Recently I developed a sudden interest in reading Jane Austen novels. I decided to read them in the order they were published. I've been reading Sense and Sensibility in the past 10 days, and I should be able to finish it today.

Some interesting points that I'd like to remember from this novel:

1. "If you observe, people always live for ever when there is any annuity to be paid them".

2. "Brandon is just the kind of man, whome everybody speaks well of, and nobody cares about; whome all are delighted to see, and nobody remembers to talke to." (my comment: No, this describes Edward Ferrars, not Colonel Brandon.)

3. Charlotte laughed heartily to think that her husband could not get rid of her, and exultingly said, she did not care how cross he was to her, as they must live together.

4. "Oh! dear, yes; I know him extremely well", replied Mrs. Palmer. "Not that I ever spoke to him, indeed; but I have seen him for ever in town".

5. She was silent. Elinor's security sunk, but her self command did not sink with it.

6. Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.

7. "I wish with all my heart, that we had asked your sisters instead of them." Here he stopped to be thanked; which being done, he went on.

My dream is that I have enough time and money to do all of the following:

Spend one week every year in each of these challenge dance hotbeds in this country: the New England area, the Chicago area, South FL, San Francisco area and Southern CA, and dance to a different caller in each place.

Attend AACE every year, and dance to its featured caller at least once in each dance hall.

Attend IPAC and the Japanese Challenge Convention every other year.

Attend the IAGSDC Convention every year, alternate ACDC and WCAC every other year, and attend a different fly-in every year.

I also wish that at least one new concept is invented and being widely used every year.

Just because I haven't written an update for a while.

This semester we still have MS class on Monday nights from 7 to 9, and then Plus class from 9 to 10. We have about one square of beginners for MS and on average about 4 squares for MS and 3 for Plus.

I haven't attended the Tuesday classes for a long time. Right now we have C1 class from 7 to 8:30 and then Advanced class from 8:30 to 10. I heard that sometimes we get 5 squares for the A class, of which half of the dancers are from the local club Wheel Arounds, and they are the better students. For the first time, we are having a C2 class on Thursday night. At first the class danced at Ed's house, and then they were able to rent a small room on the 2nd floor of the MCC Church where we also have our regular classes.

At the beginning of this year, JR started calling for the local club Fiddling Owls once a month. John, Mary, Ed and I are the only club members who go there occasionally. I'm more interested in round dancing with JR between tips than anything else.

I try to go to Matrix South's Sunday A2/C1 tape dance at least once a month. Right now I choose to attend only the C1 sessions, and with Ed, since he said he wouldn't go unless I was there.

I've also started going to Matrix South's Tuesday night C2 tape sessions. A dozen or so regulars have either died or dropped out in the last couple years, and they barely have a square right now.

The semi-monthly Friday night C2 tape dance in Kennesaw only happend about once every two months this year, due to lack of bodies, schedule conflict, and the host going out of town.

Sets in Motion still has a C3A tape dance every Wednesday night and a new full C3B tape dance every Thursday night, and a C3A session every other Saturday in Chattanooga, TN. I rarely attend these sessions. My rule of the thumb is that the time I spend commuting to a dance should not exceed the time I spend dancing there.

A couple who used to dance C4 have stopped about a year ago. So now I'm the only C4 dancer in Atlanta or Georgia.

At any giving time in the 7.5 years that I've been square dancing, I've always had a preference for some groups, some levels, some events over others, or other types of dancing over square dancing. My preferences change from time to time, and I think that been able to choose among these options freely is an important reason that keeps me dancing all these years.

Last night my housemate Anthony and I tested the wireless connectivity of our computers at various areas of our house. It seemed that I could get some connections on and off on the first floor, but none in the second floor unit where I live. My computers showed that I was "connected" to the shared network, but it also said that I had "limited or no connectivity". Anthony observed that his laptop worked more slowly upstairs, but was still functional.

Our conclusion is that my Netbook is not powerful enough to receive the signals through the router in this house. Anthony suggested adding a USB Adapter External Antenna to my computer. But right now I'm happy with what I have as long as I get excellent connections in the library and my favorite neighborhood coffee house. I need to limit the number of hours I spend on computer each day anyway, and a daily walk outside is good for me too.

I've also deleted all the games from my Start menu.

I went to my 4th Importers dance last weekend.

on Saturday morning I took a 10a.m. AA flight to O'Hare. From there I took the Blue Line CTA to Moncuse, and then the #78 bus to California Ave. This is the first time that I got to Rick's home from O'Hare. It wasn't any more difficult than going from Midway, and the north side of the city looks a lot better.

Rick and I had lunch a Thai restaurant nearby. It has a large menu that features a lot of exotic dishes that I've never heard about, including Fried Worms (bamboo caterpillars). I ordered a curry duck, and we had some yummy sticky rice for dessert. We picked up Bill Klein and David Schmidt at Wilmette on our way to Deerfield.

We had 20 dancers for C4:
Importer members: Bill, Carol, Bruce, Joan, Tom, Kevin, Barb and David
From SoCal/LA area: Paul and Julia, Pete and Susanne, Bob and Patty
From TX: Sue, David and Kathleen
From MD: Dan and Janet
From GA: Ann

Plus 4 dancers for C3: Bill, Rick and Carl from Chi-town Squares and Jim from TX.

I danced C3 with Rick and C4 with David S. I'm very happy with my performance overall. I did equally well in C3 and C4, which I think is the way this dance designed to be. Lynette wrote tons of excellent choreography, intricate but also smooth and danceable.

Importers has become my favorite dance weekend. Not only because it is so easy to get to, but also that I've experience the best teamwork here than anywhere else (except the DC C4 Workshop, but that's really a different level). I think this dance has some distinctive characters that attract certain type of personality, and as a result dancers who choose to come here usually cooperate very well.

I stayed at the Red Roof Inn by myself. Jim and Sue gave me a ride to the dance and also took me and David to O'Hare on Sunday evening.

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, I finally bought my first computer. It is a blue Samsung NC10 Netbook.

11/10: Placed my order on Amazon.com
11/13: The package arrived
11/16: Opened the package, put in the battery, turned it on, but couldn't figure out how to connect to the internet.
11/18: My landlord gave me the password to a wireless network, but I still couldn't connect. It told me somthing about "unable to renew IP address".
11/19: This morning my housemate gave me a slightly different password that he uses. Neither one worked on my computer.
11/19: This afternoon my landlord gave me the contact info to the network administrator. I haven't used it yet.
11/19: After dinner I took it to the local public library and successfully connected to the library's wireless. This weekend I will try it in several coffee houses in the neighborhood.

So I guess there's nothing wrong with this computer and I don't need to go through the hassle of returning?

This is the first LJ entry that I posted using my own computer, and cjsmith received my first comment.

Square:
Monday 8/10, 8/17, 8/24: MS/Plus classes at Hotlanta Squares
Tuesday 8/11: C2 tape dance at Matrix South, my first time
Sunday 8/16: A2 tape dance at Matrix South

C4 homework: solved 5 out of 7 Ben Rubright 2002 Berkshires sequences.  BAD!  But I've caught up in September.

Country:
Saturday 8/1 at 3-Legged Cowboys

Square:
Monday 7/27: all level dancing at Hotlanta Squares (our first dance after the summer break)
Sunday 7/19: A2 and C1 tape dance at Matrix South

C4 homework: solved 30 out of 32 of Ben Rubright 2002 Berkshires sequences.

Country:
Friday 7/10, 7/24, Saturday 7/18 at 3-Legged Cowboys
Friday 7/24 at Country Western Social Club (a quite disappointing first-time)
7/11 & 7/12: West Coast Swing workshop weekend at Atlanta Swing Dancers with guest instructors Jason Barnes (from Ashville, NC) and Erica Burg (from St. Paul, MN)

Square:
Monday 6/1 and 6/8: MS and Plus classes at Hotlanta Squares
Saturday 6/27: Hotlanta Squares' annual Pride Dance with guest caller Roger Loney
Friday 6/5: C2 tape dance at Sets In Motions.  It is our first time this year!
6/17 - 6/20: AACE Weekend.  1/2 hour of A2, 1 hour of C1, 2 hours of C2, 2 hours of C3A, 13.5 hours of C3B and 7 hours of C4.

C4 homework: Solved only 65 out of 92 of Ben Rubright's 1996 Berkshires sequences.  It's been a quite frustrating month.

Country:
Wednesday 6/3 and Saturday 6/6 at 3-Legged Cowboy

Square:
Monday 5/11 and 5/18: MS and Plus classes at Hotlanta Squares
Tuesday 5/26: A2 dancing at Hotlanta Squares
Sunday 5/24: A2 tape dance at Matrix South
5/1 - 5/2: 12 hours of C4 workshop in Houston, TX

C4 homework: solved 50 out  of 60 of Ben Rubright's 1996 Berkshires sequences.

Country:
Saturday 5/9, 5/30 and Friday 5/15, 5/22 at 3-Legged Cowboys
Sunday 5/17 at Atlanta Swing Dancers CLub

I was a little worried about the low registration number earlier this year, but it picked up quickly in the last two months, and we ended up with 414 dancers (3 more than last year?).

I roomed with Fran and Gloria again.  Six dancers came from Atlanta/GA: Dewayne, Pat, Z.T., Donna, T.W. and me.  This was T.W.'s first time at AACE and he was able to pair up with Fran for most of the C3A sessions.

In addition to the usual suspects that I mentioned in last year's post,  it was also nice to see sfbearhoney , raperez , lggriffiths  making it to AACE this year and I finally met redsquared  and samk3rd  in person.  I was also glad to dance with woofpup  and Len again, whom I haven't seen since the 2005 Convention.  There was a larger group from Denver and an even larger group from Chi-Town, including some dancers who just finished their Advanced lessons in May.  There was a large billboard advertising Chi-Town Shakedown outside of the C3B hall, and all the staff callers wore a convention t-shirt on the last day, although I don't think any of the convention committee members were present.

The attendance from East Coast clubs was still very small.  I believe it was just Fran, Denise & Jeff and me.  I am still the only dancer from Hotlanta Squares. 

Wednesday was Rick Simkin's birthday.  His sister made some yummy brownies for him and several of us were invited to share them in his room after the evening session.

Fran wanted to get to the airport early so we took the 9 a.m. shuttle which gave me two hours of waiting in the airport.  But when so many square dancers are flying out of a relatively small airport, I always run into someone I know.  Cally and Elaine sat with me for the first hour and then Karl and Scott showed up 20 minutes before I board.

I counted 40 dancers this year:

from SF/Bay Area: Jane, Bill Kent, BvM and Pat, Richard and Neale, Sheryl, Harlan, Arlene and Dick, Carla, Joe Dehn and Mary
from SoCal/LA Area: Paul, Julia, Bob Harris, Tom and Kris, Patricia Wahle, Connie and Roger, Keith, Vic and Debbie
from other West Coast area: wooddragon (UT), JW (WA)
from Chicago/Great Lakes area: Bill, Tom, Barb, Kevin, canseefour 
from the Northeast: callyperry , Andy, src4sd , Jessica, Will and Mary
from the South: ann0625 (GA), Sue (TX), David (TX)

It is strange that there isn't any FL dancers.  We also missed apparentparadox , rfrench  and the Brooks.  Jessica, Connie & Roger and Joe & Mary are new, and are doing very well.

Part I
One of my LJ friends posted an entry about dating a non-dancer who wants to learn dancing.  It reminded me of a good article that I read a couple of years ago, so I decided to share it here.

Part II
A new film called Love 'N Dancing was played in 8 movie theaters in Atlanta last weekend.  This is the first full-length feature film about West Coast Swing.  The Atlanta Swing Dancers Club decided to use this oppotunity to promote the dance and the club.  We arranged to dance at the AMC Theater on Mansell Crossing Road from 6:30 to 10 p.m. last Saturday.  We ordered some posters and the sound track from the production company and set up a table at one side of the lobby.  About 10 members showed up, including  Alan, one of our instructors, and me.  The tile floor was not difficult to dance on, but very few people stopped to watch us so we didn't hand out many cards.  There weren't many people coming to the theater, period, and the manager told us that it was because there hadn't been any new films in the past couple weeks.

We stopped dancing at 8 and then went into the showing room.  There were only less than 20 people in the room and the manager said that was typical of an indi film with no publicity.  So more than half of the audiance were from our club, and we sat together in the middle of the room like a bunch of highschool kids.  When we saw a good dance move on the screen we cheered.

Most of the dancing were in the last half of the film, including an U.S. Open competition at the end.  We've taken lessons with some of these dancers, such as Jordan and Tatiana, and it was interesting to see them appearing on the big screen.  Nicola Royston even played a role (Corrine) in the film, and Robert Royston played the competition coordinator, just like he sometimes does in real life.

Of course, in the real swing dance world there isn't nearly as much drama as it is shown in this film.

Last weekend I went to Houston for a C4 workshop hosted by Scott and Kathleen. I flew out on Friday evening after work. Scott picked up Janet and me at Hobby, and Tom and Kris drove down from MO on the same day. The Heffrons stayed in the guestroom; Janet slept on the sofa-bed in the living room; I slept on the sofa-bed in the air-conditioned garage, which also served as our dance hall.

Sue and David came on Saturday morning and we started dancing at 10 a.m. Our square consisted of 4 out-of-town guests and 4 Houston locals, or 4 newer dancers and 4 experienced ones.

We started with 2007 ACDC and danced one tip to each of the four callers, followed by Lynette's Importers and then Lynette and Ben's C-Gulls. In the afternoon we danced mostly to Fall 2007 Berkshires, and in the evening we danced some moderate but fast and furious tips that Lynette called at Blizzardgate.

Dinner was at a nice barbeque restaurant. I had some yummy sliced beef and pork ribs with Spanish rice and mustarded greens. Most of us saved leftovers for lunch next day. We had planned to stay in on Sunday instead of getting stuck in the church traffic.

On Sunday we danced some Spring 2008 Berkshires. David brought the recording from 2008 AACE because he still couldn't get over the French Fried tip. So we danced to that ( and had to repeat almost every sequence) plus the Curtis tip and one of Vic's asymmetrics. In the afternoon we danced more of Lynette's Blizzardgates. We stopped at 4 p.m. and then Tom and Kris gave me a ride to the airport on their way home.

It is a very successful weekend with good selection of dance materials, good dancing and good teamwork; and most importantly, it put me back into the study mode.

I think we have convinced Scott and Kathleen to attending AACE.

Two years ago I posted a long entry about this dance weekend under the Country/Western Dancing tag.  I skipped it last year for my CPA Exam.   Here are some of the highlights from this year's dance.

I skipped all the workshops this year and went only for the evening open dances.  I danced on Thursday night 9 - 1:30 a.m., Friday night 8:30 - 2:30 a.m. and Saturday night 12 - 1:30 a.m.  On Saturday night I stopped by at 3-Legged Cowboy first and then went to Peach State after the variety show and masters' exhibits had ended.  There was nobody guarding the door or selling tickets, so I just waltzed in for free.   If one asks me to compare 3L to PS, it's like asking a horse to compare a barn to a race track.

Several of my 3L dance buddies went for the workshops and the show, and two dancers competed, but only one other dancer stayed for a little bit of the open dance on Saturday night.  A lot of dancers from the Atlanta Swing Dancers Club were there.

I entered the two-stepping Jack & Jill Contest (Novice Level) again this year, but didn't place.  But my contest partner, Barnett from Pensacola, FL, and I enjoyed each other and danced many times in the rest of the weekend.

Shawn Swaithes, one of the former C/W world champions, was on the judging panel for the contest.  Besides the annual Peach State Dance, he also came to Atlanta over the Memorial Weekend in 2007 for the annual Gay Country Western Dance Convention, and dancing with him was my highlight of that convention.  So after the JJ Contest I asked him for another two-step and it was as delightful as last time.  Shawn has a such a elegant and graceful style, and a personality to match it.

I was thrilled to see James and Rick again.  There are so many great two-steppers at Peach State, but one thing that made dancing with James especially fun is his aggressive movement on the dance floor.  Never the one who trails behind a slow couple(s) and does "corner moves" while patiently waits for people in front of him to move, he changes directions constantly and zig zags through any open space he sees.  Rick still is my favorite waltz partner.  Despite of his constant claim that he "really sucks at waltz", I just fit into his moves more naturally and comfortably than anyone else's that I've danced with.

My favorite dancer of the weekend was Scott from MA, whom I also enjoyed dancing with two years ago.  Scott is the kind of dancer who not only enjoys dancing so much that even watching him dancing makes me happier, but also has the "oh-I'm-so-glad-to-dance-with-you" expression that I absolutely love.  On both Friday and Saturday night, I ended the night after dancing one last song with him, because I knew that the rest of the evening (early morning, actually) would not possibly get any better after that point.  My favorate moment of the weekend was west coast swing with Scott to Michael Jackson's Whatever happens.  This is the kind of song that I like to west coast swing to, and he has the kind of moves that I like to dance this song with.

Square:
Monday 3/2, 3/9, 3/16: MS/Plus class at Hotlanta Squares
Friday 3/27: Plus and Rounds at Fiddling Owls with JR calling
Saturday 3/21: MS/Plus at the annual Atlanta Callers and Cuers Memorial Dance
3/14 and 3/15: 5 hours of hard C3 and 5 hours of moderate C4 at Importers

C4 homework: completed 32 sequences in the 1st file of the Ben Rubright 2006 Bershires.

Country:
Friday 3/13 and 3/27 at 3-Legged Cowboy
Thu-Sat 3/19-3/21: Peach State Dance!!!

Other:
Friday 3/13: contra dance with Chattahoochee Contra Dancers

The weekend started out just fine. Friday night I went to a large contra dance, and then stopped by at 3-Legged Cowboy on my way home. I only stayed at 3L for an hour and then had to force myself to leave by midnight since I had a 9:30 flight next morning. But it was a very good night and I danced nonstop.

At 5-ish on Saturday morning, I started feeling colder and colder in bed. I could literally feel the goose bumps on my skin, even though I knew it was quite warm outside. Unable to sleep any longer, I hoped that a hot shower would warm me up; but then I had to run out of shower to throw up in the toilet, something that hadn't happened to me in over twenty years.

Nonetheless I boarded on my flight to Chicago. The weather there was beautiful, but I felt cold all day. All my joints and muscles were aching, and I could hardly keep my eyes open. But I managed to keep up with the C3 tips.

After a good night of sleep (about 10 hours) all the symptoms were gone the next morning. I was in good shape to dance C4.

We had 17 people for C4:
Importer members: Bill, Carol, Bruce, Joan, Barb, Lynette, Kevin and Tom
Jane and Bob Harris from CA
Randy and Karen from MN
David, Sue, Scott and Kathleen from TX
Ann from GA

We were one person short for three squares of C3:
David Schmidt came, but Lynette was absent
Rick, Michael, Bill and Carl from Chi-town Squares
Arleen from Chicago
Jim from TX

I danced with Michael Maltenfort in C3 and with Kevin in C4. Sandie did a very good job at both sessions. Randy gave me a thumb drive that contains over 700 sequences from Ben Rubright's Berkshires. Scott invited me to the TX C4 workshop in the first weekend of May. We will have exactly one square: Scott, Kathleen, David, Sue, Ann, Janet and the Heffrons. I booked my flight yesterday.

I also booked my flight to AACE.