Yesterday was a beautiful day: a taste of spring inspiring me to take a long walk. Having spent most of my first 63 years in Chicago I do not believe Spring comes in February. In fact, I hardly believe in Spring–most of the time there was winter and then there was summer. In spite of that I truly enjoyed the day. It is still warm today, although very gray, but I will go for another long walk.

I began the day with my tai chi class. Not the class which met twice a week for mild exercise at the health club, but a real tai chi class. We are learning to relax and sink; to walk on thin ice; to ward off left and right; to change the weight on each leg; and the five most important principles of the 55 that constitute tai chi. I've been doing this for several years now. My teacher says it can take ten years to really learn those first movements. My legs still rebel at all of the weight shifting and I need to practice more.

After the class I took a short walk, about a half mile, over to Carnegie Mellon University, and sat through an interesting lecture on the management of culture in China. I had never given any thought to the policies that promoted the numerous archaeological digs and how the objects were managed after they were found, so this lecture gave me much to think about.

Since I came to Pittsburgh I've been looking for some kind of volunteer work that didn't involve raising money, long hours on my feet or stuffing envelopes. I think I finally found a tutoring opportunity, but it requires tutoring reading as well as speaking. So my next stop was the library where I picked up a book on teaching ESL. From there, I walked home–about two miles, and felt very virtuous.