The Perfect Match for Pete

My roommate helped me this morning to realize what a good match for me was. He had gone swing dancing Tuesday night. I didn’t go, it was a different group that from last time. No Amy, so what would have been the point. Anyway, he was meeting a girl that he had gone on a date with the week before. Well apparently she had brought a friend along. Then this morning before I left for work he was telling me about it. He says that his date had brought a friend that would be a good match for me. That always makes me laugh. I like to hear the kind of girl other people, especially those that have known me for 2 months, think would be a good match for me. So I ask him, with a smirk on my face, “really, how was she a good match for me?” His answer… “She’s attractive.” Now I should say at this point that I do like attractive women. I have had many crushes on attractive women. But that’s usually not my only criteria for a decision on whether or not we would make a good match. That was actually all he had. No other reasons for her being a good match. I later found out that she’s a doctor. So that could fit into my plan to marry a rich princess. But for those of you out there looking for a match for me, now you know what to look for.

New Nobel Prize Category

So I went swing dancing this weekend. I haven’t gone swing dancing since college, 6 years ago. I was reminded by the middle of the first song why that is. Swing Dancing is definitely not one of my talents. It won’t be appearing on my resume.

The night started out with my roommate Eric and friend Jenn and I driving out to the place together. We get there and see one of the guys from Bible Study that we were meeting there. He had already paid. It was $18! I thought he was joking when he told me that. But I was stuck there so I borrowed 18 bucks from one of the other guys and we went in. There was a lesson (which I really needed) to start off. The teachers were really good. They were funny and they did a really good job showing us the steps. Also they had us rotating to a new partner every few minutes. That was nice because it helps you to scope out the crowd. It was bad because it let too many girls know that I was not the person that they should dance with.

During the rotations I met a pretty cute girl named Amy. After the lessons were over and the band started playing and Jenn had danced with me for 2 songs (probably mostly because she thought I’d call her mom and tell on her), I was ready to strike out on my own. I was talking to a guy from our bible study and Amy was talking to him too. She knew him from playing Frisbee together. So we talked for a few minutes then I asked her if she wanted to dance. She apparently didn’t learn, or remember, from the lesson and said yes. We get out on the floor for the last few bars, which was average for me. It generally took me most of the song to get up the courage to ask someone to dance. So anyway we finish out that song and she stays with me for the next song. I was really terrible. I couldn’t find the beat and even if I could I didn’t know what steps to do. The lessons were good but they didn’t teach how to do an 8 step. Then she actually stayed on the floor for a third song (really it was 2.1 songs total). After that she had enough and we split up. I went off to find other victims and she went off to find someone that wouldn’t jerk her all over the place. There were at least 2 other songs (really one total since it took half the song for me to ask) that she was willing to “dance” with me. She was also the only one that smiled back at me. The other women pretty much didn’t smile back at me at all. It was a pretty fun night all in all. Doubt I’ll ever get to tell her she deserves a humanitarian award for being so patient.

One what?

Last week I went to this cool conference. It was put on by the One Campaign (www.one.org). Dave e-mails me, from Australia, saying I should go to it. It was great that he only gave me like one day’s notice for it. I had a little trouble finding the church but I’m really glad I went. They talked about their work to end global poverty. They are campaigning to have the G8 countries forgive the debt of African counties. The condition is that they have to spend the money on education and healthcare. It was really great to hear about how much they are doing.

The US ambassador to Madagascar was there also. I thought that it would be really great to hear her speak and that she would have something great to say. I was kind of wrong on that. By “kind of” I mean totally. She went on and on about the movie Madagascar and how we should go and see it but we should also know about the real Madagascar. But she didn’t tell us anything about the real Madagascar! She rambled on and on for soooo long. The rest of it was good. I didn’t really get the interpretive dances but it was nice. It’s a great group. Those of you that don’t know the group should check it out.

It’s sad to me that George Bush seems unwilling to follow Tony Blair in this plan. It would be really great to see him support this project. I know that not all the countries in Africa could accept this but it would be so great for even just a few to start with. We just have to pray that the leaders of the G8 countries and the African countries will make the right choices to help the poor and the hopeless.