A Year Ago, Among Other Thing

It’s amazing how things can change in a year. A year ago I started this blog, and over two hundred patchworks have been added to it. A year ago I was still in university, wondering what the future of my education would hold. Now, I’m nearly done that future education and still wondering what the future will hold. I know roughly where I’m going… Australia…marriage…but aside from that I have no idea. Things have shifted so monumentally in the last year that I hardly believe it. A year ago, Heath Ledger had just died while Patrick Swazye and Michael Jackson were still alive.

I hardly believe that I’m the same person I was on February 1, 2009. Truth be told, maybe I’m not. I’m a year older, I’m a year wiser. I’m still me but—different. Strange how I didn’t feel that way on my birthday but I’m feeling it in abundance now. Maybe this stems from the fact that I don’t believe that I’ve ever been so consistent at keep a journal or blog. To be sure again, I wrote often when I was child, there was no one else to talk to. I have people to talk to know and I tell them all that’s here but…there’s something so cathartic about writing.

Writing—my one true passion in life. I love teaching, I really do. I feel like I can make a difference in the world and I will never give it a half effort, but I will always write, striving to become a published author. And you know, there’s something about that combination that strikes me now like it never has before. This weekend while searching for background music I stumbled across some Anne of Green Gables video and had the entire first movie (1985) in the background when the realization struck…I’m striving to be like Anne.

I know it sounds silly, striving to do something or be something like a character from a book but it’s the truth. I know that I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I’ve been writing since grade three or even earlier. I used to make up stories with my friends—not stories like in a book, but games and role-playing sorts of stories with faeries and skeletons and the like but in grade six I was first exposed to Anne and her world. I remember sitting at he back of the room, gosh I can picture it now, I remember watching the mini-series and having the character of Anne strike a chord within me. Only now, looking back did I realise how similar we are.

I’m not an orphan, nor do I have red hair. But I always longed for kindred spirits in my life and it hasn’t been until recently (if you can call within the last quarter of my life recently) that I’ve found them. I don’t’ have many friends, I don’t think that I ever will but there is one (and girl you know who you are) who I feel closer to despite the fact that she lives half way around the world. When I was younger, I also longed for a Gilbert to my Anne. I thought many times that I had found him in the forever unnamed crushes from my elementary school years but I met him when I was thirteen (which ironically is how old Anne was when she met Gil). I was instantly drawn to him, the lone guy at an animal adoption agency and we quickly became the best of friends. When he got himself a girlfriend I felt as though I had lost something profound and it forced me to realize that I liked him a lot more then just a friend….

…to make a long story short, I ended up dating that guy and I continue to ‘date’ him to this day. My fiancée is the most wonderful man in the world. He’s thoughtful and caring and sweet and loving and he makes me laugh and me makes me think and he sometimes irritates me to no end but I love him for it. I am in love with him for all those things and more…

….and I’m rambling. I’m not sure what the point of this post is. All I know that is a lot of things have changed in the last three-hundred and sixty five days and come a year from now things will have changed even more. I’ll be married, with a home of my own and hopefully a budding career (writing or teacher). I feel like I’m akin to Anne in so many ways and as I go forward into the future I will keep this one thing in my mind

“Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes in it (yet)” –Anne of Green Gables.

2010 Four Continents IV

And on the final day of competition, the mens results from isuresults.com are as follows;

1	Adam RIPPON	USA	225.78	7	1
2	Tatsuki MACHIDA	JPN	217.48	6	2
3	Kevin REYNOLDS	CAN	212.99	1	8
4	Brandon MROZ	USA	212.68	3	5
5	Ryan BRADLEY	USA	212.19	8	3
6	Nan SONG	CHN	209.68	2	6
7	Shawn SAWYER	CAN	206.34	10	4
8	Jialiang WU	CHN	203.60	5	7
9	Jinlin GUAN	CHN	195.66	9	9
10	Denis TEN	KAZ	172.65	4	14
11	Joey RUSSELL	CAN	171.44	12	10
12	Yasuharu NANRI	JPN	171.36	11	11
13	Abzal RAKIMGALIEV	KAZ	156.91	13	15
14	Min-Seok KIM	KOR	153.09	16	12
15	Kento NAKAMURA	JPN	152.69	17	13
16	Stephen Li-Chung KUO	TPE	148.96	14	16
17	Kevin ALVES	BRA	130.76	19	17
18	Mark WEBSTER	AUS	129.73	15	19
19	Matthew PRECIOUS	AUS	127.09	18	18
20	Wun-Chang SHIH	TPE	101.87	20	20

Kevin Reynolds our Canadian who was leading after the short basically blew his brains out and was eigth in the long and dropped to third. The American who won had a brilliant long and I'm actually kinda glad that he won, despite the fact that he's an American.

And so ends the skating until te 2010 Olympics which is only 13 days away. ^_^ So excited!

2010 Four Continents III

After the third day of competitions, the results from isuresults.com are as follows;

Ladies

FPl.	Name	Nation	Points	SP	FS
1	Mao ASADA	JPN	183.96	3	1
2	Akiko SUZUKI	JPN	173.72	1	2
3	Caroline ZHANG	USA	160.78	4	3
4	Amanda DOBBS	USA	158.23	2	5
5	Haruka IMAI	JPN	155.29	5	6
6	Min-Jung KWAK	KOR	154.71	7	4
7	Amelie LACOSTE	CAN	152.45	6	8
8	Myriane SAMSON	CAN	150.90	8	7
9	Alexe GILLES	USA	140.88	9	9
10	Diane SZMIETT	CAN	140.10	10	10

and Ice Dance

FPl.	Name	Nation	Points	CD	OD	FD
1	Kaitlyn WEAVER / Andrew POJE	CAN	166.16	1	1	1
2	Allie HANN-MCCURDY / Michael CORENO	CAN	159.56	3	2	2
3	Madison HUBBELL / Keiffer HUBBELL	USA	154.20	4	4	4
4	Xintong HUANG / Xun ZHENG	CHN	150.38	2	3	7
5	Madison CHOCK / Greg ZUERLEIN	USA	148.92	5	5	5
6	Kharis RALPH / Asher HILL	CAN	147.38	7	8	3
7	Jane SUMMERSETT / Todd GILLES	USA	144.53	8	6	6
8	Xiaoyang YU / Chen WANG	CHN	141.55	6	7	8
9	Xueting GUAN / Meng WANG	CHN	127.06	9	9	9
10	Danielle OBRIEN / Gregory MERRIMAN	AUS	115.73	10	11	10
11	Corenne BRUHNS / Andrew LAVRIK	MEX	106.07	11	10	12
12	Maria BOROUNOV / Evgeni BOROUNOV	AUS	106.03	12	12	11

2010 Four Continents II

And after the second day of competition (all scores curtesy of http://www.isuresults.com/results)

Dance--After Compulsory and Original Dance

1	Kaitlyn WEAVER / Andrew POJE	CAN	81.09	1	1
2	Allie HANN-MCCURDY / Michael CORENO	CAN	78.10	3	2
3	Xintong HUANG / Xun ZHENG	CHN	77.33	2	3
4	Madison HUBBELL / Keiffer HUBBELL	USA	76.51	4	4
5	Madison CHOCK / Greg ZUERLEIN	USA	73.26	5	5
6	Xiaoyang YU / Chen WANG	CHN	70.64	6	7
7	Jane SUMMERSETT / Todd GILLES	USA	69.21	8	6
8	Kharis RALPH / Asher HILL	CAN	68.37	7	8
9	Xueting GUAN / Meng WANG	CHN	62.17	9	9
10	Danielle OBRIEN / Gregory MERRIMAN	AUS	55.02	10	11
11	Corenne BRUHNS / Andrew LAVRIK	MEX	52.04	11	10
12	Maria BOROUNOV / Evgeni BOROUNOV	AUS	49.54	12	12

Pair's Event--FINAL

FPl.	Name	Nation	Points	SP	FS
1	Dan ZHANG / Hao ZHANG	CHN	192.22	1	1
2	Keauna MCLAUGHLIN / Rockne BRUBAKER	USA	170.17	2	2
3	Meagan DUHAMEL / Craig BUNTIN	CAN	158.02	3	4
4	Caitlin YANKOWSKAS / John COUGHLIN	USA	157.49	4	3
5	Narumi TAKAHASHI / Mervin TRAN	JPN	151.83	7	5
6	Yue ZHANG / Lei WANG	CHN	146.60	6	6
7	Mylene BRODEUR / John MATTATALL	CAN	146.31	5	7
8	Huibo DONG / Yiming WU	CHN	136.05	9	8
9	Kirsten MOORE-TOWERS / Dylan MOSCOVITCH	CAN	135.76	8	9
10	Marissa CASTELLI / Simon SHNAPIR	USA	128.91	10	10
11	Amanda SUNYOTO-YANG / Darryll SULINDRO-YANG	TPE	116.49	11	11

Men's Event--Short

FPl.	Name	Nation	Points	SP	FS
1	Kevin REYNOLDS	CAN	81.60	1
2	Nan SONG	CHN	72.95	2
3	Brandon MROZ	USA	70.88	3
4	Denis TEN	KAZ	70.50	4
5	Jialiang WU	CHN	70.33	5
6	Tatsuki MACHIDA	JPN	69.60	6
7	Adam RIPPON	USA	69.56	7
8	Ryan BRADLEY	USA	66.22	8
9	Jinlin GUAN	CHN	64.60	9
10	Shawn SAWYER	CAN	62.36	10
11	Yasuharu NANRI	JPN	61.48	11
12	Joey RUSSELL	CAN	57.05	12
13	Abzal RAKIMGALIEV	KAZ	55.91	13
14	Stephen Li-Chung KUO	TPE	53.80	14
15	Mark WEBSTER	AUS	51.05	15
16	Min-Seok KIM	KOR	49.49	16
17	Kento NAKAMURA	JPN	49.24	17
18	Matthew PRECIOUS	AUS	47.44	18
19	Kevin ALVES	BRA	41.81	19
20	Wun-Chang SHIH	TPE	40.53	20
21	Nicholas FERNANDEZ	AUS	35.43	21
22	Charles Shou-San PAO	TPE	35.10	22
23	Humberto CONTRERAS	MEX	33.27	23
24	Min Seok SEO	KOR	30.42	24
25	Hau Yin LEE	HKG	27.87	25
26	Hon Lam TO	HKG	27.46	26
27	Cameron HEMS	NZL	25.35	27

2010 Four Continents I

At the end of the first day of competition the top ten out of thirty-eight ladies standings are as follows;
1) Akiko Suzuki (Japan)
2) Amanda Dobbs (USA)
3) Mao Asada (Japan)
4) Caroline Zhang (USA)
5) Haruka Imai (Japan)
6) Amelie Lacoste (Canada)
7) Min-Jung Kwak (Korea)
8) Myriane Samson (Canada)
9) Alexe Gilles (USA)
10) Diane Szmiett (Canada)

The eleven teams in the pairs standings are as follows;
1) Zhang and Zhang (China)
2) Mclaughlin and Brubaker (USA)
3) Duhamel and Buntin (Canada)
4) Yankowskas and Coughlin (USA)
5) Brodeur and Mattatall (Canada)
6) Zhang and Wang (China)
7) Takahasi and Tran (Japan)
8) Moore-Towers and Moscovitch (Canada)
9) Dong and Wu (China)
10) Castelli and Shnapir (USA)
11) Sunyoto-Yang and Sulindro-Yang (TPE)


And the twelve teams in the ice dance pairs standings are as follows;
1) Weaver and Poje (Canada) [image right]
2) Huang and Zheng (China)
3) Hann-Mccurdy and Coreno (Canada)
4) Hubbel and Hubbell (USA)
5) Chock and Zuerlein (USA)
6) Yu and Wang (China)
7) Ralph and Hill (Canada)
8) Summersett and Gilles (USA)
9) Guan and Wang (China)
10) O'Brien and Merriman (Australia)
11) Bruhns and Lavrik (Mexico)
12) Borounov and Borounov (Australia)

So overall we are sitting pretty good. None of the big-wigs are there, they're all busy preapring for the Olympics in 16 days. 16 DAYS! So even with our lower place national team members competing I'm proud of where they are sitting, though we should be getting bronzes and/or silvers or even golds in most of the disciplines if not all...based on the rest of the field. The Men's competition will be tomorrow (or rather tonight seeing how the competition is taking place in Jeonju, Korea and this morning (12am - 6sm EST) is really tomorrow for them)

Lady Luna

Lady Luna, shining so bright
Lady Luna, on a beautiful night
Lady Luna, behind a misty veil
Lady Luna, with her skin so pale
Lady Luna, so high above
Lady Luna, Endymion’s dear love
Lady Luna, ancient and eternal
Lady Luna, who sings the nocturnal
Lady Luna, with her soft moonlight
Lady Luna, a magical sight

I'M ENTERED IN THE 2010 AMAZON BREAKTHROUGH NOVEL AWARD CONTEST! I'M THERE! I'M IN!

The 1/5,000 odds aren't the greatest but considering that I'm an unpublished author I'll take what I can get. ^_^ I love Pen's Dreamscape and I believe that it could do VERY well...at least I hope it will.

Anecdotes about Pen's Dreamscape:

Pen's Dreamscape started out as a National Novel Writing Month 2005 endeavour. From November 1st to November 30th during my first year of university I wrote the first 52 thousand words and in January 2006 I finished the story. Since then, Pen’s Dreamscape has gone through several rewrites. It has gone from third person to first person and back again. Pen who started out at the age of 21 has dropped to as young as sixteen and bouncing back up to eighteen before settling on sixteen/seventeen. In the final rewrite I added about ten-thousand words and the vast majority of the dreamscapes are based on my own dreams that I had during the initial writing process, the years before and the years after. Many of the dreams within the novel originally had well known television and novel characters but those dreams were rewritten to keep the character of those pieces but not the names. The idea for Pen’s Dreamscape came as an errant thought during the morning commute to school. I have always been fascinated with dreams and I wondered what would happen if dreams were real and there was a Dream World that was intertwined with Earth and the Spirit World as well. Most of it was written before class but a great deal of it was written on my commute and during class whenever I didn’t have a laptop. It’s my first real completed novel and it’s extremely close to my heart. Plus, because I’m a perpetual starter when it comes to my writing the fact that I actually finished Pen’s is a miracle.

Description of Pen's Dreamscape

Penelope Ann Quinn had never given much thought to dreams. To be sure she enjoyed dreaming, it was the only thing she looked forward to when she slept. But she always counted the disconnected images to be the ramblings of her unconscious psyche. She knew about the new-age theories that were out there. She knew about concepts like lucid dreaming and on occasion she had been able to control her dreams whether it be to wake up early from a nightmare or change a bizarre dream to fit her mood. But on the whole to Penelope a dream was just a dream and nothing more. So when Pen was told by her Grandmother that dreams could be more real then they are she didn’t believe it. However, when she answers a call in one of her dreams she is forced to believe. Drawn into the Dream World known as Aislinn, Pen meets the Dream Keeper known as Chavez and with him as her guide, Pen has to go through the dreamscapes of others searching for the shattered pieces of the Golden Dream in order to stop the Nightmare King, Nimaren from taking over the Dream World and destroying everything including earth. Along the way she finds out that not only do dreams and nightmares last forever, but she also learns of an inner strength that she never knew was there. Through her dreams and the dreams of others she experiences everything from the heights of Olympic glory to the depths of battling for survival and everything in between. Pen also learns of the origin of Dreams and comes face to face with the Lord of Dreams, the God Morpheus himself. It is a story of hope for it shows that when you believe in your dreams, anything is possible

.

My Biography

I’m a 22 year old hopeful romantic who has been writing for as long as I remember. From stories about faeries and little girls saving seals and penguins to stories about Egypt, dreams and writers I’ve always listened to the stories within my soul and put them down in one way or another. “You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.” by Jack London is my favourite writing quote and my mantra. I first heard it in my grade 12 Writer’s Craft class and I’ve taken it to heart ever since. A writer can’t wait for inspiration, they just have to go out there and write. Currently I am registered at fictionpress.com under the pen name A. Barone and it is there that my most current works can be found. I’m a graduate of the Honours BA in Classics & History at McMaster University and currently I’m at Charles Sturt University to get my Bachelors of Primary Education which will allow me to teach grades K-6. I’m an avid reader though my tastes tend to stick to the young-adult fantasy genre though I do enjoy high fantasy and Jane Austen as well. I’m a total TV junkie and will watch anything so long as it’s not gory or especially explicit and even though reality shows can be annoying, I love watching them too. I don’t ask a lot for any of the entertainment mediums except for a good story and a decent romance sub-plot. I’m a total cat lover and a great believer in honesty, truth and the greatness of the human spirit and I believe that through the written and spoken word anything is possible.

2010 AT&T US Figure Skating National Championships

So, Sasha Cohen decided to try to make the USA 2010 Olympic Team. She was second after the short program but fell to fourth after the long. She has been named as the second alternate but I’m sure that it’s not the end that she wanted, even though she’s talking about the process and the courage to come back and even TRY ~sigh~ I wish her all the best though, and I’m sure that her life won’t be defined by this one moment—I just wish that she had had her fairy tale ending to her skating career.

On another sour note, Inoue and Baldwin, two pairs skaters from the states were robbed of silver last weekend and won't be going to the games even though she landed the throw triple axel which has NEVER been done at a national competition before. *double sigh*

On a brighter note however, the dance team of Davis and White overtook and beat the team of Augusto and Belbin (the traitorous Canadian turned American) which is the only bright spot to the 2010 AT&T US Figure Skating National Championships (though I do not like how they are rivals with our own Tessa and Scott and have the highest score total thus far...)

Oh, and the Americans are dead stupid if they think the likes of Jeremy Abbott and Mirai Nagasu and Rachel Flatt are going to be contenders for the podium. Jeremy Abbott may be able to do alright at national level competitions but he royally sucks at international competitions so I have no worry there. Nor do I worry about Mirai and Rachel, sure their scores are high with the US nationals but those marks are always inflated by like 10 points so yeah no. No threat what-so-ever. The only ones that I'm worried about are Evan and Johnny. They not only have Olympic experience, but podium experience too though even they are long shots 'cause the other men in the world are stronger and better and...

...you know, in a way I wish that the games were over and done with 'cause the waiting and suspension and posturing is killing me. I mean really killing me.

Was Not To Be

Brought up too soon, a wonder kid we watched you spin and skate
We thought you’d win an Olympic gold, but the wishing came too late.
After silver in Turin, and four years off, you were ready for your return
But it was not to be as we did see; I guess it just wasn’t your turn.
Dear Sasha I wish you the best, and I hope you live with no regrets
You did your best and for that we’re proud, it was something we will not forget.

Valkyrie

So, last night I finally got around to watching Valkyrie. Tom Cruise is a great actor in my opinion even though he's a crazy Scientologist and his performance in this movie was just amazing! The entire story is amazing, about the last assassination attempt on Hitler's life--for those en to show that they may have been part of the same Germany but they were not cut from the same cloth as Hitler. I vaguely remember learning about this plot in my Nazi Germany history class from my last year of under-grad but seeing it in motion is something else entirely. And something else that I didn't know, but Stauffenberg's wife lived until 2006 and his children are all still alive, what a poor wife losing her husband and those children growing up without a father...

...anyways back to the movie it was great, amazing and totally worth 4.5 of 5 stars in my humble opinion.