JONIZZLE

TAF2006
To all of those who attended TAF2006, thank you for a wonderful week. To me, TAF2006 another blur. A swirl of memories and moments that I hope were captured enough in my mind or on film to remember and reflect upon. A lot of other people dear to me have already shared feelings and thoughts about the week and many have said things better than I could say, or have remembered to mention things that I would only hope to recall. I feel all of my thoughts and memories are somewhat disjointed; chopped up and blended in with logistical issues, camper names, programming ideas, small group cheers, choir lyrics, things to do next year, and sketchy sketchy sa po po moves. I have no fluid and continual thoughts, just many disjointed areas of reflection. And I share.


Journals
I hope that everyone in JH really embraced the idea of keeping a journal. One of my personal goals for the week was to keep a journal of thoughts for myself at least once or twice throughout TAF, but that never accumulated into anything, and I regret that. I do however take serious joy in the fact that all of the campers, and hopefully the staff, kept their own logs of the week, thoughts they had, etc etc. My hope is that you kept them, either as a TAF souveneir to look back on the week and remember the good times and what you learned, or even moreso, that you keep using and writing in them, and when you run out of pages, you get another journal and keep on going. I find something very classically nostalgic about humans keeping journals and recording our thoughts and experiences. Hopefully you do to.

Speaking of "The Journals", I would love to hear feedback about what y'all wrote. I know its personal, and of course I don't expect people to tell me or Alex or their counselors what they wrote, but...I would love to hear it, haha. Just to get feedback and to hear what you guys in JH thought about topics we discuessed and workshops we ran. And to a deeper extent, what was going through your mind during the taflove workshop.


Body Image.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. During TAF, this issue's relevence became very apparent during the girls part of the Gender Dialogue. And then a week after TAF, I was a small group leader at the Life Creek Church's summer youth group retreat. The majority of girls in my small group also shared that they, just like my beloved young women in JH, felt pressures about body image that led to varying degrees of considering or actually having eating disorders.

Where do these pressures or thoughts to be extremely thin come from? Media? Society? Boys? The fear of being alone? Calls for attention? Being able to have control over something because you feel like you cannot control other areas of your life?

But then I learned that these are the questions that YOU should be asking yourself. Ask yourself, "Why? Why do I do these things to be skinnier than I naturally am?" That is the first step. The second step is to realize that you need to be true to yourself, like Karen and Cat said. Be true to yourself! Don't let anyone else or anything else, especially boys, dictate who you are. This leads me to my last thoughts on this topic.

I believe we are all in this together. Not just the girls, but the guys too. The reasons may be different, but as men, boys, guys, whichever you prefer, perhaps we give off this impression that we are overwhelmingly attracted to extremely skinny girls. I assume the vast majority of boys are actually turned off or worry about girls who are waif thin. So what can I, and other guys do? Mmm...show concern? Show that we notice how unhealthy it looks? To keep saying, "be true to yourself, be true to yourself!"?

Girls' don't let us boys dictate how you live and how your health is. Be true to yourself. That you as an individual, especially a young one, have so much promise and potential to look forward to, and therein lies all the beauty in the world. Do not risk it all that. You will not always be judged by your appearance. This will happen a lot sooner than you think.


"Love is the only rational act"
I mentioned this quote during our taflove session. And in the midst of it all I felt like it made a lot of sense in terms of the four rotating TAF themes. I jotted these down in my notebook to say. Ethics and Values - to know what is right and wrong, and to know what true love really is then. Communication - to tell it and share it with others. Identity - to show how you'll share it, if you will express it, what love is to you. Leadership - to be proactive, to share love when others won't, to show others how to do it."

"Open up your heart and you'll find love love love love loooooove," - jmraz. (yea plate dance!)

So yea. I feel that this (love) is all the purpose of TAF. The higher goal. Make profound impacts on society in unique and compassionate ways. ie: with love in your heart, tingling in your fingers and bones, and opening up to let it out. I'm not trying to be cheesy or cliche. If I had more time, I would try to figure out a much better way to say it, and a new way that would catch you eye, but...this satisfies me for now. Love is the only rational act. Just make sure you're letting the love be as real as you can.


The Past is in the Future
This came to mind during the week, or maybe it was after TAF. Either way I can't put my finger on it. But maybe it was also during the taflove session that I thought about this, where I was sharing how a full decade ago at TAF1996, I was playing with Amy, Michelle, Juliana, Howard, etc. How we were the JH campers, and how Alice and Alanna Lin were our pd's. How we have been friends and known each other for so long. I then said to my TAF2006 campers that I wished to see them at TAF in ten years at TAF2016. Hopefully then they will be the PD's and counselors for the new kids. My point is, Alice and Alanna made immense impacts on me in my time in JH. I hope I have done the same for my kids from 2001-2006 (and luckily, I believe I have). And with what I imparted to them, a lot of it comes from what Alanna and Alice imparted to me (I didn't know what 'unconditional love' meant until I met them). The first TAFers are still making impressions on the future TAFers. We are forever touched by those who came before us. I like that a lot. And I'm hopeful to see what the future holds.


Randoms
- On the lighter side of impacts, I remember Eric Chang at TAF1999 talking about after he graduated college, he just slept on Morris's couch and was a 'professional bum'. And so, I am now sleeping on my friends couch and being a professional bum here in Champaign for the weekend, and for possibly many more weekends throughout the year. Hopefully not...but hey, it's not bad. Thanks Eric for being an inspiration!

- I have one bag of small group letters that I forgot to deliver. I cannot even remember who gave them to me. I will go look in my luggage and find out who's it is, and perhaps deliver it to the Youthers who should have gotten them. My bad.

- I really liked the TAF Night acts this year. I love you JH! I also want to give props to Melody and Tinya. And more props to whoever can post the Youth Swing Choir online first.


Last but not least...my tafcrush?
Okay no, not really. I got your attention though, didn't I? I will however talk about a special young lady that I admire from afar. I call this a feeling of extreme gratitude and snaps for awesomeness to you, Christine Wang of the College Program. I love you. I really do. Thank you for Pteradactyl and the Awkward Turtle. And I don't know if you remember, but I will always recall the time when we were standing around with a group of people this year in the Great Room or in the cafeteria, and we made eye contact for a solid second or two, and didn't say anything but just stared back at each other, even though we both know who each other is. Fittingly, it was awkward.


Shout out to the LCC Retreat - Ahn Yan Hah Say Oohhhh!!!
The week after TAF, I got to spend another four sleepless nights as a small group leader for Youth Pastor Roger's church's summer youth group retreat around Milwaukee. It was great. Shout out to my small group of five lovely ladies (Go X-squared!!!) and everyone else that was there. It was a blessing, and I am glad to have grown from it. It was difficult at first because I have never led a small group in the Christian sense, but word yo, like my dear littlefufu says, "The difficulties of life are intended to make us better, not bitter."

Oh, and the church is a Korean. Am I making you jealous, my Taiwanese people?

Heart heart heart.