We See Thee Rise

Yes, as you can (maybe) deduce from the title, I have the Canadian Anthem stuck in my head.
But more on that a bit later.
And yeah, I do realize that I've been bitching about people being irresponsible twice in the last ten days or so, and now I'm almost irresponsible enough not to post anything. I was really tempted to just forget about it - but I've done that with enough things already, so I can't let this slide, too.

School was alright today - I felt like a total Zombie this morning, but it was okay, and then there was Creative Writing first thing in the morning.
I handed in my "Out of Body Experience" thingy in again, because the first one was way to short (I hadn't know it was for marks!), and then Mr D collected our Journals and let us work on our headline poems - and good thing I'm thinking of it right now, I still need a "so" and a "with" for my poem! (It's always those small words that are the most trouble...)

I got all of yesterday's homework done during the Chapter explanation in Math, and then could even start (and half-way finish) today's homework. But I'll be mainly doing that tomorrow, seeing as we don't have any school!

Lunch ... was spent at Mr Derksen's and he handed me back my journal - and he praised me for it!
I was really proud of it, but reading what I had written out loud showed me the jumps I had in my thought process. I knew they were there, but I had never realized how bad it was! All the ideas seem only half formed, before I jump onto the next thing.

Spanish was alright, too - I got an 86% on my project (which is still an A and thus Awesome, because I hardly did anything) and 100% on today's listening comprehension.
There's a review test - for marks - on Tueday, but I'm not really worried - I got 98.7% or so on my final, so duh.

In Entrepreneurship, CiCi and I are really working with those boys, and they're super nice. I'm of course (as in most of my classes, if not even all of them) the youngest, seeing as I would be in Grade 10 in Germany and my classes this year are Grade 11, Grade 12, Grade 11 and Grade 12!
I don't mind though, and I guess I might even be more mature than most of my class mates? What do I know, maybe I'm just over-analyzing myself all the time, but I believe I appear pretty grown-up already (I've been told it's easy to forget that I am only a teenager when one is talking to me).

After school we had Journalism.
The article on the Rockets and Mr W is gonna be tough, but I'll manage. Not today, though, 'cos I'm pretty tired.

Andy picked me up after school, and we ate pretty quickly after coming home (steak, I believe, and [green] asparagus [Spargel] and potatoes and had delicious Valentine's cake and strawberries) and then I went to the Rockets game (with Andy, :D while the girls and Tanya did a scavenger's hunt all over the house - I didn't realize that the tickets would fall onto Valentine's day, and all of my friends had something else planned :/ ).

It wasn't the most amazing hockey I'd ever seen, but the Rockets beat the Silvertips 4-1 - and I'm still not sure that that one goal actually was a goal. But the referees and all the officials reviewed that play for more than 10 Minutes to determine whether the puck had gone in, and then they decided, yes, it was a goal, so everything afterwards had to be 'replayed'. But since the goal was at 19:29 of the second period, they just played the last 31 seconds (and yes, they actually played those last seconds and the Rockets had a lot of shots on goal) before the third period.
And at least the powerplay clicked, although I still can't get over the fact that the Powerplay is sponsored by Jiffy Lube... kinda unfortunate choice, in my opinion, but maybe you disagree... tumblr has ruined my mind.

And since the Kelowna Rockets (Canada) were playing the Everett Silvertips, they sang (live, as always) both the American National Anthem - and like last time, the whole stadium erupted when everybody screamed "Rockets!" during it - and the Canadian National Anthem.
And now I have the Canadian National Anthem stuck in my head along side with the Rockets goal songs, one of which is a special rendition of Def Leppard's "Rocket" - this link leads directly to the part that they have taken, but I can't find the actual Rockets version - and the other one is this song, 2 Unlimited's "Get Ready For This", which they also use as a means to rile up the crowds whilst waiting for a face-off!

So, and since it's approaching one o'clock quickly here now, I'm off to bed.
Yay!

Good night!

Help

EDIT: Before I start, here have a picture I enjoyed very much:

(From the tumblr post Shit WHL Players Say. Also features one of the Rockets and great thoughts on food, bubble wrap factories and The Hobbit... The WHL is the Western Hockey League, which is where the Rockets are playing.)

[EDIT: More laughter. Seriously, check it our, there are some gems!
For example:

And plenty of Rockets, too! All of that, here!

I can understand]




Help, fellow Germans!
I have a huge problem:
Do we actually say "Der Hund bellt"? I never realized how weird this sounds, please tell me I'm getting it wrong! Why would we say "bellt"?
"Bell" isn't a German word, is it?
...
I think I should go to bed. I'm making no sense, am I?

Anyway, today was pretty awesome - I interviewed Rourke during lunch, and even though it was a bit awesome and stilted at points, as neither of us had any idea how to do an interview, he was surprisingly forth-coming - at least considering how unenthusiastic he's been the first couple of times I saw him.

They're playing Everett tomorrow, and guess what?
I got tickets!
I know it's Valentine's day, but what do we say in Bavaria?
An gschenktn Gaul schaut ma ned ins Maul, which sums it up pretty neatly. (Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. I won't elaborate further here, but I'm sure you can guess/deduce what that means)

Although I had a pretty lengthy list of questions, it took me about half an hour - most of the answers I got were pretty unsurprising, but very interesting!

School itself was okay - not great, a bit boring, and I still haven't done my Math homework - but I got more than halfway through it during Math itself, so I think I'm gonna do it tomorrow during lunch. Doesn't make a difference whether I'm reading or doing Math, y'know?
In Spanish we finally held our presentations, and I think it wasn't too bad. Not great, but for the effort I put into it, it's gotta be awesome (I mean the relation of effort to outcome. VERY little effort :) )

And remember me bitching about those irresponsible teammates of mine in Entrepreneurship?
Well, let's just say I've been disappointed once more.
Our group was three girls - me, a Chinese international student (she finishes her education here) and a Canadian girl with whom I was at the OC [Okanagan College] for lunch - I might have mentioned it. And I really should learn to listen to my gut, because my gut was telling me "this is not perfect, Julia, this isn't what you were looking for". But since the Canadian girl already had an idea and kinda an outline for the business thingy, I shoved that down. - Not that I didn't really like the idea, I said I was indifferent about it, remember?
Well, today I missed the first part of the lesson because I had to go and squeal about the tickets and stuff, so I went to see Mr M, and when I came back, the girl was nowhere to be seen and CiCi also didn't know where she'd gone. When she finally did come back, she informed us: "I dropped the course."
I'm of course like WTF?! but well... nothing to be done...
CiCi and I asked to join a couple of boys since our teammate had bailed on us, and while they said they had to talk it over with their third teammate who wasn't there today, they believed it wouldn't be a problem.

Well, and that was about my day...
I'm invited to a birthday party on Saturday evening, with Claire, my friend from English, and that's it...
(I bailed on the gym because my right knee was feeling like there was a needle being jabbed repeatedly into the Hoffa's fat pad - like between the kneecap and the meniscus or what do I know, it hurt like hell; and my left knee felt like it was falling apart. I hate my knees, I seriously do.)

So have a great night/day!

Rattled and Shaken

My week and time in general have been rather great lately - so it was of course inevitable to have that crash rather spectacularly.

It started out with way too little sleep, although I'm not even complaining about that anymore (the only downside here is that I am really tired now but in desperate need of a skyping session :/), and then Creative Writing, which was great as always.
I have realized that I lose the ability to recognize sarcasm though when I'm tired... :D

Math was rather easy, so I probably made a whole bunch of silly mistakes. Who cares? Not me today. (I hope that stays that way)
I lent my notes to the German exchange student that has transferred into our Math class right today, and we left the class ridiculously early after I was finished with my test.

During lunch I talked to Mr W, and I will talk to Rourke Chartier (and trust me it's hard to believe that he is only one year and 20 days - exactly - older than me ...), so I compiled questions in collaboration with Mr M - probably too many to ask, but there's just so much interesting stuff!

Spanish was boring as ever, but we're finally doing our group presentations - and one of our members was absent, so we were unfortunately unable to hold our own. Such a misfortune! (Please do note the sarcasm.)

Entrepreneurship... well, we've got our marketing idea, although I am rather indifferent about it. I can't really tell you anything - our competition might steal our secrets! (Ha. Ha. There are no secrets.)

After school, Andy picked me up after I talked to Mr Smith, the librarian (and OMFG, HE HAS A LAB THAT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE DUSTIN!!!!!!!!!! Made me miss my poor doggy all that much more), and dropped me off at the gym Marina dragged me to (she offered and I didn't wanna cancel even after I changed hostfamily, and it's a pretty nice gym - and good for me :) I gained about ten to fifteen pound, so I desperately need to go and work out again!) and guess who I saw:

Yes, exactly. Marina.
I wasn't expecting her, to say the least. In all the three months I've been to the gym relatively regularly - especially before Christmas I went every day after school - I had never once seen her. So when I enter the change rooms with a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach and spy her sitting on the bench hunched over her shoes at the other end, let's just say I panicked. I didn't even really see her, only her silhouette, but that was enough for my heart beat to spike, the blood to start pounding in my carotid artery (in your neck) and my ears and for my body to react instantly by ducking into one of the cubicles for changing before she could see me and hiding out therein until I was sure the change rooms were deserted.
I might or might not have texted Andy totally rattled... (Spoiler Alert: I did)

Well, I plugged my headphones in, was unbelievably jumpy while changing and then did my best to keep my head down and ignore her in the gym.

She passed by me a couple of times while I was on the stationary bike, and I was insanely aware of her every move, so that was not a pleasant visit.

I talked to Andy about it, about how that reaction wasn't the best and I shouldn't let her over-power me so much even after three months, but well, that was exactly the reason why I wanted to change:
She induced panic in me and made me feel helpless, powerless and small.
And especially without any kind of warning I wasn't able to stand up to her.
I'm usually not at all afraid to speak my mind (although I have become way more self-conscious over the years, I can suppress these second thoughts pretty thoroughly), but in that moment I was caught completely off guard.
So now I know I can expect her, and maybe psyche myself up before hand - and I really should at least greet her nicely, because I don't want anybody to say that I am rude. (I'm usually not, just too absorbed in my head, so sorry).
And all that turmoil is making me kinda homesick - or at least makes me long for home (and yes, there is a difference :) )...

And then of course the Blackhawks went on to lose tonight's game (fortunately in a Shootout, so their Undefeated-in-Regulation-Streak continues) and the Oilers did the same (after having the lead! Urgh, that team!)

So yeah, although my day was rather good, I am a bit down now.
And tired...
So I'm waiting for my mom to skype, and then I'm going to bed.

G'night everybody!

126 Days of no hockey. 510 games lost. Was that all really necessary?

 Here is my article from the January issue that was messed up in print :D

Enjoy!

 

Yes, say the players and owners. As the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) ran out in September, the NHL and the NHLPA met behind the negotiation tables with varying success. More than once inside sources spoke of promising proposals, which were only shot down again in the end.

Finally, after 113 days of meetings, stoppages of contact and 16-hour power session, the two sides reached a ‘tentative agreement on a ten year CBA’. The new deal splits the revenue 50%-50% between owners and players, which is a recession of 7% for the latter group. Other changes include sterner rules regarding the salary cap with punishment for trying to circumvent it by giving players multi-million deals with years of only $1 million tacked to the end to keep the cap hit down.

The deal was almost last minute; only a few days more and the entire season would have had to be cancelled. The NHL set the deadline for an agreement for January 11, reasoning that if they couldn’t start by January 19, the season would be too short. 

The season is shortened as it is with the 30 teams playing 48 games each instead of the usual 82 before the playoffs. What determines this year who plays in the playoffs isn't how long the teams can endure and how well they can preserve their energy. This year what matters is how well the team starts off at the beginning of the season. Since there is less time, more back-to-back games will be played, inviting injury. Some teams also have the advantage of players who are already warmed up, having played in Switzerland like Patrick Kane (Chicago Blackhawks) and Tyler Seguin (Boston Bruins), Germany like Claude Giroux and Daniel Brière (Philadelphia Flyers) or the KHL as several Russian stars such as Alexander Ovechkin (Washington Capitals) or Evgeni Malkin (Pittsburgh Penguins) have done.

One question, however, remains: Will the fans come back?
The reactions were mixed after the lockout ended two weeks ago. Some fans were overjoyed that hockey was back. Some were, maybe rightly, not so amused with the NHL's antics. 

Gary Bettman, commissioner for the NHL and one of the two main figures involved in the lockout business, has already apologized. So have some of the teams. But will it be enough? Will a simple apology get back fans who have been angered by the second lockout in 8 years?