by shaz on Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 04:06 PM
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life in canada.
Yes my friends, I am still watching the Olympics. Granted, I’ve lost my initial enthusiasm, and now hours and hours can pass and my mind may not wander over to Vancouver, but its an amazing thing that I am still even semi-interested midway through the games.
So far, my most favorite event has been Moguls. I just happened to be watching when we got our first goal and I must admit I was completely enthralled. I also totally enjoyed Snowboard cross and quite serendipitously I happen to witness Maelle Ricker win another goal for Canada. Actually, I love snowboarding, it’s the one winter sport that I really wish I could do.
My least favorite event has to be figure skating – I do realize this is likely the most watched Olympic event for women – I find it extremely dull. Sorry fans, but Sid tried to force me to watch it with her and sadly my attention just could not keep up with it!
Now let’s talk Curling. What? Why? How? Seriously people, I cannot understand what is happening in this sport. I find it totally bewildering!
And finally, Hockey – I haven’t really been able to watch a game yet, but my 7 year old is surely keeping up, watching as much games as he’s allowed to watch! I do love women’s hockey, not the game so much but the fact that we have such a strong women’s team. The fact that it’s encouraging girls to participate in sports and the fact that those women are such powerful role models for millions of Canadian youth.
We’ve had a week of indoor ski-jumping, luge, skeleton, snowboard cross, and I am not quite sure what else has been going on, but the kids have creatively used sofa cushions, hockey sticks, large books, and anything else they could think of for their pretend-indoor-olympics. It’s been, ummm, interesting! My 7 year old is a little dismayed about Canada’s lack of medals, and although he still has hope, he says that at least USA is going to win and they are closest to us… He is also looking forward to the Paralympic Games as well – I showed him some of the photos and he’s amazed by these extraordinary athletes.
And of course, there is an app for this! There are a few apps, but my friend, Natalia emailed me at 1am to say that she downloaded an app for the Olympics and was in love with the mascots that played little games after the phone is shaken. Ok, I know I am 10 days too late on this news, but if you haven’t gotten it yet, enjoy!
I may have lied when I said that I am not really an Olympic person. Not intentionally of course, it just sort of happened.
My 7 year old has taken to the games like a moth to a flame! For the past 3 days, he’s been obsessed with all things Olympics. I thought he was excited for the opening ceremonies because he knew that his dad was working there, but its more than that – he’s competitive, he loves sports, he’s Canadian, it’s exactly his kind of thing. He’s been “practicing” for all kinds of skiing events in the living room with two hockey sticks posing as ski poles! And now his “Olympic spirit” is rubbing off on everyone in the house I think.
Last night for the first time I watched mogul skiing – it was awesome – I think it’s my new favorite winter sport. I mean, it was seriously awesome! So tonight, for the finals, while the younger 2 kids slept, my sister, the 7 year old and I were watching, with sweaty palms, and racing pulses as a Canadian won gold. It was an incredible 20something seconds!
I generally don’t watch the olympics – if there is a Trinidadian or a Canadian who is favored to win a particular event, I’ll probably watch it, but in general, it’s just not my thing. There are very few televised sports that I would watch, and not religiously; basketball – any team, but I do like the Lakers and I have a special place in my heart for the Raptors, cricket – when the West Indies is playing, and soccer – when Trinidad is playing. I am sometimes forced to watch hockey because my son loves it, but I can’t say I enjoy it!
What I really enjoy playing though, is all fours, actually, cards in general. My mom taught my 7 year old to play a tonne of card games, and now he’s a bit obsessed! All I kept hearing was my mom telling my son, “your mother looooves to play cards, so I guess you would to!”
Anyway, my point here is that the 2010 winter olympics starts Friday, and I’m going to watch the opening only because it’s being held in Canada this year. My 7 year old is excited. And this is as “olympic-spirit-ish” as I can get!
I read somewhere that if you don’t have any expectations of people, you can’t get emotionally hurt. I am not sure if I am convinced, but I do think that no expectations definitely equals no disappointments.
For a long time I tried to separate hope from expectation in my mind. I believe that hope is a good thing. Hope keeps us going on, it keeps us looking for the good, it gives us something to struggle for, something to hold on to, something to believe in. It’s the reason we pray, we believe, we trust that in spite of almost total devastation, the people of Haiti will recover, will have a new beginning. Hope. We all need it.
Expectation however, is a bit different. It makes us act irrationally sometimes, I think. And when the things that we are expecting to happen don’t, we are not sure what to do, we get tempted to lose hope, we’re disappointed and frustrated.
For me, I try not to have expectations, especially not of people. I read somewhere that if you have something to do, just do it – if you get help, say thanks, and if not, still say thanks because at least you are able to do it – or something like that anyways. I think it changed my entire state of being.
I personally like hope, even if the things I hope for never actually happens, it’s fine, but just being able to hope brings comfort and peace.
