Dear Wen,

You may not remember me, but I remember you.  Perhaps I can refresh your memory.  It was the summer of 2004 and you had been learning how to salsa dance.  I was out for an evening of dancing with my friend Andrea, who was visiting from out of town for the week.  You asked me to dance that night at Beso del Sol in Seattle.  We danced several dances and you taught me a little of what you had been learning.  You bought me a drink and we talked for a while.  You were handsome and funny and I enjoyed every moment.  That night you gave me your number after I did not give you mine.  I’m writing today to tell you I’m sorry I never called—you see, I had a boyfriend at the time and could not.  This particular boyfriend and I did not last all that long, but when I was available again enough time had passed that I did not bother to call you.  I sometimes considered going to Century Ballroom for their salsa lessons in the hope that I would run into you there.  I should have.  I should have called you.  You were great.

This last weekend I found the card you wrote your name and number on for me.  I’ve kept it all these years to remind myself to take a few more chances.  To live my life so that in later years I would never look back and regret missing out on an opportunity to live.

Thank you for our one evening of dancing.

Love,
Windy Dawn

P.S.  Years have passed and I do not know where your life has taken you, but if you are still single I would very much like to go dancing with you again.

Finally Done

I did it!  After 3 long years of part time school I finally graduated with my Master of Science in Applied Mathematics.  WAAHOOOO!

Would you believe no one brought a proper camera?  My mother (of all people) couldn't find her camera when we left early this morning.  My friends assumed my mom would have her camera so we only have cell phone photos.  Thank goodness for cell phones!  My dad managed to snag a short video of me receiving my diploma.

I did not attend the huge UW ceremony with 12,000 other graduates, instead it was a small department celebration with about 200 people.  As usual it was memorable.  While our Graduate Program Advisor was calling names mine was accidentally skipped.  After the last one I had to raise my hand and inform him he skipped me.  It was all pretty funny.  Turns out 2 others got skipped as well.  It made me laugh.

Here are a few pictures from my mom's iPhone of the festivities today.  Most of my family live far and could not attend, however my parents came along with my sister Sandie and her son.

My apologies for the silly looking pictures. I have this super awesome nephew, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-Online, whose father has insisted no pictures should appear on the internet.

A few of my good friends came to celebrate with me.  Thanks for coming!

The faculty and masters students from the Applied Math department.

For those who may not have received an announcement from me (I had a limited number of them) you can see one below.  A big thanks to my friend Tasha for doing the pictures for me!  Well, she did all of them except for the one of my feet, I admit I did that one all by myself.  

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The Miracle of Sight

I rarely forget just how wonderful a thing it is to see.  I am reminded of it each evening when I take out my contacts and then wonder where I put my glasses.  I always do it in that order.  You'd think I would have learned to locate my glasses before removing my contacts, but no, I haven't.

Windy Dawn, age 3

I have a number of things wrong with my eyes and have had to wear glasses my whole life. When I was younger I would take them off and leave them in random places because I hated wearing them.  Hated having them on my face.  As you might have guessed, this drove my parents nuts as I could never remember were I left them.

Windy Dawn, age 31

I've learned to enjoy my glasses now as they allow me to see things that others see.  Although I still do not like having them on my face and typically wear contacts instead.  The above picture was taken an hour ago, just after I picked up my new glasses at Costco.  I still don't wear them in public all that often but I do get excited about my new glasses.  It's a new prescription and with them I can see.  Not only do I get to see, but I get to pick out cute frames.  That makes me happy.

Manna from Heaven

I don't feel all that integrated into my new ward yet.  Ok, I can't really say new ward as I've been here for 6 months now.  Just this Sunday while sitting all alone on the bench I thought to myself about how I don't even have visiting teachers or home teachers who visit me.  I did have some really great visiting teachers for the first few months, but they were reassigned and I've not known the identities of the new ones.  My home teachers have as yet to surface.

Then Monday came, a holiday.  I worked this holiday as it was the only time I had available to offer so many students extra hours and make-up hours before their final exams just around the corner.  While I was away one of my new visiting teachers stopped by with a treat for me.  Wahoo!  I cannot tell a lie, I do love getting treats.

I had a piece of this tasty confection today and found it to be most delicious.  It is exactly like I imagine manna sent from heaven would taste like (and it is sent from heaven, through my visiting teacher). Thank you Sister K. for the amazing delicacy, I've not met you yet, but I think we should be friends.

RE: NOTICE OF PENDING LEGAL INQUIRY OR ACTION

Subject: This is a reminder.

Dear Mr. Aaron M.,

It has come to our attention that you are in the possession of one video of Matthew W. and that you have failed to post this particular video on his blog.  These actions are unacceptable.  However they will be forgivable as now the above mentioned video has a unique opportunity to be part of a natal day celebration.

To fully atone for keeping said video to yourself you are required to deliver the goods to a Miss Windy Dawn as soon as possible.  Should you fail to meet these demands you risk having Windy’s Wrath turned on you.  You do not want this.  You will comply.  

Sincerely,

Miss Windy Dawn

The Keeper of the Blog-Chronicles

______________________________________________________

Subject: RE: NOTICE OF PENDING LEGAL INQUIRY OR ACTION (was: This is a reminder.)

Dear Miss Dawn,

I received your communication regarding the video depicting the actions of one M. W., a mutually shared acquaintance. I regret to inform you that I have been unable to identify the exact video in question as I am in the possession of no fewer than seven (7) videos recorded on the evening of March 4, 2011 which depict the said M. W. engaged in various acts of frolic and elaboration. As such, I have taken the liberty of collecting all said videos and posting them at the location listed below for your perusal. It is hoped that the material sought after may be located among these specimens for inclusion in the natal day festivities.

As an explicit timeline was not provided for the invocation of Windy's Wrath in consequence of non-response to your injunction, I will rest my case on the implication that 'as soon as possible' necessarily grants the defendant, myself, the right to determine the extent to which earlier compliance may or may not have been 'possible' and therefore affirm that my compliance has indeed conformed to the parameters specified given the presence of other pressing obligations in the time following receipt of the injunction and preceding execution of this compliance. I concur with the assertion that the angular motion of Windy's Wrath directed at my person would be undesirable to all affected parties and expect that the referenced demands are met to avoid this occurrence. I object however to the implication that my compliance in this matter in any way reflects an affinity for or tendency toward the acquiesence of will demonstrated by that collective known as the Borg. My compliance in this instance is wholly voluntary and does not confer future rights &c.

Most respectfully,
Aaron M.

______________________________________________________

The result of the above email correspondences can be found here.

Nervous

Thursday is a big day for me.  I will be presenting all my research on Reversible Dynamical Systems at the Masters Symposium and I'm not exactly ready yet.  I've spent the last month or so doing nothing but this and I'm just about burnt out.  I dread Thursday and at the same time I can't wait for it to get here so this will be over with already.

What are Reversible Dynamics?  Oh, I'm glad you asked.  A simple answer can be given with the example of a pendulum.  Consider the ideal swinging pendulum with no loss of energy due to friction.  Film this phenomenon.  Then play the video backwards (in reverse time) and it will appear exactly the same.  The idea is that the motion on the reverse film also corresponds to a possible motion of the same pendulum.

I can do this.  I am not nervous.

...deep breaths...

Have You Met My Twin Sister Yet?

Her name is Narsissa.  We always dress alike.  

almost graduating

I've been debating if I should walk for graduation or not.  My thoughts repeatedly go something like this:

Pros

I've never properly done it before.

Cons

I've never properly done it before.

It costs money.

And that's were my mind remembers I have homework to do and I never finish the list.

What's this about Windy never walking before?  Yeah.  I missed my High School and Seminary graduations in New Hampshire because I was already in Idaho starting college.  I thought it was lame to walk for only an Associates degree, so I didn't then.  We had a death in the family the week of my Institute graduation.  And then I decided, for sure, I would do this for my Bachelors.  And I almost did too.

My Bachelors turned out to be with about 3500+ others in Husky Stadium where it was impossible to organize people or even have the time to read out each individuals name.  I ended up standing next to people I didn't know, but we all quickly became friends.  As it turned out it poured rain on us.  I was cold and wet and miserable and still had another hour to wait before they'd get around to the Bachelors.  And at the point I would just be pushed across stage as quickly as possible and handed an empty diploma.  So I left.  Along with a ton of others who were cold and wet and miserable too.  All my friends had left before I did.  My family stayed, but I called them and we all headed out to have lunch together to celebrate.  So.  All in all, kinda lame.  There was only one picture ever taken of me that day and I took it with my cell phone while waiting around.

2005

I think it's time to celebrate properly.  I officially decided today I would attend my departments ceremony.  No more thousands of grads at Husky stadium for me.  Just a small group, all of us Masters or PhD grads in Applied Mathematics. That's more my style of celebrating.  And as soon as I decided and started telling people about it and ordering my cap, gown, and hood (did you know masters get a special hood??) I began to really feel excited about this!  I AM GRADUATING!!!!  Well in a month and a week I'm graduating.  But now I'm actually excited about it.  The kind of excited that makes you smile for no reason while you sit alone in your room doing homework.  Or that makes you walk a little faster.  Excited.

Raw Lightscapes

After visiting Iceland last November I began to follow a few Iceland blogs, I'm even a friend of Iceland itself.  There is something so stunning about this beautiful country that I am still drawn to learning about it and looking through pictures.  Today I found this video that I loved so much I thought I would share it with you.  It's a bit classier than the previous video I posted (Neil, you won't need to roll your eyes at me this time!).

Please enjoy.  Takk.

Raw Lightscapes from Enrique Pacheco on Vimeo.

nada enchilada

Believe it or not, I've taken quite a few math classes in my life.  I've even kept my textbook from every class and now have a healthy reference section in my 'library'.  Tonight I pulled an old Calculus book off the shelf to look up applications of hyperbolic functions (a potential topic for my Master's presentation in month) to find this phrase written in the margin of one page, in my own handwriting:

a little bit is better than nada, sometimes you want the whole enchilada

What in the world...?  I had no memory of writing this nor any idea what it meant.  Granted, I would have used this particular textbook somewhere around 1999, so I think it's ok to forget writing a few things from that long ago.  However an obvious guess sent me to youtube looking for a music video.  I found this gem.  I know you will love it.  

On a completely different topic a significant holiday has just passed.  I didn't do a whole lot to celebrate as most of the traditional festivities are much more fun with kids around.  However I did find this particular blog post fascinating.  It made me want to celebrate Easter in the Holy Land one of these years.