Four billlion lives and each is unique

My nerves aren't exactly steady. I'm going to an international conference as an attendee presenting a topic - one dearest to my heart (and thoughts) that the human brain is not female or male at conception. The International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women meets every three years in widely separated countries of the world. I last attended in Uganda where an uprising was going on, and probably still is, in 2002. A new and exciting experience was in 1999 inside the Arctic Circle on the summer solstice in June. What energy the sun continued to shower upon us all. No one could sleep, nor needed to. Before that in 1995 my granddaughter and I were in Australia, popping in on the Congress after visiting the coral reef, Ayers Rock and the Olga mountains. In 1992 in Costa Rica where I was visiting my dear friend Dorothy Hageley, I was first introduced to the international meetings. The official language is English and much interpretation must be done although many countries are well taught in English. In 2005, the 9th International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women meets in Seoul, Korea.
But back to me and my apprehension about being a presenter. I will be staying in the Ewha University dormitory, Hanwoori Hall, on the campus of the 2005 location of the Congress. That in itself may be an adventure - using a common shower and toilet facility. I haven't done that since I did the youth hostel in England, I can't remember how many years ago. The experience will not be the common shower and pit toilets of Hippo Camp in Kenya during three satisfying Earthwatch adventures as a gopher to scientific study of the Lakes of the African Rift Valley.
The 10 hour flight from Portland to Tokyo will be tiresome. I usually sleep most of those lengthy flights, especially if I eat very little the few days before. I am one of many billion individuals on the planet who is doing my thing side by side of others. Do I think of those people? Not as individuals certainly, but occasionally as "others" who are experiencing lives of their own. Not intertwined but often influencing the actions that affect me and my family. To be sensible I have to think kindly of them all. Not an easy task but a human necessity for the survival of my specie.
Naomi Sherer