Tuesday 5 July

The day started at 8:50 in the morning. We congregate in the courtyard outside UEA Village accommodation. Then, we headed to a master class from the School of Law where we had a lecture about R v Dudley and Stephens case.

This is a leading English criminal case that institute a precedent, throughout the common law world, that necessity is no defense against a charge of murder. Basically, the case started when the english yacht set sail for Sydeney from Southampton with a crew of four: Dudley, the captain; Stephens; Brooks; and Parker, the cabin boy who was only 17 years old. The weather was by no means extreme and the vessel was not in any difficulties, until a wave struck the yacht. They moved to the lifeboat since the yacht was doomed and sank within five minutes of being struck. Dudley managed to improvise a sea anchor to keep the lifeboat headed into the waves and maintain her stability. After days they run out of food and they failed to catch any rainwater. At this difficult time Parker became ill through drinking seawater. After a period of time, drawing lots in order to nominate a sacrificial victim who would die to feed the others was set as a solution and debate seems to have intensified but without resolution. With Parker probably in a coma, Dudley and Stephens decided to kill him and eat his flesh and drink his blood. Brooks refused. On the other day Dudley killed Parker and they manage to stay alive until they sighted a sail.

After the lecturer told us the story, he asked us to give our opinion and should Dudley and Stephens be sentenced  as killers before he told us that they imprisoned as killers. For me, this was the first time I heard of this story and it was really difficult to answer the question. I freely confess to having found it hard to decide-difficult because of the scale of the tragedy, difficult for the seemingly irreconcilable conflicts of moral and ethical values. It is important, however, to stress on that Dudley and Stephens did kill Parker because he was orphan and weak. So if I were the judge I will consider them as killers according to my reasons given above.

After this amazing lecture we've been given our challenge for the week. Then, we had our lunch break.

After the lunch break we gathered again to watch a Debate Demonstration by expert guests from The Norwich School. They were debating about global worming. I got to learn a lot from this session. Now, I knew the rule of debating, the importance of time in debating, how someone have to be confident about what he/she debating for and the structure of the debate.

Monday 4 July

Monday the 4th was my first day of summer. It was a mixed of both exciting and anxious feelings regarding to what are coming in the next three weeks. But at the end of the day the feeling was amazing.

The day started with a little worm welcome to the Sunday arrivals students. Then, we have been introduced to the new ambassadors Emma and Hannah. After that, we head to the lecture room to listen to a lecture by a former Maltese Speaker of Parliament. He talked about how the ambassador or the minister of foreign affair should has the idea to not just care about their citizens in that foreign country, but also how to turn into account the presence in that foreign country to make trading contracts with them that will benefit both parties. He concluded that Malta has a good relations with Saudi government and hope to expand these relations more and more in the coming years.

In my opinion, the former minister of foreign affair lecture has given us some insight about how we should 'the international students' acting during our studies abroad. We should not only aim for just getting our college degree, but to how we can apply what we learn in order to improve our country.

The second part of the day was sport activities. I have learnt how to play archery which was really great. It was a really good session overall especially when playing these games with your friends.