My take on the Australian Open and U.S. Figure Skating Championship

So, since I've been bumming around the house, a.k.a. job hunting, I have become majorly obsessed w/ watching tennis and figure skating. I absolutely love watching Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, Maria Sharapova and Justin Henin play. So, I watched their matches during this year's Australian Open on ESPN 2. Roddick's match in the third round was phenomenal, even though he lost :( The match lasted nearly 4 and a half hours and he hit 42 aces! Sharapova was at the top of her game and had no mercy for any of her opponents, leading her to win the title. Though, I found another favorite female player in Ana Ivanovic who put up a valiant fight in the final against Sharapova. I was so disappointed when Federer lost to Djokovic in the semi-finals, but am now realizing that I really like Djokovic too and am officially adding him to my list of faves. Congrats to Sharapova and Djokovic!

I have always been a big fan of figure skating and was glad to be able to catch the tail end of the U.S. Figure Skating Championship this past weekend. There were some new, amazingly talented skaters in the women's category and they are all so young! I'm talking like 14, 15 and 16 year olds. The winner of the gold was this little firecracker named Mirai Nagasu who is all of 14. She skated an amazing short, then fell on a double in her long, but came back w/ a vengence and nailed everything else. Rachel Flatt and Ashley Wagner(silver and bronze) gave nearly flawless long programs. Out of the top four females, only Ashley Wagner is old enough to go to the world competition. You have to be at least 16 and Rachel Flatt was 20 days away from her 16th birthday :( The national figure skating board just added Kimmie Meisner to the U.S. team for world's and I really don't think that she deserves it. She fell three times in her long and finished 7th overall. But I guess they may be taking her past experience into consideration. Hopefully she pulls herself together and skates better.

The Men's Single division was where all the drama was this year. Ryan Bradley (who I happen to be in love w/ and want to marry) skated a practically flawless short, but the judges gave him a surprisingly, low score. I bet that this was what threw him a bit in his long and he ended up as 5th. He's still a great skater and such an awesome guy. He kind of reminds me of Kurt Browning(another one of my faves) when he skates :D. Johnny Weir and Evan Lysacek have this stupid ongoing public rivalry. Weir stated that he just doesn't like Lysacek as a person and that if they both skated clean programs that he should win over Lysacek. What a pompous jerk. I gotta give props to Evan for being the bigger person and not stooping down to insulting him back. Before the long, Weir was in first and Lysacek was in second. Then, both skated awesomely in their longs. When the scoring came in, they were dead even. But since Lysacek had won the preskate, he won.

I will be honest, I thought that Weir had done slightly better in his long and probably should've won(despite my personal feelings about him) the gold. But this stupid new(I guess it's not so new anymore) judging system focuses on the elements separately instead of on the performance as a whole. I have always thought that if you did the required elements and skated a clean program, then you should be rewarded accordingly and the old system leaned this way. Now, you can get extra credit from the judges for throwing some jumps in after the halfway point or throwing your hands up in the air during a jump. So, someone who does everything they're supposed to and does a good job, could now lose to someone who doesn't skate as clean and has a fanicier program. In the 2002 Winter Olympics, there was a controversial situation in the couple's skating competition. There was a German couple that came in w/ a super difficult, show-offy program that they made quite a few mistakes on. Then a Canadian couple skated, had all the required elements and gave an almost perfect performance. Scores came in and the German couple received the gold over the Canadians. People, myself included, were livid and due to the overwhelming response of anger, they awarded a second gold medal to the Canadian couple. Supposedly, this new judging system is supposed to do away w/ problems like that, but I think that it has been just as, if not moreso, problematic. So, once again, I'm annoyed w/ the results of a figure skating competition. Surprise, surprise!

UPDATES

Wow, it's only been nearly a year since my last post. Yikes!

So, since I last left off in the middle of my D.C. trip, I'll give a brief(well, as brief as possible) finish. We did go on the White House tour on that Tuesday, which consisted of the Blue Room, East Room, Green Room, Library, Red Room, State Dining Room and Vermeil Room. As we were leaving, we noticed that they were blocking off some streets so that cars couldn't go through. Next thing we know, here come 5 police cars, 4 secret service cars and 5 police motorcycles. I am almost positive that Bush or Cheney(or maybe both) had to be in one of those secret service cars! Following that adventure, we went up to Baltimore to visit some family friends. Instead of taking the freeway we took Connecticut Ave. and stopped at this great restuarant in Kensington, MD called Savanah's. I totally recommend this place if you're ever in the area. Great service, great food and cute guys!

Anyways, we had a good time visiting our friends, whom I had not seen since they only had one kid who was a toddler at the time. Now he's 10 and they have two more boys! They live about 45 minutes from Gettysburg, so of course we had to go there. I had really wanted to spend a day in Philadelphia and my dad finally gave in. So, we went there on Thursday. The visitor center was cool, because they have people acting like they were from the 1700's. I have to admit, I was somewhat disappointed w/ the Liberty Bell. It was so much smaller than they make it out to be in the history books. We did see Benjamin Franklin's grave in the First Church cemetary and Liberty Hall. One thing I wanted to see was the LOVE sign. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? It's an L and a crooked O stacked on a V and an E w/ a fountain shooting up behind it. I've seen in on T.V. and wanted to see it in real life. So, we hiked the mile and a half to Love Square and.........once again, I was disappointed! It was tiny and the fountain wasn't going. We did see the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the distance, where Rocky famously ran up the steps. We were running out of time, so we concluded the short trip there w/ a stop at Jim's Steaks to have some REAL Philly Cheese-steak sandwiches. I wanted to go there because I had seen it on Rachel Ray's $40 a Day and for once that day, I was not disappointed :D

D.C. Special Meetings(or Revival Meetings as they call them out there) were going on and Bro. Eli Segres(pastor in Aiken, S.C.) was the guest preacher. Bro. Eli is like another dad to me and I am so happy I got to see him and his family. On our next to last day, dad and I went to the National Archives to see the Declaration, Constitution, Bill of Rights, Magna Carta, etc.

Okay, funny story: As I was standing in line to see these awesome papers, behind me were two 5th(maybe 6th?) graders who were there on a field trip. One of them says to the other, "This is so boring, I don't even know who the guys were who signed these stupid things." The other kid says, "Of course you do. It was guys like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John F. Kennedy!" I had to bite my tongue and I had tears streaming down my face from holding my laughter in so hard. What is our education coming to?

Following that, we had lunch at Union Station and that concluded our sightseeing. The only things that we didn't have time for that I wish we had, were the Smithsonian and seeing the sites at night. Oh well, maybe next time. The service that night was good and after it was over, I went to Charity Asuquo's place for a young people get together. Which was great, but I didn't get back to Dial and Carrie's until 3 am on Saturday and I had to get up at 5 since our flight was leaving at 8. But that's the life of traveling. All in all, it was a fantastical trip and I can't wait to go back again!

My life in a nutshell since my last post:
This past summer was the first time in a long time that I didn't get all of camp meeting due to work :P I did get weekends, a spur of the moment trip on the 4th of July w/ the Olsons, and the second week, so I really can't complain. I quit my daycare job at the end of August, because I was planning to go back to school at PLU. But.......I missed my stupid re-entry form and the class I really needed to take this past fall semester will not be offered again for two years. So, now I'm in the process of applying to University of Washington. I went to the Brooklyn Youth Conference and decided that I really think that I could live in New York! I got a seasonal job at Macy's in October. I found that I'm good at retail, but I really don't like it. Macy's wanted me to stay on as a full-time employee, but I don't like the idea of working on commission or having to push people to sign up for the store's credit card. We were supposed to get at least one attempt a week, but I really felt like I was contributing to national debt just by asking. Plus, half the people would say no right off the bat. I was in charge of the Sunday School Christmas program, which was a hair-pulling, stressful experience. But, God was looking out for it. It came together and the performance went great! I finished working at Macy's earlier this month and since have been on a major job hunt! Please pray that I find one soon! Love to all and it's nice to be back in the blogging world again :D