Saturday, February 05, 2005

Back in the swing of things - in more ways than one!

Oh what a time! Last night I decided to change my normal swing-dancing routine. So, instead of Glenn Echo tonight, I hit the Kennedy Center (Blue Sky 5 was playing) and the Chevy Chase Ballroom (NightHawks). Both were loads of fun, for different reasons. At the Ken Cen I was thrown in with a completely new group of dancers, some really good and some just about my skill, and we were dancing on the red carpet between the stage and the audience. Fun fun fun. Blue Sky 5 was a lot of fun, playing mostly classic jazz/swing tunes. Though I didn't know any of the people there, I still had fun dancing and met several follows (women) that I would enjoy dancing with again. In fact, at the Ken Cen website you can see a video of the performance, and us/me dancing! I show up best in the two songs starting about 56 minutes into the thing. Your link to the Ken Cen site. Click on the video from Feb 4, 2005.

At Chevy Chase I arrived early, and for a while was kinda worried that I was not going to have fun because the only people there/arriving were rather older than I and married. So I wasn't real confident in what the atmosphere would be like or in the prospects of dance partners. Turns out I needn't have worried. As 9 o'clock rolled around more people started showing up. I had a fabulous time dancing with a wide range of partners, some really good, some not so good. Some about my age, some a good deal older. Oddly enough (perhaps not) two of the best three follow I danced with the whole night were probably in their 50s - but my did they follow well! The band was a lot of fun - at least for me. Through the evening I heard a couple of people griping about the band, but I found their style of rock/blues/swing to be a whole lot of fun to dance to.

So I got home late, exhausted, and slept for a long time. Woke up today to absolutely beautiful weather! Like, I'm talking near sixty degree temperatures and a clear, sunny, sky.

Economics - oh yes, that's why I here, right? Things are actually going very well. My classes are hard, with me already having spent more than 8 hours on one homework assignment, but that just makes things exciting. We have had a couple of casualties from the program, but not as many as I expected. One was a friend of mine though...

I attended an interesting lecture last Thursday about the 'slippery slope' phenomenon, leaving with a great wonder about how one (anyone) can determine the "direction of fall" in policy, and even more so, how that natural slope can be influenced - even changed. This I must ponder at length.


No comments: