8.22.2004

 

[maintenance post]

i'm still alive, i'm still alive... just been really busy the past few weeks. don't ask me exactly what i was doing, either, cos in all honesty i can't supply an answer either. but i'll try anyway. here goes - finish report & ppt, pack room (in a perennial mess, i can only hope my room over *there* is going to look more presentable), buy laptop (now a proud owner of a IBM T42. it runs doom3, w00! what more can i say?), attempt to install necessary software on said laptop, attend talks, meet up with people, send people off, watch olympics, and generally just refusing to sleep til 0600. (w00!) did i mention the ignominy of falling asleep on the sofa during the first Olympic 0400-0600 transmission - womens' team epee gold medal match, no less - what a waste.. but in truth the blades were moving too fast for my tired eyes to catch.

i'll just offer my quick 2 cents worth on our Olympic performance so far: great, but we just lost out in the final bits when it came to the crunch. we could have won, and we should have won. i just hope they start sports psychology classes for all national-team players soon, we seem to be sorely lacking in that dept. however, i also like to point out that any graduate of our local school system is more than well-versed in sports psychology / exam psychology, theyre all the same. maybe a short stint in school is in order for all national players?

all the scheduled, televised fencing matches are over, and although i didn't really keep track of all the events i could've sworn that some of the team matches weren't televised, perhaps because some other more popular sport was televised instead (and there are only 4 channels to televise the events with) - again, a real shame. but what *really* irked me was the way the italian mens' foil team behaved: play-acting (faking an injury, limping about in pain, the dr pronounced no injury, and seconds later he was lunging like the rest of them), mocking their opponents, and falling over about a dozen times, either onto or out of the piste. they basically tricked their way from a loss to a lead, and actually won the gold medal match. this is fencing, not some barside brawl.. unsporting, uncouth, and most importantly - unforgivable.

timestamp: anonymous 22:37 0 comments