 Good morning ladies and gentlemen, my name is Keiko Ono and it is an absolute honor to be offering the Students Union vote of thanks as your outgoing co-president of sports and societies. Family, friends and significant others who may be in this hall or watching from abroad, I'd like to thank you on behalf of the graduates seated here for all your support throughout their studies. To the fantastic team who are behind the scenes that have worked tirelessly to make this day perfection, month in advance, congratulations and thank you for all your hard work. It is not gonna miss. I have to say writing this speech was an incredibly difficult task. It's kind of like wrestling my soul. I haven't slept very well. Because how do you give closure to the many people seated here who refer to us as their spiritual home, which is kind of cheesy. I'm kind of cheesy like that. Quite frankly it's been a place where many have found a home away from home, grown and found friends within these walls whose wisdom and company I will cherish and carry with me forever. Let me try by starting with a brief anecdote. Last weekend I planned to spend that time looking for jobs, taking a pragmatic approach to the inevitable end to my time at SOAS. You know earnestly searching for some purposeful profession to pledge my life to and pack as I prepare to move. But that was evaded by my housemates who had planned to take part in a trip called the Dunwich Dynamo on that Saturday. They woke up at 3 p.m. that afternoon, not because they're lazy. They are incredibly diligent and actually succeeded in this audience here. But they are a little crazy. You see the Dunwich Dynamo is an annual cycle that carries over a thousand crazy people from London Fields to Dunwich in a 12 hour cycle from 9 p.m. that evening on to 9 a.m. the next morning. I know what you're thinking. One, where is Dunwich? And two, cycling 120 miles in the dark is just silly. Two hours later I found myself in London Fields amongst a sea of cyclists and I think at that point the three of us had seen enough likewise to last us a lifetime. We set off together and my two housemates actually raced off into the dark and I charted on behind regrettably with my four bottles of coconut water and from the Pacific and thinking what am I doing? Why am I doing this? I just went up and down hills left and right the doors and it was all very disorientating as I couldn't see anything apart from the flashing lights from fellow cyclists who were silently suffering the self-induced pain. You see deciding to cycle then was not was a bit of a YOLO moment. YOLO meeting you only live once. Cheesy. I am leaving the country and I love my housemates. I am never going to do that cycle again. I have never been to Dunwich and there will never be a situation where I'll find myself with a thousand other cyclists laying on a beach after a marathon cycle with a great excuse to eat as much as I want. Going to universities surprisingly like this for it is certain that at the finish line that is today you will have an excuse to eat as much as you want in the marquee after the ceremony. We may never be able to see a thousand or a couple hundred so-asian seated together unless perhaps at a protest or a sit-in. You might have come to university knowing exactly what you want to do. You are the people in Lycra. You might have arrived feeling nervous, anxious and not really knowing exactly what to expect or what you've gotten yourself into and like getting to Dunwich, getting a degree is sort of like where you know where you're trying to get to but you have no clue what the journey ahead holds. Who knew you'd be coming to so-as where there'd be a course called Tigers and Dragons in Southeast Asia or an awesome combination like Law and Social Anthropology. Who'd ever seen a yurt before been kettled, joined the Origami Society or anticipated the friendships that could flourish in queuing for free food at Hare Krishna? Who knew what so-as held for us? My time at so-as has been full of strange turns and unexpected encounters that have pushed me beyond my own expectations and expanded my capacity to appreciate the fact that life is not linear. Studying at so-as has taught us to reject the idea that we have a pre-dustin projection of anything and indeed empowered us to develop as people and take ownership of our lives and to contribute to our communities. We are living in interesting socio-economic times and the political landscape continues to change in ebbs and flows. We are living in a society for instance where success has become increasingly synonymous with money. And as was earlier referenced, Nelson Mandela once said that education is the most powerful weapon to change the world and given the increasing social barriers to education, we are given a duty to use our knowledge to excel but also to engage in the debates surrounding equality and justice through empathy for no man is an island. We are sat today amongst incredible students, staff and academics who have joined together in campaigns such as the protest against cuts to higher education and public services to witness the success and spread of good work like the justice for cleaners campaign which many of you I'm glad to see are wearing badges signaling solidarity. The kaleidoscope of characters you will have met are as colorful as the eclectic posters in the JCR and I'd like to think our time at university will remain a landmark in our lives. I believe we can safely say that the passionate and dedicated people that embrace the challenge of putting principles learned in the classroom to practice beyond it is why we come to love so us. Remember your commitment to learning has to be continuous and unrelenting so redefine success to one that resonates with what makes you happy. Reach for the highest point of that ladder and flip it. Change the trajectory of success and challenge the status quo for that is why we've come here. I think in talking about our time here we finally come to talk about the junction between the past and the future and a wary consciousness of change. Remember that time is the most important resource as you will never get it back. I encourage you to embrace change for it is the only thing that will be constant in life but have faith in the future for you having made it through your respective degrees will have every reason to believe in it. Some of you will spend a lifetime trying to find what you really want to do what your purpose is you're calling your place but if you're lost don't worry just remember to hold true to your values for that is the best compass in life or so I've learned in my time it saw us. So congratulations and good luck to all of you on behalf of my fellow co-presidents in the students union Alex Harrison and the executive committee committee. Thank you for giving us the honor to represent and serve you. Here's to your bright future and the adventures that await. Thank you.