SUUSI 2009

The official theme of SUUSI 2009 is that we should Rekindle the Flame Within

Don't just rekindle it. SET IT ON FIRE!

That's what Burnie says...

NOTE TO 2009 SUUSI SERENDIPITY DJs: Earlier I asked Serendipity DJs to play "Disco Inferno" but since then I have discovered a better song, namely "Firecracker" by Mass Production. I would like to hear that song on at least three nights at Serendipity.

The theme for SUUSI next year is "Rekindle the flame within". The theme comes from the flaming chalice, which is the symbol of Unitarian Universalism. This means renew yourself and start something new, or something old with renewed vigor. But why just settle for that? Why not go all the way? Set your inner self on fire! Go out and do it. If you find that you dance well with someone, don't just dance with him or her at Serendipity. Perform on open mike at Cabaret! You won't know if you have Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire unless you try. If you are scared of way up high places, sign up for a rapelling trip. Who knows what treasure you may find on top of that rock outcropping? If you have never tried tubing before, sign up for that, even though you may not be able to get back to shore. That happened to me once and I fell out of the tube. I managed to tread and walk back OK.

So this is the year where you may hit the heights. The theme of 2005 was "Time to Fly". But nothing much flew there. In addition to flying, you need to Rekindle that Flame Within. Even better than that, make that flame a blaze, just like Burnie here, made up of a flaming chalice with arms and the blazing fire (not a real one) we had for a chalice in our last years at Virginia Tech.

Once again SUUSI time is approaching, right at the peak of summer. The catalogs are out now. They came out on St Patrick's Day and so I wonder if we are going to have the luck of the Irish at this year's SUUSI. Will there be a field trip to Blarney? Will we be wearing shamrock hats? Should we wear green? I know there will be at least one leprechaun.

I will be doing the same things I have been doing in previous years, with one exception. Apparently no one submitted a proposal for Contra Dancing this year at SUUSI. I will miss that. It is usually the only time of the year I contra dance, and I will miss the swinging, allamanding, circles left and right and heys for 4. I do see that there is contra dancing in Blacksburg on the night before SUUSI, with the music by Toss the Possum (by the way, I don't like to see possums tossed; I don't think the possum will like that.) Will enough people from SUUSI go to that to justify getting there one day early?

I will be going to Cabaret and to Serendipity, where people will be dancing half the night away. I don't know if any will dance like the swaying flaming chalice I have placed at the upper left corner of this page. Hopefully we will see some of the following at Serendipity this year: men's dances, women's dances, line dances, La Bamba, themes, and costume contests, as well as dances that will be taught to us in the workshop "Ballroom Dancing", which I have enrolled in.

I will go on some nature trips and find some workshops to take. My favorite trips are Cascades, Falls of the Little River, and Dismal Falls, so I probably will go for one of those. In addition, I am giving two workshops this year. I gave Polyhedra Origami last year as well, but this is the first time in two years I will be giving Stories of the Sky, although I told you all about Tuscobuk at last year's Sunday Cabaret. Here are the workshops:

Decorate your Christmas tree with attractive polyhedron models created by folding paper and assembling the model. The process creates among other possibilities the dodecahedron. The assembling process is fun and the resulting solid makes an attractive decoration.

Jim Blowers has a PhD in Mathematics from Northwestern University. At graduate school and at recent conferences, he discovered several ways of constructing attractive polyhedra models out of paper without fasteners.

NOTE: The workshop will make the same model as last year, namely the one at Thomas Hull's PhiZZ website. There is a drawing of a polyhedron in the catalog. The drawing is of a hexakis octahedron. This year's workshop will build a dodecahedron with holes in the faces, or you can look at it as a snub dodecahedron. In the past I gave a workshop in which models like the hexakis octahedron were woven together out of pieces of paper. If you took the workshop and constructed "Octahedron Quad", this model works the same way but the strips are of a slightly different shape.

NOTE: If you want to try making this at home or bringing your paper, you will find suitable paper at Staples; it is item number 276964 and it is called "memo cube paper", and comes in a plastic tray. You need to come into Staples in person; Staples' web site does not offer the item.

219 Stories of the Sky Limit 30

The night sky has been a source of inspiration for the telling of stories. This workshop will feature stories from Greek and Roman, Native American, Australian Aborigine, Chinese, and Japanese mythology and will tell what these stories mean not only about the stars about ourselves.

Jim Blowers was President of the Richmond Astronomical Society in 2002. He has experience and interest in astronomy and in telling stories that have been written about the sky.

NOTE: I may also give a story or two at Cabaret, like I did last year. This workshop will tell the stories, and give you a chance to write your own constellation story, as well.

NOT OFFERED Mathematics and Religion: Going Beyond
(2008 description) Much has been written about the relationships between science and religion. This workshop will explore the relationships that mathematics and religion have with each other, including infinity, concepts and paradoxes of God, Newcomb’s paradox, analogies of religion with areas of mathematics and stories of some mathematicians who ventured into religion.

NOTE: This workshop was offered this year (without "Going Beyond"), but the workshop management ate it this year. If you meet me at SUUSI, maybe I can talk about some of the concepts in this workshop. The main message is that you can go beyond anything that there is. Maybe I should have titled it , "Workshop #2009: This Workshop Will Not Be Given in 2009". Maybe next year.

NOTE: I have removed references to caving on this site. All caving trips at SUUSI this year have been cancelled due to white nose disease; for a full explanation see the bats reference on the SUUSI web page.