By Erika Yang

On Sunday, February 25, I attended the APAPA TVC youth group seminar. There, we had the wonderful, outgoing speakers Patricia Cheng and Jay Cheng, who talked to us about how we want to plan out our future and what to focus on. It was a fantastic seminar with Patricia and Jay Cheng telling and advising us about how we, as students, should figure out the most efficient way of spending our time, and how to settle down on what we would like to focus on in our lives.

In the beginning, before the seminar, I, along with other youth, including YIBI members, Kaitlyn Wang, Nancy Tong, Isabelle Yan, Edwin Mui, and Ben Yang, all helped out as volunteers for APAPA, setting up the chairs and tables, while signing people into the event. During the whole process of setting up and working, it seemed like it would have been hard and arduous. However, working and volunteering with my fellow students was very fun and we all got our work done well and efficiently! Firstly, we assisted APAPA by setting up chairs in rows and tables where people could sign in their names, and handed out pamphlets to everyone who came in. It was so encouraging to see so many people arrive to listen to the youth seminar, and by the end, the sign in list was almost completely filled up! In addition, we also handed out two sheets of paper to each individual, along with a pen. As we later learned, these supplies would be where we would be writing down our goals in life and daily schedules in order to plan out our futures.

In the beginning, after they had introduced themselves, they immediately had us write down ten goals that we wanted to achieve in our life, and then had us cross out seven goals and leave the top three on the paper. Once we had these three goals, Patricia and Jay Cheng told us to completely cross out the other seven and never look back. They told us that these three goals should be goals that one would be absolutely fine with committing all of their time and almost all of their life to achieve, and that from there-on, those should be the three goals that we should focus on achieving in life in order to truly be happy with your life.

Afterwards, we played a game where we were separated into groups, and then each group would stand up together, and have to answer the different question being asked each time in five words. If someone were to give a silly or unrealistic answer, they would have to stand in the corner and keep on answering questions until they had a good answer. Some examples of questions were "Who are you?" and "What do you want to become?" These different questions helped us to dig deep into ourselves, and figure out what we actually want, and who we really are. During the game we started to realize that we actually may have had different perspectives on life than we had originally thought, and it was a wonderful eye-opener to what we truly wanted in life and how we would act upon it.

This seminar was a wonderful experience because it taught me how to be confident and strive for my three main goals in life. It has showed me how focusing on specific goals and aspects of life can result in a better success and achieving things you actually want to achieve in life. Overall, it was a fantastic seminar, and I know that I will always remember what I learned in it, and act upon them by planning out my own three goals and striving for success. I would also like to thank APAPA for the opportunity to attend this very beneficial and fruitful seminar!