. It was really interesting to see whole procedure of changing guards, as they have to walk, act and speak in certain way. By how they look, you cannot see the difference between them. They all look almost the same.
For me it was also incredible to see so many graves and see that all grave stones are the same.
After visiting Arlington Cemetery, we went to visit Jefferson memorial. It is really nice memorial and I was amazed by quotes which are written on the walls of Jefferson memorial as I didn’t knew any of them and I didn’t know much about President Jefferson.
Our last site in Washington was Capital building. Unfortunately, we didn’t have chance to go there by foot, I only had a chance to see it from car. After Sep 11, they protected building very well and you have to have scheduled tour to come to visit Capital building.
What I was also amazed with Washington is that every 36 seconds you could see planes flying over. Washington airports are really busy airports and one of them is really close to all tourist places.
After Washington, we went to have dinner in nice Italian restaurant in Annapolis and after that we went to small shopping and home.
November 3 – Show day
It was just the usual show day. Me and my logistic team, we had a little bit acting sketch at morning meeting about information wall we are in charge of so it was fun to be in acting role once.
The rest of the day was rehearsal and preparing for the show. It was really good show. We came home really late and I was also working on some stuff back at home.
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02.11.2007., petak
Amazing day in Washington DC
Today we spent amazing day in Washington DC.
First place in the morning we visited was World Bank. We got scheduled visit for 10.45 and before going inside of World Bank, we had to pass security and we received special visit name tags. Our first speaker was Lars Thunel, who is vice president and CEO of IFC organization which is part of World Bank. After his speech, we watched little video how did World Bank help in 3 different continents on 3 different projects – bringing drinking water to Philippines, bringing electricity to Cameron and offering loans for people in Peru.
After inspiring video, our next speaker was Carrie Shanahan. She talked more about video we saw and projects that are World Bank working on.
Our last speaker was Rachel Kyte. She is working in Climate change department and she made good point in climate change by splitting us by where we come from and telling us more about who the worst emission gas polluters in the world are and who is actually working on changing that. She also tried to explain how World Bank helps in climate change and other projects in world.
After that, we had nice lunch in World Bank cafeteria and we heard more about one more projects where they are helping developing countries to earn money and sell their products here in different developed countries markets.
After lunch, we went to Holocaust museum. Museum is huge and it talks about World War II. It was hard to see photos and videos from concentration camps and how everything begun.
One sentence I read on the wall really touched my heart:
“Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned.” By Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), German Jewish Poet
I saw some really shocking videos about how they were making medical experiments on people from concentration camps and what results of those experiments were. Horrible!! I just wanted to cry at that point.
After museum we had dinner with alumni at place near World Bank. Our cast member’s parents, Brodie, were part of dinner and they welcomed us very nice and prepared us really nice dinner. Thank you.
After dinner (it was already dark outside) we went to see memorial places like Vietnam War memorial wall, Lincoln memorial, Korean War memorial and Washington memorial. Standing there at Vietnam War memorial and thinking what I saw in Holocaust museum, it was just significant. People die and there is nothing good coming from war…any war.
It was also amazing to stand inside Lincoln memorial and really feel cold walls and smell the air.
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