This beginning Spanish class is for those with little or no prior experience in Spanish, or who want to review beginning Spanish. There is an emphasis on pronunciation, basic grammar (the present tense), and getting comfortable listening to and sharing simple conversations. Please purchase the book Spanish Easy and Fun, copyright 2023, before the first class. You can order it on-line. The text has a strong audio component for listening to native Spanish speakers. To fully utilize this component, students will need access to a computer, tablet, or smartphone. $3 copy fee.

Discover pickleball—the fastest growing sport in America! This beginner friendly class introduces you to the essentials: basic rules, how to keep score, where to play, and how to find playing partners. You’ll develop core skills—including serving, sustaining a rally, and placing the ball with purpose—through a mix of brief instruction, fun drills, and open play. No athletic background is required—just a willingness to move, learn, and laugh. Please note: Good balance and the ability to bend your knees are important for safe participation. If you have concerns about your mobility or health, consult your healthcare provider before enrolling. Mary Chapman and Sharyl Dawes will assist.

Students enrolled in Explore Your Voice will learn breathing, articulation, and phonation techniques. During the course, students will work on songs they have chosen. Each week, the instructor will work with them on their songs, and by the end of the course they will have learned one to two songs and have improved their speaking and singing voices. Most of all, they will have had fun! The final class will be a recital that is open to the public.

Have you taken the Beginning American Mah Jongg class and want to play more, with guidance? Want help seeing where your tiles are leading you? Playing with others is the best way to maintain and improve your MJ skills. We'll spend most of every in-person session playing. In between classes I will share a weekly video, where I'll demonstrate a game, narrate what I see in the tiles and how I choose what to do next. There will also be weekly optional homework and an occasional short lesson on a requested topic. Students provide their own 2025 and 2026 National Mah Jongg League cards. $5 copy fee to instructor.

Are you sore and tired from working out? Too old to exercise? Too busy? Then T'ai Chi Chuan Easy 8 Form is perfect for you, regardless of your age, gender, or level of fitness. This 50-minute exercise will increase your strength, energy, flexibility, and emotional outlook. It also lowers blood pressure, reduces blood sugar, and relieves arthritis pain.

In each of the 20 selected developed countries (10 happy, 10 not so happy) we will explore the history, ethnic makeup, geography, climate, environmental performance, GDP per capita, employment, taxes, cost of living, pensions (social security), housing, life expectancy, diet, corruption, crime, freedom to make life choices, religion, health care, type of government, strength of currency, maternity leave, childcare, education, military service, unfriendly neighbors, public transport, and more. Is there a common thread(s) that makes the happy countries happy, and a common thread(s) that makes the unhappy countries unhappy? We shall see.

This semester we will read about six police department detectives as they hunt for murderers and bring them to justice. • Maigret and the Bum (1937) by George Simenon) • Ghosts (1959) Ed McBain (87th Precinct series) • The Black Echo (1990) by Micheal Connelly (Bosch series) Edgar Award • Rules of Prey (1989) by John Sanford (Prey Series) • Shock Wave (2011) by John Sandford (Virgil Flowers series)

In the last 100 years, we have become increasingly aware of the consequences of scientific and technological knowledge. Benefits, such as the reduction of childhood mortality, are indisputable. But other advances, such as greatly increased life spans, bring mixed blessings. Longer lives weigh down support systems, and many of the elderly endure pain in their later years. Other byproducts of “advances” cast a shadow over our planet: nuclear weaponry, micro plastics, and global warming. In this short course, we examine two papal encyclicals: John Paul II’s Fides et ratio and Francis’s Ladauto sí and explore how they bear on the question of science, technology, and the good life.