Chicago chapter kickoff!

If you haven’t heard yet, TAF has launched its newest program: TAF Chicago! The Chicago chapter’s goal is to provide a year-round learning/laughing/loving resource to TAFers and the surrounding community. We know that nothing could ever replace TAF’s summer session, but we hope that our meetings will help stem the post-TAF blues.

At TAF Chicago, we’ll learn about the four rotating themes of TAF with a focus on everyday issues of school, social life, current events, and pop culture. Eventually, we hope that the program will be run by the participants as well as coordinators; all TAFers (and parents) are welcome to lead workshops or speaker sessions.

TAF Chicago kicked off this past Saturday with what else?: a game of ninja. Twenty participants and a handful of coordinators engaged in an epic ninja battle, including two brand-new TAFers! Afterwards, the chapter moved onto speaker session, where we recapped some of the main points in Roger Lin and Bum Kim’s speaker sessions from TAF 2009.

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As for current events, we talked about the two Asian-American journalists in North Korea, Euna Lee and Laura Ling. Their story teaches us that it’s impossible to judge what’s right and wrong without the full story. In other news, we discussed the Kanye West/Taylor Swift situation. To connect this to other events, we talked about Rep. Joe Wilson interrupting President Obama during his Congressional address. In each situation, is it right or wrong to interrupt someone, even when the thing you interrupt is strongly against your own beliefs?

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Afterwards, ‘workshops’ were held– basically, everyone crowded outside to play in the late-afternoon sun. We threw around footballs, frisbees, played a game of kickball, and just laid in the grass with our fellow TAFers. Dinner was served, then it was onto our after-program activity– mini golfing!tafchicago3

All in all, it was a successful event! We can’t wait to see more of you at next month’s meeting, which will be held (tentatively) on October 24. Don’t hesitate to email TAFChicago@gmail.com with questions, suggestions and pictures. Details for next month will be released in a week or so.

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THANKS FOR COMING 🙂
-With TAFLove,
your Chicago chapter staff

Photos courtesy of Dan Lu. Find more on Facebook!