Monthly Outlook: September 2008

Wow, haven't made one of these in a while.

Recap: Went to Seattle with my sister for a few weeks. Like the city. Found a place, looked around, bought some stuff, watched a lot of Olympics! And then the U.S. Open! So a very vacation/sports-watching month.

Outlook: I get to start graduate school. Hopefully it isn't too stressful. I don't really know what to expect and I have little idea of what I am doing (research-wise) so it will be interesting. Probably a bit stressful too. But at least I have my brother who can help me.

Events/Activities: U.S. Open, college sports?

Goals: to not spend too much money, to start learning French, to study more Croatian history

Serbian Pretty Boys

What is up with Serbia and the pretty? With Ana Ivanović and Jelena Janković being some of the prettiest girls on tour, you would think there are pretty boys as well. Well I just found another one.

Ilija Vučić. Makes me feel like a pedophile for thinking him pretty, but I can't help it. Along with Marko Đoković and for a pretty man (older than me for once) Viktor Troicki what can I do? I can only ogle them! Just kidding...

Croatia may have Mario Ančić and Niko Kranjčar, but somehow the Serbs beat the Croats in the pretty, at least at this moment...

Not So Easy to be #1 on the WTA Tour

It's kind of funny how easy it is to lose.  How there are nerves and excitement but not fear.  Julie Coin had no fear facing Ana Ivanovic.  Ana had no fear of losing.  But the livestream I watched had commentators that kept saying that Julie Coin was doing the impossible, and I wanted to beat them up.

Come on, guys.  You guys know Ana.  You know more than her numbers.  You know how streaky she is, how she hasn't put back to back tournaments together, how she is fighting a thumb injury.  You also have eyes, and you can see that her timing is off sometimes, that she has some doubts on how to feel when hitting the ball, that she is lacking a bit of confidence.  So fucking shut up!

Most people are not Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, or Justine Henin.  Most of the "top" girls are so used to being Justine's fodder that they didn't think about dominating.  They just thought about getting there, not staying there.  In addition, I think the fast courts of the U. S. Open are not Ana's favorite places to play.  I think clay is her thing, and then Australia because she just so energized for it.  Even as the top seed I was never expecting Ana to win this slam at this moment.  But it would have been nice if she had gotten farther...

The good thing about this loss is hopefully an opening for Amelie Mauresmo.  Amelie has struggled with confidence for a while, but has come through two tough matches in 3 sets.  I hope she takes care of Julie.  And hopefully tomorrow Jelena can find some form.  She won a match but should have been more aggressive.  It's worse when Sveta starts playing defensive, which isn't happening.  Sveta is loving the courts here and is looking the nicest of my girls, while Dinara is outhitting everyone once she gets the ball in play (those double faults need to go away!).  So hope one of the four girls above can win.  Though Jelena playing mixed doubles with Fernando Verdasco...wtf?  You are already tired - what are you doing?

On the men's side Marin is coming of age.  He's confident after that Pilot Pen title for sure!  I think he prefers the clay and the grass.  And Victor is doing awesome too!  And Tsonga is back from injury and being more and more like himself!  I will concentrate on the men to be happy since I don't think the women are going to make me happy...but you never know, I guess...

Reorganization

So I'm going to rearrange the side part a bit. I know it's a bit overcrowded at the moment, and I realized that I really just love and/or appreciate way too many people. So each category is going to be cut down to 10 or less. So that means I won't be listing all of my favorite soccer players or tennis players at the same time. And I'm keeping the top part so that you can quickly get the lowdown on what kind of mood/state I am in, since things like favorite athletes don't change as often. I might add or change more categories as I play around with what I want to tell other people, but I won't be making note of it here. It's not like you won't notice it if you actually look at the screen.

U.S. Open Round 1 Preview

Things go crazy fast in the sports world. Just as the Olympics end, the U.S. Open begins. It's a recipe for getting no work done once again.

This year's open is much more exciting for a few reasons. Firstly it's Nadal's first tournament as the #1 seed. Secondly it features the return of Australian Open finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Thirdly this tournament is only a week from the Olympics in which Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic played until the last day. Fourthly there is the crazy battle for #1 at the top of the women's rankings. Fifthly, strong hard court tournament showings by Andy Murray, Gilles Simon, Nicolas Kiefer, Juan Martin del Potro, Marin Cilic, Dinara Safina, Caroline Wozniacki, and Dominika Cibulkova are going to be put to the test. Sixthly, Jelena's leg problems, Ana's thumb problems, and Sveta's head problems may or may not spell disaster for the top. We'll see...

1st round women's matchups of note (to me):
Nathalie Dechy vs. Amelie Mauresmo - they know each other so well, should be very competitive
Nicole Vaidisova vs. Petra Cetkovska
Shahar Peer vs. Na Li
Tamira Paszek vs. Maria Kirilenko

The women's favorites play the following 1st round matches:
Ana Ivanovic vs. Vera Dushevina
Dinara Safina vs. Kristie Haerim Ahn
Serena Williams vs. Kateryna Bondarenko
Venus Williams vs. Sam Stosur
Elena Dementieva vs. Akgul Amanmuradova
Svetlana Kuznetsova vs. Shuai Zhang
Jelena Jankovic vs. Coco Vanderweghe

1st round men's matchups of note (to me):
Tomas Berdych vs. Sam Querrey
Kei Nishikori vs. Juan Monaco
Juan Martin del Potro vs. Guillermo Canas
Ernests Gulbis vs. Thomas Johansson
Marin Cilic vs. Julien Benneteau
Nicolas Almagro vs. Frank Dancevic
Tommy Haas vs. Richard Gasquet - maybe the best

The men's favorites play the following 1st round matches:
Rafael Nadal vs. Bjorn Phau
Novak Djokovic vs. Arnaud Clement
Roger Federer vs. Maximo Gonzalez

I think Jelena has the easiest opener of the women's favorites and Venus or Serena the hardest, but they should all win. Novak has the hardest of the men's favorite and Rafa should have the easiest if he is on form. We'll see.

Darkhorses for a deep run or the title include Wozniacki, Cibulkova, Cornet, Radwanska, Gulbis, Blake, del Potro, Murray, Safin. For the title the favorite should be Nadal on the men's side and the women's side is a complete mess, so probably Serena Williams. Now if some guy breaks through on the men's side it would be pretty awesome (aka another Tsonga), but I really hope one of the favorites win on the women's side. They need some steadying faces so that women's tennis can get more popular and more respect!

I take it back

I understand why I was so easily able to pick out the love triangle in Alphabet Thorn. It's because McKillip had more important things on her mind. Despite some bouts of predictability, the story of Alphabet Thorn was very well thought out and executed. It built well to a very nice climax and I was easily reading 2 pages/minute at the end. Which isn't that fast, considering the large font and all, but since I haven't been reading much recently, I think that it's a pretty good pace.

There are many other times in my life where I have had a first impression and had to change it. That's why, as I've gotten older, I've been more reluctant to make immediate judgements. For example, I used to dislike Fernando Verdasco for his one moment of gamesmanship against Andy Roddick. But then he does things like accompany Paul-Henri Mathieu to the hospital after an on-court accident. And his overall niceness to fans is a big plus.

So one day I'll read those Harry Potter books that I shunned when they first came out, and find a way to appreciate golf. But for now, I'm taking things as they are.

Too Predictable

I am currently reading Alphabet Thorn by Patricia McKillip and I already know the love interests.  She's too obvious with them, but I guess she doesn't care because that's not the focus of the story.  I'm a bit disappointed with the book, though.  I think I've grown out of her unfortunately...

I read plenty of stuff that is cliched or predictable but that stuff is usually free and written by amateur writers.  McKillip still excels at using twisty sentences that make the magic in her books feel like random objects that prickle or caress.  But I guess I expected more.

I think my own writing is devolving somewhat into teenage plots, but when I go over the plots in my head I can't help but laugh.  I guess I really need to write crack so my head isn't full of it anymore.

Seattle and the Olympics

So here's a life update. And then I'll add a bit more on the Olympics, since they are half of my life at the moment.

Seattle was nice. I think I'm going to like it there. The weather was pretty good, hotter than expected and quite sunny. I spent three of the days in the first week taking care of housing stuff and bank accounts. Two or three days for shopping for stuff to live. So really only a week of real stuff. I got to see some relatives (I'm not sure what the term is for them but my mom's cousin and husband and kids) and we gave them the ridiculously huge red Fuwa stuffed mascot thingy that my brother got in Beijing. I went with my sister to Pike's Place Market and did lots of browsing, got lost in a bunch of underground and above-ground malls, looked at lots of furniture stores (I like looking at furniture, so what), went to the Seattle Art Museum, the Museum of Glass, Henry Art Gallery, hiking once, Olympic Sculpture Park and Space Needle area (did not go up it). So not really much - like 5-6 hours out, played some tennis, did laundry, went on the internet a lot. Probably could have blogged, but I was on vacation. I could have also continued to study Croatian, but took a break. If only that beautiful language wasn't so hard to learn... Yes watched a lot of Olympics, more than half of a J-drama of epic emo proportions (enjoyed the realistic portrayal of a lesbian and her situation, remembered how Japanese actors border on the side of pretty and not on the side of hot). The only thing that really sucked about Seattle was the airport. Took forever to get luggage, and then almost missed my flight back home!

Side note, since my mind is jumpy. It is quite unfortunate that none of the beach volleyballers that I have seen are truly hot. Yes they all have nice bodies and I wouldn't mind being the bitch of most of them, but compared to tennis players they fail. So I guess I should be happy I follow such a hot sport haha... Um yeah, and Michael Phelp's face is ugly. He looks better with the swim cap and goggles on - maybe I can somewhat pretend he looks different? Ryan Lochte pwns all in male swimmer hotness - at least that I know of. Let's say I rather watch track. I shoud really go for gymnasts, since they are actually close to my height, but so many of them just look goofy...

So let's actually talk results. The Olympics have been quite interesting and enjoyable. I do find myself being a bit patriotic but somewhat not, and wanting China to sometimes do well and sometimes not. I like Dara Torres, even with the people who doubt that she's clean (aka not doping) but I didn't really like the idea of Phelps getting 8 golds here. Yet I didn't root against him - sometimes rooted for "him" - aka rooted for the USA relays. I rather the US win over Australia in swimming, so what. In gymnastics I just wanted to see clean routines, though people messing up allowed the US men to get 3rd in team finals. The women's all-around was perhaps the best competition to watch and super happy for Nastia and Shawn. Liked Yang Wei too, despite how painful it was to watch his high bar routine. Fabian! Unfortunately could have gotten silver had he stayed on. Life happens and Sasha Artemev would have medaled had he stayed on the horse in pommel finals...

What is really sucky is that Liu Xiang is out for track. Meanwhile Jamaican 21-year olds have been tearing up the 100 m distance in crazy races. I think if I ran on the Beijing track I would get a PB as well... U.S. Track isn't doing as well as it should this time. I do think that the 200 m will also be a cracker, and can't wait to see the relays!

(Crazy) Stuff Happens

I'm back from Seattle, yay.  We barely made the flight home after waiting in line to check in for over an hour.  So no food on the flight.  But came home and got to watch Michael Phelps get his 8th gold medal and NBC's showing of the craziest 100m dash ever.  Usain Bolt is a freak of nature.  I don't think I am going to forget that race for a very, very, very long time.