Olympics 2012 - Day 13 to Day 15

If you haven't noticed, my days are a little off since I named the first day of the the Olympics Day 0. In total, this year, though, there were/will be 17 action packed days of the Olympics. Tomorrow being the final day of the 2012 Olympic games.

Before I get ahead of myself, here are the recent Google Doodles for this year's Olympics:

Day 13 [Mini Game - Can be played here]

Day 14 [Mini Game - Can be played here]

Day 15

The games, this year, had been dubbed the Twitter games (vaguely acknowledged by the Olympic committee when they put in the social network segment into the opening ceremony two weeks back). As such, Twitter has been on fire with updates all around the world about results, judging comments, athlete fandom, as well as tweets from sport castors and Olympians alike. There were one or two Olympic participants who took the liberty to post racists comments (and were promptly sent packing), those who raged at judges and ref calls (especially after that Canadian penalty fiasco), and those who hated on Olympians because they're jealous, insecure, or whatever. Honestly, those were the tweets I couldn't stand. Heck, those were the tweets that made it onto the news as people were outraged by them.

The one that stood out most to me was the tweet to Tom Daley, Great Britain's greatest hope for a Gold in Syncro Diving with his partner Peter Waterfield. When their fourth, and final, dive was off time, they saw their chances of Gold slip away, landing fourth place, just off the podium. Soon after the event, someone tweeted Daley saying "you let your dad down i hope you know that".

Let me take a moment to give some back story. Daley's father had cancer within his brain. The first tumour was taken care of, and he was in remission for a while, and then a second one came along. Brought into remission again, Daley's father had high hopes in seeing his son in the London 2012 Olympics (this year). However, relapsing once more, hope was slowly dwindling. The cancer took his life late last year, 2011.

Tom Daley took one day off from training after his father's death. One day. Note: Daley is only 18 years old. Not only did he have his father's death to contend with, but also Great Britain's hopes of getting a Gold medal was resting on his and his partner's shoulders.

The fact of the matter is, this person, some Twitter user out there, tweeted "you let your dad down i hope you know that". Now, not only is that cyberbullying, slander in a sense, but to say something like that to an eighteen year old kid, who just lost his father recently, as well as lost the Gold medal for his nation is horrid, inhuman, heartless. Add that to the fact that according to the news, Daley's dive was immaculate, Waterfield had pulled up too soon, and he couldn't stop it once it happened. I could go on an extreme tirade about how wrong that tweet was on so many levels, but I don't even think it needs to be said. Something like that is just inexcusable.

The thing about the internet is that once it's there, it's set in stone. Nothing said on the internet cane ever really truly be erased. Cyberspace is infinite.

On a brighter note, Daley won Bronze in his individual event, and no one, not even a user on Twitter, could take that away from him. By his reaction, that Bronze medal was a Gold to him. I'm not even of Great Britain, but I have to say I am proud of him. He really deserved that medal.

(Also, he is the best looking eighteen year old I've ever known. OMG. If the guys at my school looked like that... my gosh... /foreverswooning. This may well be the closest I'll ever get to a celebrity crush *A* so hot. He's only 22 days older than me too... it's a totally rational celebrity crush... However, his achievement also makes me feel widely unaccomplished... he's over in Britain winning medals and I'm here at my computer writing this... well...)

Thomas Daley - Great Britain - Bronze Medal in 10m Platform Dive

On the other hand, while Daley's celebrating the Bronze like it's a Gold, and the USA's celebrating the Gold 'cause it's a Gold, China's Qiu Bo, who won silver, was said to be inconsolable and quite upset at the results. However, feelings aside, all of them performed well. And just 'cause I'm biased, I'd liked to just say: Congratulations Tom Daley !

Back to Canada, Matt Gentry skimmed the Olympic podium, placing 4th in Men's 74kg Freestyle Wrestling. Faced with old World Champion, Gentry was unable to hold his own in his final rounds. However, he definitely made Canada proud by even making it that far. Fourth in the world, that's pretty good.

Canada, today, was disqualified in the Men's 4x100m relay. Third-leg runner, Jared Connaughton, had stepped on the line marking the lane's boundary, leading to their disqualification. Landing third place in the finals only to have it taken away from them, that is heartbreaking, not for Canada, but for the runners themselves. All the way to third place and conquered by a line. However, besides the line step, the team had an amazing run, unfortunately, that wasn't enough though.

Tomorrow is the last day of the Olympics, the closing ceremony taking place at 4pm EST, 9pm in London. According to leaks and gossip, the Spice Girls are making a return to the stage, and The Who, Ed Sheeran , George Michael, and Muse have all said that they will be taking part in some way. It's said Tinie Tempah (Rapper, known for his song "Written in the Stars" ft. Eric Turner) and Jessie J (Pop singer, known for songs "Domino", "Who You Are", and "Price Tag") are highly likely to perform. There will also be a small bit created by the next summer Olympics host, Brazil, which is said to have a fair amount of samba dancing, though whether that's true, we'll just have to wait to find out. Also, One Direction has been rumoured to be closing the closing ceremony, though that rumour has neither been confirmed nor denied by officials.

One more day world! Tomorrow is the end of the London 2012 Olympics! I hope everyone had fun watching and will tune in tomorrow to watch the finale the these amazing games!

-fishandchips

Olympics 2012 - Day 7 to Day 12

Olympics have been a total challenge for Canada. Monday, in their game against the USA, there was a bad call by the ref, therefore ending in Canada's loss. I suck with soccer, so this is what I've read and heard from  people. News articles are saying that they may be looking into the play again to see if the call was right, but a day before the game for Bronze, in which Canada will supposedly be playing in, it'd be hard to make the call.   I heard that said ref has been suspended and will not be refereeing any more games in this particular Olympics. However, it's still not known whether anything is happening with the ref's ruling.

On another note, here are the new Google Doodles from the past few days (:

Day 7

Day8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11 [Mini Game - Can be played here]

Day 12 [Mini Game - Can be played here]

Onto Canada's success, we won Gold for Women's Trampoline; Silver in Men's 1500m Freestyle and Men's Kayak 1000m Single; Bronze in Men's Canoe 1000m Single, Men's High Jump,  Women's Team Pursuit (Cycling), Men's 81kg Judo, Women's 63kg Weightlifting , Men's 100m Freestyle, and Women's 48kg Freestyle Wrestling. Canada's doing fairly well, medal wise.

As always, Jamaican runner Usain Bolt is flying through his rounds. It's always fun watching him run, because, really, he makes it look like such a breeze.

Then there's Phelps, USA's druggie star (or not so drugged up star now...). He couldn't even make finals for the one or two races he had been expected to win Gold for, which was a shock to everyone, though he ended up winning Gold in the 200m Individual Medley Race.

It's interesting, watching the Olympics, 'cause this is when the underdogs rise up and when the champions fall back, we see the expected the win, but we also get a chance to see the unexpected to succeed, to dominate, to make their country proud.

Have fun watching, world!

-fishandchips

Olympics 2012 - Day 0 to Day 6

If you didn't know that the Olympics has been running for the past few days, then I must ask: which rock have you been living under? Even if you were to go to Google, you'd see the various doodles they've been posting. And if you lack a computer, then, well, I don't know how you're reading this.

Day 0

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Those have been the doodles so far, though there are many more in store for us as the Olympics continue.

The sports featured in this year's Olympics are:

The Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics was interesting, a little quirky though, but there were a number of things I quite enjoyed about the Opening Ceremony~

It started with a number of people on the prairies or farm land, as they wished to display the land as it was being settled and built. After a reading from Shakespeare's play "The Tempest", they moved to the Industrial Revolution, where the stacks were lifted and the real pollution began (I don't think they meant to point that out, but there was a lot of smoke coming from those things).

A moment of silence to in memory of the two world wars was taken. Then, "forged" within this industrialized setting was the amazing, sparking, Olympic rings.

After that was a James Bond sequence, in which the 'Queen' jumped out of a helicopter with one of the James Bond actors (names... names... I have none...). It was quite fun, with both of them opening up their parachutes to reveal the UK Union Jack. Once the real Queen entered, the UK flag was raised and the national anthem sung.

Next was a segment for the National Health Society, in which volunteers from the hospitals as well as children who were patients were pushed around in beds, creating pictures with the lights and white beds.

Then came my favourite segment: a tribute to books. As author Maureen Johnson put it on Twitter:

Author J.K. Rowling made a "rare public appearance" (CTV commentators) and read a passage from Peter Pan. Upon her closing the book a gigantic blow-up Voldemort rose from the ground, roller skating child catchers ran around on stage and a bout of spooky music played as a child's bed floated. Then, came a shower of Mary Poppins, thwarting Voldemort (not as cool as Harry Potter, but you know...).

Quite an odd sight, if I do say so myself, haha.

Out comes Rowan Atkinson, most known for his role as Mr. Bean, joining the London Symphony Orchestra  in playing the theme to Chariots of Fire. As it was played, Atkinson sent a 'text', sneezed, used an umbrella to play the piano, and did a running sequence, in which he was racing and cheated by taking a car, and then tripped an Olympic runner (I'm not sure if he was an actual runner...), just to win the race.

After that, there was a segment dedicated to social networking as well as the music industry within London. They paid tribute to the Beatles, Queen, David Bowie, Eurythmics, and other groups and performers! It was a little odd, but these groups weren't really the most normal out there, haha~ Once it was over, the little social networking segment ended with the unveiling of the inventor of the Internet, who, in fact, is from the UK.

There was then an interesting sun dance that was a tribute of sorts to the family members, of those attending the ceremony, who had past away. Great meaning, but alike to other portions of the ceremony, it was a little quirky.

Then began the infinite parade of nations, each nation coming with a flag-bearer, a person holding the country's name, as well as a person carrying a horn of sorts. As the countries were being introduced, CTV commentators noted that a runner would be participating in the "ten centimetre run", which would definitely be a sight if such thing even existed xD

The horn was revealed to be a part of the Olympic fire, which would burn until the end of the Olympics. Each nation's horn was set on a stick (with lack of a better word) and set fire to. The final torch bearers were the 'future' of the Olympics, metaphorically, as well as literally, displaying the torch being passed on from the old generation to the new.

Definitely the most unique Olympic flame I've seen. Normally, it's just sitting in a large bowl on a podium, this was definitely cooler, also displaying the unity of the various Nations during the next two weeks.

Note: I do not own any of these pictures. They have come from either Google, here, here, or here.

As for mascots, we have Wenlock:

And Mandeville for the Parolympics:

You can learn more about them here

On to the games:

Yesterday, I watched Kohei Uchimura, from Japan, win a gold medal in the Gymnastics individuals, while two days ago, Japan placed second to China in the Gymnastics team event. At twenty-three, he has been named the world champion three times and has become a big gymnastics superstar in Japan, and now internationally. He is so famous that many people (including his team mates) in Japan have adopted his haircut, now known as the "Kohei" (so says the Canadian commentators). We will (likely) see him again at the closing ceremony.

As for Canada, we've racked up a few medals: 5 bronze and 2 silver - which were brought in by our amazing men's rowing team yesterday, and the woman's rowing team this morning. Go Canada!

The USA holds the lead, when it comes to medals, with a total of 37 so far, while China is in close second with 34 (though they have more silvers than the USA, and an equivalent amount of gold medals).

This afternoon, Canadian swimmer, Sinead Russell, made it into the 200m backstroke finals for women, though I'm not sure if it's past already or if it's another day (I was out today and only caught a moment of today's events). Congratulations Sinead!

On another note, Canada's women's team made it to the Gymnastics finals, but did not place in the top three. However, they were the first Canadian team, I believe, to make it to the finals, to congrats to them too!

US's, formerly disgraced, superstar Michael Phelps won a gold medal today in the Men's Individual Medley event, leaving new found superstar, and Phelps's team mate, Ryan Lochte, in second place.

Canada's own superstar Clara Hughes did not place in the top this year in any event, ending up far down the line in the Bicycle-Road event, and placing fifth in the time trials. This is, supposedly, Hughes's last year in the Olympics, but you never know what the future might bring. She has been one of the few (as in like 2 or 3) athletes to compete in both the Winter and Summer Olympics, showing her finesse and speed in the 2010 Winter Olympics speed skating event 2 years ago. She has had an amazing career and Canada's own star~

Already, the games have created their own issues. There was one fiasco where the South Korean flag was put up on the board for soccer instead of the North Korean flag, resulting in two insulted nations, and a formal apology from the Olympic Chairman. That must've been embarrassing.
Then, in Badminton, there was a rigged game, in which neither team wished to rally the birdie back after the first serve, resulting in disqualification of the two countries, though I'm not sure which ones they're from (but I'm sure they were Asian...).
Also, two Olympic contenders have been sent home due to racist comments posted on Twitter (which, honestly, is the stupidest thing you could be sent home for. I mean, you made it to the OLYMPICS. And you're going to get yourself kicked out because you don't like another RACE? Jeez, this world...).

Can't wait to watch both Archery and the Track events (aka "Athletics") in the next few days ~ I'll be back with more updates soon~

Have fun watching!

- fishandchips

Another Asian Driver

'Cause the world really needed another, you know?
Today, my dad drove me to get my G1 license from the Downsview DMV. It took us a half hour to find it. Google maps was not helpful. Though, it probably didn't help that I forgot to print off said map... Regardless, once we got there, we realized that Friday afternoons at the DMV are busy.

For those who never took their Ontario G1 test, and want a little run down as to what happens, here you go:
When I got it, I went to the front desk, by the door. After showing my forms of IDs, I filled out one form (basically put on 3 check marks and signed my name) and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited a little bit more. Another half hour later, my number was finally called and I went up.

After being momentarily confused as to what my address was (I cannot have things spelt out to me, it just doesn't work), I paid and got my photo taken. Once that was complete, I took the vision test. This is a simple test. You will have to look into this set of binocular things. There will be a lit up circle that contains 6 numbers (ex. 567384). You will be asked to recite said number. Once you have completed one circle, another will light up with a different set of number, this happens three or four times (I have a bad memory...). The size of the numbers will progressively get smaller. Next, they test your peripheral vision. A light will flash on one side and you have to tell them if it's the left or right side. It's fairly simple and straight forward.

Once that's done, you'll go into the writing exam room and write your exam. It's a set of 40 multiple choice questions: 20 rules, 20 signs. In order to pass, you must get 16 on each one right (i.e. you can only get four questions wrong for the rules, and four for the signs, for a total of eight errors). These don't balance, unfortunately. So if you get perfect on the signs, and five wrong on the rules, you do not pass.

After your exam, you hand it in and resume waiting. I waited twenty minutes for the results of my exam. By then, the room was packed with people waiting to either take their exam or get their results. Once your results process, they'll call you up and tell you whether you passed or not. I heard 5 people not pass, so don't take the test too lightly.

All in all, it was a new experience. And now I'm licensed to drive (with an adult who has been fully licensed for four years or more and at any time except between midnight and 5AM)!

In all honestly, I didn't get my license so I could learn to drive and become an epically awesome drift racer like Jay Chou in Initial D. No, my real motivation was food. I don't have a passport because the last time I left the country, passports weren't yet required for five year old children. This proved to be a large inconvenience because if I wanted to get my WATcard in September (which is kind of a necessity at UofW), I needed a government issued ID. Based on price, as well as convenience, I chose to get my G1. Once my license card is mailed, I'll be able to go to Waterloo and get my lovely WATcard, which has all my food money on it. I think the first thing I'll purchase is an Ice Cap (:

Next piece of news: I got my residence placement! I'm right across from eggtart ~ I'm room with my friend GL and another girl. She seems alright (if you can base anything off a few emails). I'm quite excited!

So yesterday, I had a bout of nostalgia and decided to check out one of my old favourite shows: Digimon.

So that's Digimon Adventure's (i.e. Season One) characters. Those are the characters I remember. I loved those characters and everything, but I couldn't remember anything from that season except for the characters.

On the other hand, that's Digimon Adventure 2's (i.e. Season Two) characters. I don't remember any of them, except Ken (Mr. Purple Hair). Ken was my favourite character in all of Digimon (yeah, I loved the bad guy turned good, I can't help it. He was awesome.). I did, however, remember what happened throughout the season. So I don't know why my memory blended both seasons, but every time I pictured Digimon, I saw Ken against season one's characters... I don't know. Still, I love both seasons, and I still love Ken (: I watched an episode of each season and my first thought, when I saw the episode from season two, was: Davis? I vaguely remembered every character except Davis from S2. And he's like the main character... My memory's so selective... I'm a little worried.

On another note, I've made a slight dent in my reading. I've finished:

The Immortal Rules [#1 Blood of Eden] by Julie Kagawa [5/5] 

A book about vampires (though they're the evil ones (for the most part) in this series). Kagawa really brought the vampire concept back to life and made it different from the other crazy ones (i.e. Twilight, House of Night). It's basically like the Dust Land Series (by Moira Young), meets The Host (by Stephenie Meyer), meets Dracula (by Bram Stoker), meets Julie Kagawa's imagination. It's really awesome and brings together dystopian fantasy, paranormal fiction, and horror, to make one awesome book.

The Thing About the Truth by Lauren Barnholdt [3.5/5] 

A love story, where the truth ruins everything. This kind of left me with an ending that was not really resolved. It bugged me. However, the novel wasn't bad. It was taken from the two main characters' point of views before and after the 'incident'. There is a fair amount of humour and I like the real life references, as well as the characters, so that made up for the end. Yet it didn't, you know? Eh, just thinking about it... it's still bugging me...

Next, I'll probably finish Keep Holding On by Susane Colasanti (which I've started but haven't finished yet...), then Divergent by Veronica Roth, which my sister has been raving about (unconsciously raising my expectations).

Anyway, I think I've babbled enough for today ~ Good night to those in the EST time zone. Good morning eggtart!

- fishandchips

Course Selection

Today was the first official day to enroll yourself in classes for Waterloo. I tried to get into Chemistry... and Biology... and Physics... but all of them were basically filled to the rim, to my dismay. C'est la vie. Maybe I'll take 'em in the summer (if those buildings have air conditioning...).

"F" takes up so much of my time, while "M"'s just chilling there like "I'm a 3 hour class @ 7pm"

My schedule's pretty full on Wednesdays, I was honestly surprised that that "F" class will require so much time. Hm. That night class worries me a little, even though my UofW tour guide reassured us that "the lights around campus were just changed and are very bright". Although it's good to know that the lights are very bright and numerous around campus, I'm still a little wary of the whole thing. I know I'll get used to it after I settle in, but until then I'll sit here and pray it's not like York's lovely campus on which crime just happens to be sky rocketing.

Oh, I forgot to mention: eggtart is currently gallivanting across the eastern side of Asia, so you won't here from her for a little bit. I finally got eggtart's birthday present, too! Hope she likes it, haha.

I finally finished Season 2 of Game of Thrones! Minus the nudity, the show is awesome. Lot's of violence and backstabbing. And somewhere between cutting off a dude's head to being a faceless man, there's romance.

And speaking of that series, I currently have the first four books waiting to be read.

On top of those, there's:

Sisterhood Everlasting: 10 years after the Sisterhood of Travelling Pants

The Enchantress: the final book to its series

Keep Holding On: I got it for my birthday from my Uncle (:

Bitterblue: the third book to the Seven Realms Series

Divergent: the first in the series  (I also have the second)

Also, I need to read:

I require a driver's license before university starts...

Add in grade 9 French, grade 12 Calculus and Vectors, Student 101 in August at Waterloo, some intensive piano practice, as well as a piano exam, and I'd say I have a lot to do in the next seven weeks. Should probably start working on all that. Well, what'd you know, even in the summer I can procrastinate.

- fishandchips

Exams, Birthday, and Graduation!

Since my post about UWaterloo, quite a bit has happened. Right after that day, there was a lot of culminating assignments to be done and exams came the week after that.

For some reason, I found myself slacking a lot during the days I was given to study for exams. I ended up with extremely poor exam result marks; a 76% on my Economics exam, a 92% on my International Business exam (this was ok), and a 66% on my Law exam. Luckily for me, my marks during the semester were decent enough to cushion the fall that the exam caused.

My final marks were:
Economics: 87% (from a 94% at mid-terms)
International Business: 92% (from a 95% at mid-terms)
Law: 83% (from a 87% at mid-terms)

I got this with my report card!
Wild Water Kingdom this summer, anyone? :)

Oh well, the final grades are still tolerable, I guess. What's done is done!

After the exams, it was time for my birthday! My birthday itself was alright? Not exactly what most teens would say was the best 18th birthday celebration ever. The day itself, June 24th, I went out for a sushi dinner with my parents.

Honey roll? + Sweet Potatoes on top!
Tasted amazing!!

Black Dragon roll (left)
Sunshine roll (right)

Unagi Sushi Pizza

The day after, June 25th, I went with my friends to Pacific Mall. We didn't really do much other than walk around and chill. But I still had fun!

One of my friends, got me this:

So basically my friend - as you can see - got me mix-style headphones. I know, I know, their sound quality isn't the best out there. But it's pretty and it's good enough for me. Quite frankly, I've never been the person to care too much about the quality and clarity of the music. If I hear the music and it's relatively clear, I'm good. As of the moment though, I'm sticking with my Apple earphones! These headphones will be for my trip to Hong Kong/China! :)

My other friend got me this:

It's a turtle plushie! As cute as it is and as much as I appreciate the gift, I just don't really like it that much. If this had been given to me two or three years ago, I'd probably be ecstatic. But I'm a big girl now! But I just don't have much of a use for it now. What I really want now is probably too expensive for most of my friends to buy! Nonetheless, he's still really nice for actually getting me a birthday gift! A big thank you to P.Pham! :) 

After my birthday, it was basically time for grad! On June 28th, it was our high school graduation! Basically, all the students had to arrive at 2:30 to pick up our black gowns/robes. The parents were to arrive at 4:00, which was when grad would be starting!

I sound kind of spoiled for saying this, but I was kind of upset that day. All the girls wore nice dresses and all the guys wore nice shirts, pants, and ties. See, my parents wouldn't buy me a new dress since I don't own any semi-formal dresses, and they wouldn't let me wear shorts because they felt that shorts were too informal. But come on, it was 33 degrees + over 600 people in a relatively small auditorium! I ended up going in a dress shirt and capris... I felt stupid as hell. Luckily, we were wearing the robe most of the time!

Anyways, the ceremony itself was complete bullshit. 75% of the time was used on award-winners. If you didn't win an award, you basically spent an hour and a half listening to teachers praise your fellow classmates while you sat and waited. There was a grand total of approx. 20 awards? Each award-winner was presented with a gift (ex: $75 dollar gift-card to Best Buy) and a 2-3 minute speech dedicated to them. They went up one by one ...

Everyone else? If you didn't win an award, you were called up 8 people at a time and then rushed off stage. They managed to burn through almost 200 people in 15 minutes of the 2-hour ceremony. Bullshit, right?

As happy as I am for fishandchips and her English award; sorry buddy, y'all award winners pissed me off.

Robe/gown return line

Graduating class composite!

I ended up taking a fair amount of pictures with my friends, classmates, and my favourite teachers! Grad was better than prom! Hehe.

Anyways, I'm going to make another post soon about my meet and greet experience for Raymond Wong! I'm currently waiting for my friend to send me her half of the photos she took! :)

Bye bye for now!

- eggtart

P.S - HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA! :)