Sex, Screaming, and STEM

Admit it, that's really what you want to hear about.

I have to tell you that some of the hype is faked. Like when they say, "Okay, everyone in the crowd mosh for a few minutes with all the lights on (so we can get a few good camera shots)." Or when it's, "Is everyone excited to be here? I can't hear you! Scream louder for all the people back home!"

But that's only because capturing down a good dose of the spirit for the record, is hard to do.

But the spirit is real.

Imagine that electric spirit--300 barely known people with similar backgrounds/beliefs, gathered together with two goals: 1, to help the JETTs and teens have fun, and 2, to have fun themselves. Can you imagine the potency in those possibilities? Add love and genuine concern to those explosive ingredients, and you have something that will never die. You have Wordstock.

Love is such a major part of Wordstock. I ended up spending every meal with a different group of JTs, in a different exotic place of the dining room, and I tell you that THAT is where the fun in Wordstock is.

During daylight hours, every extra second (not spent in class or work period), I tried to do my best to grab ahold of a JETT or teen and get to know them. They are thrilling people! In a lot of cases they were even funner than the staff! I am happy to be able to now call many of them my new friends, to be able to add so many of them to my Yahoo contacts, and to have spent the majority of my time there with them. They are the true gold of Wordstock, and I can honestly say that--even though coincidence handed me a room all to myself with a double bed, the best kitchen access in the whole camp, and so many new musical goodies that it's going to be hard to release them all. The JTs--not the sex, screaming or STEM--were really the highlight of Wordstock to me, and what made the $250 worth it, and what I hold in my heart and smile to now, after the fact.

Just having an opportunity to get to know some of them, to try to pour out to them some of my enthusiasm for my Lover and for my Career, and to listen to them, pray with them, pose with them and hug them--that's what I wouldn't trade for anything else I experienced there. That's what I want to emphasize before anything else.

And you JETTs and teens, you know who you are--I salute you. You astounded me. I love you, you are wonderful, I miss you and I can't wait to chat with you and to see you again (I hope, eventually). Let's just get that straight before anything else.

And then...

...Well, there was still the sex, the screaming, and the STEM.

To be continued.

Love, Joe.