Paralympics 2012: Truly Inspirational Athletes

"Sport has the power to change the world, it has the power to unite people in a way that little else does"--Nelson Mandela

I always look for quotes to start these things off because I feel like they set a tone for what I'm writing and can sum up what I want to convey without me pretending to be philosophical and inventing my own quotes. After attending a Paralympic event the other week this quote really spoke to me. The whole world watches the Olympics and for a brief period of time everyone is united in the fact that we are watching these athletes compete together, watching them meet people from all over the world and how they all represent their countries. Each country wants their own to win, but I always find myself rooting for everyone playing, especially if who I want to win is not competing. Sports, especially international events such as the Olympics and Paralympics, really do bring people together.

Needless to say I was extremely excited to be living in England during the games. A few friends and I made our way over to the stadium and sat in the nosebleed section, which has a surprisingly amazing view. The entire stadium was filled and a record number of attendees were there that night. It was a cool thing to be a part of. The atmosphere was incredible. Excitement was oozing from everyone. You just don't get that enough in daily life.

The Olympics are ridiculously impressive and to me are the ultimate challenge for athletes. The Paralympics, at least in my opinion, represent more than that and require more mental and physical strength to overcome their disability, to take control of their lives and adapt to what it has dealt them, and to obtain a world renowned level of athleticism. I feel like I am a decently in shape person and I love working out; I do it every day. I felt like a tub of lard sitting in the stands, the entire bag of snack food I had brought didn't help, as I watched people who were missing limbs, had mental illnesses, and lacked vision or hearing competing at such a high standard. No one has an excuse to not exercise, especially after seeing something like this.

We were lucky enough to get to see a track and field event, meaning we got to see TONS of events. When we got there javelin throwing was the main event. This quickly turned into about 4 different events going on at once and none of us knew which event to concentrate on. We just wanted to see everything.

We saw a Chinese man jump over 15m and set a new world record. He then did his second jump and broke his world record. I can barely jump 4ft much less 15m....    

The main events were the 100m heats for various different disabilities. We had no idea which heats were which as they called them things like T45 or T52. Not exactly explanatory, but we had fun nevertheless. The blade runners were by far one of my favorites. They are never the same length as the uninjured leg and they walk awkwardly. Not sure why they don't have blades that would make their legs even. Does anyone know?

Several world records were broken that night. We definitely picked a fantastic night to attend! My favorite race was the T52. Here's a picture so you know what I'm talking about.

 Toooooo cool!! We also got to see some world champions and the one and only Pistorius! He won his heat by about a mile.

The last events of the day were the blind 100m heats. There were varying degrees of sight capabilities and some could race without a guide. I can only imagine the courage it takes to run full speed at a target you can't see while being watched by thousands of people. These athletes really set the bar high for what a person can achieve.

If anyone reading this ever gets a chance to go see a Paralympic event I highly recommend it. It is just as thrilling, and much more inspirational, than a regular sporting event. As a huge sports fanatic I had high hopes, which were undoubtedly surpassed. I'm just happy that I got to experience it for myself. Go see the games and cheer on your country and all of the competitors! A chance like this doesn't come very often!

P.S. They had little remote controlled mini coopers that acted like carts to carry the javelins back to the athletes. We really got a kick out of them. It was a funny and unique way of doing things.

And yes I made odd sound effects every time I saw it move around.

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear."--Ambrose Redmoon

Road Trip Part 1--Ping Pong, Stalling, and Castles

“The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” – Saint Augustine



One of my best friends, Sarah, had decided to visit me from the States. We courageously planned to teach ourselves how to drive a manual and rented a car to take us on an epic journey up the East Coast of England to Scotland and back down the West Coast. My parents and friends tried to talk me out of it.  Knowing me, it was a losing battle. Sarah and I have a knack for having hilarious and completely random adventures together and this one was by no means an exception, but the icing on the cake.

Sarah flew from the States and landed at 7am and drove from London to Leicester for the first time driving on the left hand side of the road... Did I mention it was in LONDON?? This girls has some cajones. If you don't know what that means...look it up but don't use google image unless you want a vulgar surprise ;-)

Back to the trip. Sarah and I spent the two days exploring Leicester. We went everywhere that anyone could possibly go in Leicester like the Newarke Museum, Cathedrals, Leicester Uni, New Walk Museum, parks, Guildhall, etc. We then discovered Leicester had assembled ping pong tables everywhere and we quickly took over a table for 2 hours. That may seem like a long time to bounce a small ball across a net with wooden paddles, but I'm guessing you have never played ultimate ping pong with no paddles. Sarah and I became bored with the normal version and decided to ditch the paddles and whack the ball as hard as we could without paddles and even if it went off the table we still  smacked it around. This led to the ball being lost several times and us playing in the bushes at one point. Everyone else got some entertainment too, so it was a win win situation.


Here's a demonstration of the shenanigans and the extent to what we had to do to retrieve the ball.

Sarah and I know how to have fun doing just about anything. One of the many things I love about her.

The next morning we had a lovely 5am wake up call and hit the road to Edinburgh. Poor Sarah had to drive the entire 6 hours because I hadn't learned how to drive manual yet. When we arrived at the parking lot after getting lost we decided to go to Edinburgh Castle first. On the way we saw a bagpipe parade that started the second we crossed the street in front of them. Thanks Edinburgh for welcoming us like that. No where else gave us a parade :-p

It was a hike and a half up the hill where they used to torture people. Great thoughts to get you encouraged enough to keep going... Once we got there it starting raining... SHOCK. We toured every single room you could possibly go into including the: dungeons, royal jewels, war memorial, canon area, and one of the halls. 

The pictures do it so much more justice than words. Next on our list was to just walk around outside and enjoy the view and we did just that. We could literally see ALL of Edinburgh from up there. How in the world people would decided it was a good idea to storm that castle is beyond me. I think they were a little wr

ong in the head. If you didn't have a stroke running up the steep incline and somehow managed to miss the arrows and flaming pots of poo being rained down on you then you had to get over the walls or through the gate. If I happened to be a male warrior attempting to besiege the castle in the past I would've just laughed at my commanding officer and patted him on the back and said good luck and then mutter "..idiot".

Next on our tourist to do list we went to the National Museum of Scotland. For those of you who read my previous blog about the trip to the Irish National Museum you will be pleased to know Scotland knows how to build a fantastic museum. There was only one flaw to this plan. Sarah decided we should start at the top of the museum and work our way down. Folks, never do this. They put the boring stuff on top and the ridiculously fun and interactive things on the bottom to rope people in. We discovered that sad fact 10 minutes before it was closing. We walked downstairs expecting to find more boring things only to find we could've spent our time looking at cloned sheep, mega sloths, rockets, and racing formula 1 cars. It was a sad and slightly embarrassing moment in the lives of Sarah and Emma as we realized our stupidity. Oops. BUT never fear we came back 2 days later, which you'll hear about later.

We did get to see these things on our journeys at the top of the building:

In case you're wondering the top left picture is a bear claw necklace. The bee picture is a creepy but fascinating perpetual motion clock. The bottom left picture is a really complicated locking trunk that I'm convinced was the inspiration of Mad Eye Moody's trunk. Last but not least is the bottom right picture of an Anglo-Saxon Brooch.
 YAY history! At this point Sarah and I were TIRED from walking over the entire castle and all over Edinburgh after getting no sleep and driving for what felt like decades. We decided to get one last picture and the Olympics statue and then make the 30 minute drive to our hotel. For those of you who think all hotels in Britain are typical... think again.

As we drove to our hotel up the driveway we had to compose ourselves before going inside. It was a flipping CASTLE. The reception area had an enormous fireplace with suits of armor flanking it with a gigantic moose looking skull mounted above it. If that doesn't scream castle then the stuff boar in the living room does. 

We were in love. We had dinner inside before heading to our rooms in another building. We met the owner and were given permission to explore the whole castle. He obviously didn't know what he had just set loose in his beloved castle. We sang songs in the music room as I accompanied myself on the piano in a very unprofessional sounding way since I'm awful at playing piano. Then we pretended to be philosophical in the library and climbed the ladders to look for more books, but we were really just taking pictures. We also walked around with ridiculously stereotypical British butler accents. It just felt so right, but seeing as we were dressed in jeans and sweatshirts it probably looked like a bunch of nutters were meandering around the castle. 

Then we let ourselves into the garden and discovered.. SLUGS. Slugs were EVERYWHERE. We went for a walk and I'm pretty sure I accidentally killed about 50 just by walking. They are surprisingly camouflaged. 

In case there are slug lovers reading this blog, I really did try to avoid them but it just wouldn't work. I like to think I helped the human race by protecting them from slug invasion, which was obviously being plotted.

Look out for next week's blog for part 2 of the trip!

“We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.” – John Hope Franklin

The Archaeology of Sheep

"Live as if you will die tomorrow. Learn as if you will live forever." --Mahatma Gandhi

For my Landscape Archaeology class we were assigned to carry out a survey of a site of our professors' choosing. We ended up driving to Cold Newton. It is suspected to be a Roman villa sitting inside a prehistoric enclosure. As we packed up the Land Rover it became apparent there weren't enough seats so one of us would have to sit in the back. The two professors got the front seats. Peter is about as tall as a tree so it was obvious he was not going to be squished. James is a pretty big guy and taller than me so he got the backseat and not the trunk area. Me being tiny... I like to call myself fun sized... got the small area behind the magnetometer, total station, rods, reels, ropes, tapes, resistivity stuff, everyone's bags and their shoes. Lucky me!

On the way to an archaeological site you generally learn that everyone has a blunt, crass and genuinely dirty side. We decided to tell awful pick up lines to pass the time. Here's a small sample:

"I hear you have some good earthworks. Can I survey your field?"

"I'm going to stick these probes all over that field."

"Those are some mighty fine probes you have there. Standard size?"

Yes I know we're gross, but it's entertaining and slightly awkward when it's around people who are going to be grading your papers.

We get there the first day and set up the baseline and start to survey the field and I was on resistivity duty with James, Peter and my professor Mark. We had to set up lines to walk evenly so the picture of what lies below is not distorted. One thing about that field is the poop... I have NEVER seen so much sheep poop in my life. If I was in a horror movie about poop this would be the mother of all site locations. Don't worry there isn't a picture for that. You're welcome.

Moving on... I have gotten stuck with a project that analyzes oysters from Dudley castle to determine change over time and where the oysters originated for various reasons. I have had to analyze over 6000 and have about 3 times more of that to do over the summer. This is how a casual conversation went during the dig.

Mark- (to no one in particular) "I wonder who that poor person is who got stuck analyzing those billions of oyster shells is."

Me- (shoulders slump, slow turn, desperately sad look on my face) .... it's me....

Mark- "wow you got screwed"

You know you have a crap task when a professor says that to you.

The next day was a torrential downpour like I had never seen before so we got the day off... but not before being forced to walk to campus and get the results of our previous surveys and then walk back.

We went out the day after once it had cleared up. Just picture a field of sheep quietly grazing in an English countryside. That's what it was like the first day. Not sure what triggered it, but the next day was the sheep version of Alfred Hitchcock's "Birds". EVERY sheep and there were probably 100 were running towards the flimsy gate baaaahing their heads off. A few of them even tried to ram their heads against the gate to try and open it. To an American this is alarming... especially one with a bad history with sheep. When I was younger I tried to pet a sheep and all it tried to do was eat my shorts I was wearing. I've never liked sheep since unless they are cooked and on a plate in front of me. I guess that's karma.

My reaction to this Hitchcock-esque sheep "attack" and the fact that I had to go into this field went something like this:

I remained unscathed and survived the sheeps' psychological warfare. Every now and again when I was standing by a hedge one would baaa at me in a strangely low tone out of nowhere. Not a reassuring occurrence. I think they knew I rather enjoy lamb.

As we surveyed the field we had to hold the cord that connected the machine to the probes in the ground. The other person not jamming the machine into the ground has to move the marker line another meter away to they can continuously survey. This being extremely boring decided to make it interesting. I would run along and move the lines which can only be described as doing what the ribbon twirlers in the olympics do then sprinted towards the other end of the field, did a limbo move under the other wire and people walking. I also performed zumba (I teach it) at random points of the day. Needless to say everyone was amused. Well minus my professor who I managed to entangle and trip... twice... good thing he has a sense of humor! Maybe there was a reason I ended up in the back of the land rover each time. Cool kid section? Yeah, I'll go with that. 

2 weeks later and I STILL can't get the poop off my boots. Stupid sheep.

We had one last day out in the field so I donned my stylish poop encrusted boots. I bet that's a pleasant mental image, but just imagine how I felt actually wearing them. We mapped out the entire field to get a topographical map. It went flawlessly with the sheep except for one encounter with a very determined lamb.  I had noticed a lamb had lost its mother and was running around the field making noise and exploring. I pointed it out to my friend Pete and at that very second it stopped, turned around from running in the opposite direction and looked at me dead in the eye. 

At this point it's about 50ft away from me so I'm thinking okay no big deal it's a lamb I've probably eaten ones bigger than this. I swear it thought I was it's mother. It ran at a full sprint right at me. At this point I am slightly uncomfortable on the inside, but trying to remain calm on the outside. This lamb aka undercover assassin stopped about 10ft from where I was and just stared at me and followed me around for 10 minutes. I'm convinced all it wanted to do was scare me. Mission: Complete. 

It's time for another one of my drawings.... Yes I know it looks like a fuzzy crocodile, but it was just as menacing. As a general warning to the public: Watch out for lambs. They have an evil side.

"The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read." --Mark Twain