jjw v leaf

Or, more verbosely:

"Jump, Jive, and Wail, versus the Lake Eden Arts Festival"

They're both fun!  I'm going to JJW this weekend.  To be honest though, if it were possible, I would love to go to LEAF instead.

But since it isn't really possible, and since I do want to spend some time in Charleston and with Anastasia, I am happy to be going to JJW.  It's a pretty awesome event.  My first JJW was in my sophomore year of high school (2005).  Jackson took me, and I remember that Sytske was the first person I danced with.  I didn't get to go the next year, but I went with Anastasia in 2007 and we're going again this weekend.  This is seriously a high class event; much nicer than any other school event I've seen put on (except, of course, Harmony Fest).  If you haven't been, and you get a chance to go, you should definitely take advantage of it.  It's a great night, and you get to dress up but not uncomfortably so.  It's in bus depot by the visitor's center (I remember being scared of "The Bus Depot" the first time Jackson told me its name).

Oh, and if you don't know how to swing dance, it's okay.  All the cool people from contra are there, and - just like at contra - they'll help you out.  That's how I learned... although I'm actually not too good.

LEAF... god.  Leaf is like heaven.  It's the most amazing event of the year.  It's just full of art, music, nature, rhythm, life, harmony, beauty, humanity, poetry, euphoria, peace, and oneness.  If you ever - ever - get a chance to attend, please do it.  You won't be sorry.  As soon as you take up the courage to remove your shoes and turn off your blackberry, you'll love it.  It's definitely a release from technology, as Araba advocates in her recent draft article.  You can learn to heal, to dance, to love, and to listen, to play, to poet, and to eat all around the beauty of Lake Eden in the mountains of North Carolina.  

If there was any one place I could go, Leaf is pretty well tied with Charleston.  

Man, why did you put so many tags on this post, Matthew?  Well, probably because Leaf represents them all.

conversions... not just for chemistry anymore.

So, I think we're all pretty savvy on comprehending the word, but just in case, you should go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion.  It has a lot of different meanings.

One of the most inconvenient conversion types, in my opinion, is religious conversion.  Frankly, I'm not a big religious person anyway, but it still angers me when I see people trying to convert me or others.  I feel like it conveys several negative things: firstly, the converter can't respect the other person's beliefs, secondly, the converter is trying to bring someone into their sect through persuasion instead of divine calling, and, finally, if the person does convert, it shows a lack of faith in the first place which will probably be carried over to the new religion.

Is it possible that frequent conversion dilutes religion?  I think it's quite possible.  I'm not saying that all people who convert are weak-faithed, and I'm not saying that all converters have malicious intent, but I think that it's a poor practice in theory and in actuality.

I have a friend who recently got really upset about a man who tried to convert him.  I'm okay with that, but I was not okay with his generalization that Christians are either avid converters or are supporters of fanatics who practice converting others.  This was my response:

If you don't want to insult all christians, you probably shouldn't start your note off with:

"Dear Christians, This is going to piss you off as much as you anger me."

Not really a friendly note. And as for your comparison of other religions trying to convert you... it's hardly an argument. According to Wikipedia, the largest religious but non-Christian sect in the US is Judaism at... 1.7% of US residents. Compare this to 78.5% of people who are Christian... so there are a little more than 46 times as many Christians as Jews. The numbers for other religions are ridiculously small. So does it surprise you that of this isolate incident where you met a religious radical, he was Christian? This doesn't mean that Christianity is more radical or more conversion-hungry than other religions (although I don't want to imply that the others are), but it does mean that if you were to meet a radical conversionist, or any person for that matter, chances are that they're Christian.

Perhaps your anger stems from your own religious indecisiveness, eh?

So yeah.  That's about how I feel.  From a neutral standpoint, I think it is pretty easy to understand that for even the most fervent and convinced believer in any given faith, another faith will have a supporter so equally confident in his god(s) that believing any one person is a worthless exercise in naivety; faith should be an solo exploration of your own mind and soul. 

Anyway, comments and discussion are appreciated.