Thursday, March 15, 2007

-- a walk to remember --

Good Morning,


Allow me to begin today with a story. Last week my school was on a weeklong break [spring break]. Instead of going home for a week, I decided to stay at school. One may imagine that this would be exciting and filled with fun, but I was one of two people to stay for the entire break. I spent nine days by myself, which set my time schedule way off. I had to reason stay up late, nor a reason to wake up early. By the end of spring break I was waking up every day at five in the morning.


I have been stuck to this schedule this past week, and it couldn’t be more enjoyable. Every morning at 07:00 I go for a quarter mile walk to the cafeteria [to get breakfast]. Along the way I saw beautiful spring trees, blooming flowers, green grass, bird chirping, and morning dew. Beauty was everywhere around me for fifteen minutes. I ate my breakfast smiling.


Walking back to my dormitory I reflected on the art which is scenery. I realized that no matter how stressed you are talking a short walk will always clear your mind. Furthermore, no matter where you live make sure you have a place to take a step away from everything.


Enjoy your day,


David L. Bowman

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

-- Pi day --

Happy Pi day everyone,


Since I’ve been young I’ve always been interested in math. This is because I do believe that you can find a link between any two events using mathematical strings. I never believed it was useful, but I have always been intrigued by this. (Most of the time the strings related is arbitrary, so we find their connection only after we discovered what we would use this connection for. Such as us looking for the connection between people and a cure for Polio. This was only discovered after we had found a cure.)


In Euclidean plane geometry, π is defined either as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, or as the ratio of a circle's area to the area of a square whose side is the radius.


3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982148086513282306466 that is one-hundred twenty one digits of pi, which is all that I have memorized.


March 14th, has been home to many infamous events. In 1492 Queen Isabella ordered over 150,000 Jewish citizens to become catholic. Also there was the liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto in 1943. Sadly we have also lost many important figureheads throughout our time such as Karl Marx the German political theorist.


Other holidays are observed throughout the world today (White Day, Rquirra), but my favorite is Pi day.


Have a delightful Pi day,


David L. Bowman

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

-- about me --

Good afternoon everyone,


I want to begin my blog by telling everyone about myself.


I am almost twenty years old, and I am a currently attending The University of Mary Washington. Recently I have been very confused with what I wanted my future to be. Although I attend a university, academics have always been boring for me, because I had little interest in becoming a scholar. I do enjoy reading and learning, but not for the sake of grading or income.


My dream for the last six months was to play a board game (Go) professionally. Although, after talking to Guo Juan, a Go Professional (5p), for an hour I learned that Go professionally is not everything I dreamt it was. I understood that it would be work, studying, and small income, but I had never realized the freedom it stole from you. Also, I have learned that at my age it is difficult, and almost impossible to become a professional.


My dream has changed from wanting to play Go professionally, to something more glamorous. I want to play Go to the best of my ability for the Western World. As of now, I must put my studies of Go secondary to school, because I hope to make myself wealthy in the field of business. With this wealth I hope to better Go in the Western World, so when a child from the US wants to play Go professionally he or she can.


I will never stop studying Go, nor will I put my goal of being the best behind me. I promise to everyone that I will study my hardest for both school and Go.


I would like to end this post with a reflection on Guo Juan’s words. She told me to, “Earn your freedom now, and enjoy go forever.”


Thank you for reading,


Sincerely,


David L. Bowman