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TAF2010: Daily Recap MONDAY

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Newsletter coordinators Nicole Hsieh and Erica Lee give us an preview of things to come from North Manchester, Indiana!

And here we go!

Today TAFers studied the different classes and species of the animal kingdom, as well as observed animal attitudes and behaviors. Results may or may not be published in Nature sometime in the future.

They also learned that Force = mass x acceleration. See parents! We DO teach math here at TAF!

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

Nick and Victor meet for the first time at Sunday dinner after a year of separation.

Communication skills:

2010 Census Write in “Taiwanese” PSA is live!

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From the folks involved with tafLabs and tafMedia – the 2010 US Census Write in “Taiwanese” Public Service Announcement is now live!

Check it out here: http://taiwaneseamerican.org/census2010

Remember! Be counted, be recognized! Tell everyone you know (Taiwanese and non-Taiwanese alike) and especially your parents! Look for the census forms in the mail this month.

The tafDrama

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tafLabs & tafMedia are proud to present the long-anticipated tafDrama! It was originally supposed to be aired during TAF Night, but…right…we were rather busy getting the Slideshow finished. Better late than never?

What inspired the TAF Drama you ask? Creativity? Fanciful imagination? Ennui from staring at computer screens too long? No one truly knows. However, it has proven to be a worthy challenge to develop skills one could only dream of in the art of guerrilla filmmaking, i.e. conceiving the story as you go along, filming randomly, etc. That also explains the secret powers Howard’s character had in changing costume so often.

In any case, we’re sure that you’ll find some sort of underlying moral hidden deep within the story. Also, the Korean title makes no sense in Korean and hopefully won’t really say something in Korean. It’s supposed to say “Realizing Awesome”. Props to anyone who can translate the Japanese letters!

So without further ado… ENJOY!

TAF 2009 Slideshow: Sprout!

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To start your week off the best way ever, tafMedia, in association with tafLabs, is proud to present the TAF 2009 Slideshow! We’d like to say a lot of careful planning and editing went into the production this year, but while that is mostly true, we also brought literal meaning to “finishing at the last minute”.

We were going to piece together a timeline of events that happened simultaneously from both TAF Night in Cordier Auditorium and from the tafLabs/tafMedia offices in Helman 106. But in the end, a step-by-step recount of that fateful night isn’t as fun. It’s a little too technical, we’re personally tired of timelines (that’s how our editing software works), and since we’re tafMedia and strive to be artsy sometimes, we don’t mind yielding to the right side of our brain and letting these instances “that saved that TAF from having no slideshow” live on forever in TAF lore. A lesson: Start putting the slideshow together before Friday night at 10pm!!!

You can tell your grandchildren (or your current little sibs’ future little sib) that it took sleeping in shifts, cooling overheating laptops with bags of ice and frozen french fries, frenzied text messages, purposeful TAF Night MC stalls, the fastest quarter-mile Kev Yau has sprinted in years, and one last impromptu Bob Lin speech, to get the slideshow DVD burned and delivered to Manchester staff when it needed to be…with 30 seconds to spare! No, really. Only 30 seconds between the time we gave the DVD to Manchester and the time the DVD started playing at 9:29:52p.m. EST. WHEW. Considering the final product, we hope you’ll agree that it was all worth it for each and every frame, and finally of course, that awesome was realized.

Credits:
Youth Slideshow coordinators: Eric Kao, Nicole Hsieh, Andrew Kuo
tafLabs & tafMedia team: Anna Wu, Steve Wang, Kev Yau, Jon Lee
Special thanks to Dan Lu & Andrew Lo and others for providing us with photos, John Chen, Chikuan Wu, and Pamela Lin for keeping us fed with steak and pie, and Jason Hsu for animating the end shot (originally done with glowsticks by the Slideshow coordinators!).

The five songs used are (in order):
1. Muse – Starlight
2. The Fray – All at Once
3. The Killers – Human
4. Aerosmith – Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing
5. Jars of Clay – Fade to Grey

Enjoy!

TAF 2009 Slideshow: Sprout! from tafmediachannel on Vimeo.

Viva Love Forever

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What an epic mashup. Thanks to a car ride with Jeremy Chen and Andrew Lo through the cornfields of Indiana on our way to North Manchester, IN, the possibility of mixing Coldplay’s megahit “Viva La Vida” with arguably the two biggest TAF classics, the old school ” Bizarre Love Triangle” by New Order and the timeless “Forever Young” by Alphaville was discovered.

To download the official tafLabs live recording of Viva Love Forever, click here: tafnight09-vivaloveforever (right click and Download File As or Save File As to get it on your hard drive). And then proceed to rock out on your iPods!

And for those aspiring musicians at home, here are the chords and lyrics to Viva Love Forever to release your inner TAF Night performer!

Viva Love Forever
(Viva la Vida + Bizarre Love Triangle + Forever Young)

Standard tuning, capo on first fret.

INTRO: C – D – G – Em x2

(Em) C D
I used to rule the world

G Em
Seas would rise when I gave the word

C D
Now in the morning I sleep alone

G Em
Sweep the streets I used to own

C D
Every time I think of you

Em G
I feel shot right through with a bolt of blue

C D
It’s no problem of mine but it’s a problem I find

Em G
Living a life that I can’t leave behind

(Em) C D
I used to roll the dice

G Em
Feel the fear in my enemy’s eyes

C D
Listen as the crowd would sing:

G Em
“Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!”

C D
There’s no sense in telling me

Em G
The wisdom of a fool won’t set you free

C
But that’s the way that it goes

D
And it’s what nobody knows

Em G
While every day my confusion grows

C D
I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing

G Em
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing

C D
Be my mirror, my sword, and shield

G Em
My missionaries in a foreign field

C D
Every time I see you falling

G Em
I get down on my knees and pray

C D
I’m waiting for that final moment

G Em
You’ll say the words that I can’t say

C D
I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing

G Em
I get down on my knees and pray

C D
Be my mirror, my sword, and shield

G Em
You’ll say the words that I can’t say

C D
Every time I see you falling

G Em
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing

C D
I’m waiting for that final moment

G Em
My missionaries in a foreign field

C – Em x3
(bop your head convincingly!)

D x2

C – D – G – Em x2

(Ohhhhh Ohhh Ohhh)

C D G Em
Forever young, I want to be forever young

C D G Em
Do you really want to live forever, forever, forever

C D G Em
Forever young, I want to be forever young

C D Em G
Do you really want to live forever, forever, forever

And stay tuned to blog.tafworld.org for the release of a rumored studio version of Viva Love Forever…wink.