Oh Canada!

The party's over in Vancouver. I did catch Olympic fever throughout the entire 17 day competition. In the lab, people were constantly refreshing their web-browsers for up dates on the daily results. At the start of the competition, Canadians were moaning about the lack of performance from their athletes. Team Canada organizers made a very boastful prediction that Canada would take home the most medals. I love Canada (natch), but to put that expectation on our athletes is just unfair. Especially when you're competing against powerhouses like USA and Germany. The "Own the Podium" program is a good thing, as Olympic athletes are severely underpaid for what is expected of them (hmmmm, that sounds familiar). Well, everyone except NHL players. But let's not go there. When I was living in Vancouver, I befriended a lot of people from Team Canada Field Hockey. From them I admired the commitment to their sport. Especially when they were expected to train for 6-8 h/day and be paid only $50/day. How could anyone live on that? In Vancouver no less! I'm not sure what "Own the Podium" has now done for the athletes pay-wise, but at least it's bringing to light that if we Cdn taxpayers want the golden glory - we better be ready to dish out the funds to support those who compete.

Back to the Vancouver 2010 games. So then, Canada didn't win the most medals. But quality over quantity people. Canada did take home the most gold medals and broke records doing so (most gold medals in any Olympics and most gold medals by hosting country). If we complained about a gold drought on home soil, I think it's safe to say that we've got our fill now. And what a finish! Gold medal in both women's and men's hockey. I think that is probably the only thing that matters to Canada. We acknowledge that we're not perfect in many things (even trying to get the cauldron up), but when it comes to hockey - that's our game you're playing.



So congrats to the ALL the athletes. You did me proud along with the rest of Canada. Someone asked me whether there would be a holiday on the following Monday. I said "no, but whenever you see a Cdn, you'll note a small satisfied smile." People will carry that feeling around for a long time. Like the '72 summit. "With Glowing Hearts" indeed.

Let them begin...

Following up a previous post regarding me playing hooky from work (for 30 min), today is the opening day of the 2010 Winter Olympic games. It's been a long road for these games in Vancouver. In fact back in 2003, I remember being in LA at a science conference when we heard that Vancouver won the bid to these games. Someone rushed in and yelled, "VANCOUVER 2010!!" And surprisingly I was part of a large chorus of cheering people in the lecture theater.

As a personal tradition, I've always watched the opening ceremonies. In fact as I write this, Portugal's team just entered the stadium. I am a fan of the Olympics, the idea of these games is a noble one. But just like anything with good intentions, there will always be some dark spots. Today is no exception, just within hours of the opening of the games, a Georgian luger was killed on a training run. Georgia put on a brave face tonight walking into the stadium.

Oooooh: now USA entered.

This will be Canada's 3rd time hosting the Olympics. Montreal hosted the summer Olympics in 1976. I wasn't around for that one, but I remember Calgary 1988 Winter Olympics vividly. What I remember the most is the theme, simply called "Winter Games". For these Olympics, the current theme plug is "I believe". I'm not sure if it'll be more popular as David Froster's Calgary theme.

I work in a multi-nation lab. We have a good mix of counties: Canada, Argentina, Swiss, Japan, Spain, and Ireland. All countries are competing in this year's Olympics, so it'll be a subject of talk (and ribbing).


Oooh ... I hear cheering: Yep, it's Canada! TV shots of people cheering in Whistler, cheering in Khandahar... and me cheering right here. Go Canada Go!

Watching the ceremonies more. I really enjoyed the fiddler/tap dancing segment. Beautiful Cdn maple leafs everywhere.

Nice Olympic flag bearers choices, including Terry Fox's mom and a famous UN Cdn peacekeeper (now Senator) Romeo Dallare.

Amazing Measha Brueggergosma's operetta was breath-taking.

Oh, this is better - 5 people lighting the cauldron...

...O - M - G... they flubbed the opening lighting of the cauldron! I can just see it now with Americans ribbing that Canada can't get it up. And then what? Watching a hockey player in a pick-up truck for 10 minutes to light the external cauldron? Well, I guess that's uniquely Cdn. Great show... poor finish. I hope this isn't foreshadowing Canada's performance at these games. Rated E for "effort"?

Julia & me

It's been a whirlwind of health issues for the past few weeks. Last blog was about my first hockey injury. My back was put back into place within a week, only to be just the prelude of a series of "unfortunate" adventures which included a mild concussion and an unrelenting stomach bug.

But today I'm feeling back to my normal crazy-self. Working this weekend to make up for lost sick days (which currently I have none - something that I'm thinking about changing). But tonight while doing the ritual laundry dance I found myself renting a few movies to pass the time. One of which is "Julie & Julia". My interest of the film was primarily of watching Meryl impress me once again with her acting talent. A critically acclaimed performance and deservingly so. The 2nd reason is that I do remember watching a flutterly woman discuss the finer points of baking during my childhood (thanks PBS!). I didn't understand much of what was going, other than Julia Child was litterly off-her-rocker. Please don't misunderstand, that isn't an insult. It is a sincere compliment. Because I think I have a bit of Julia in me - especially when teaching science. I think next time I teach a class, I shall wear a pearl necklace in homage. Thanks Julia.


Music... I have been busy with music again of late due to a recital. However that will be a topic for a future blog. Tonight, a lil' more of Tracy Chapman's bright, "Sing for You". I often think about her concert I saw last summer, she performed this song with a lil' intro that she was curious of how Cdns would sing the chorus. Apparently there are different takes of how people pronounce "Do, do-do, do-do-do, do".

Oh snap!

Last week was an interview for a possible post-doc position. The research is awesome! Just the timing is crappy. I'm not giving up the ghost with this lab as of yet, and play the wait n' see game. In the meantime, sending off more emails to more labs for more possible positions. So nothing fruitful so far in the job hunt. But the trip to the city was a fruitful one on a personal note. I got to visit three set of friends in 36h. If anything was successful it was the laughs over the table chats.

Hockey wise, I had my first injury of the season. There was a scuffle in the cease which resulted in a pile of women on top of each other, with me at the bottom. The picture here isn't from the night, but it's a close approximation. Most times this is alright, providing that everyone lays pancake-wise. But this time, an opponent's elbow dove right onto my spine and I swear I heard a "crack". We did end up winning the match, however afterwards I did required a few chiro appointments, a bottle of muscle relaxants, and 8 days of no hockey. This meant 4 games I was sidelined. But all the recoup did me some good as I can play pain free (knock on wood).

In other nuances... I started to play with Wii again. I'm slow on gaming consoles and current hot games. Me, I'm just happy playing Legend of Zelda:Twilight Princess, which came out 4 years ago (Yeah, I'm THAT slow). It's a good game being the level of slash n' dash is equally balanced with logic n' puzzles to solve. I haven't found a game that brings back memories like Super Mario Bros 3. Man, I played that game morning, noon, n' night. A lot of my childhood was spent/wasted learning jump sequences and the gaming soundtracks are embedded in my head for eternity.

Speaking of music, a lil' Moby with his "Honey" classic. I rewatched the video for this one, it's how I feel these days, just wandering around trying to figure out where my life is going.

Laterz!

Me and my camera...

By now you know that my #1 hobby is being a hockey goalie. If you don't, you haven't been reading this blog much haven't you? I do love hockey, but it always amazes me that my personal/work life rarely overlaps with my hockey life. None of my close friends play hockey. In fact, come to think of it, I'm probably the only person in my close friends circle that actively plays a team sport. I could go off and analyze this til' I'm blue in the face but it's obviously not a dealbreaker. I just became more aware of this fact when my mom visited me a few months ago for my PhD convocation and attended two of my games. It's nice to have someone on the other side of the rink cheering you on. Maybe this should go on my "future-mate" list somewhere: item 9 = must like hockey.

Speaking of hobbies, there's another one of mine: photography. I really really want to take some courses to learn how to get cool pictures. Of course this will involve the investment of an awesome Leica or Cannon camera. So it's on my list. As mentioned above, my mom visited me a few months ago and we headed out to Jasper/Banff for a few days. I brought my camera along:








Yeah, nothing groundbreaking. I think I do have an eye for the interesting scene. It's just the matter of being able to have the skills to capture it. Something I shall work on.

Music wise today: Edwyn Collins peeps with his classic "A girl like you." I'm outta here!