Sorting hat / Nick's Death date / Husband quiz pictures / Olympics

[Carol]

Ali:
> Yuppers.  That's the individual medley, and yes, that's the correct
> stroke order.  I guess everyone is getting into this Olympics
> reporting thing if things like "individual relay" is appearing.

Carol:
And I'm transforming into a sports fan if I got it right, the greatest
miracle of all time. seirously, though, I like both the Olympics and
the commentators, who help people like me distinguish among the
different events and scoring systems and even identify specific athletes.
> 
> Phelps is indeed going for his 8th gold medal (and hopefully also in
record breaking fashion) tonight, and it's going to be a whopper if he
gets it since he'll probably have the title of "greatest Olympian of
all time" follow him until someone breaks that record (which sounds
humanly impossible).

carol:
I'm actually a bit tired of Michael Phelps. (I keep calling him Mark
Spitz, which I suppose shows my age.) I was more excited when Rebecca
Addington finally broke Janet Evans's 1989 world record for women's
freestyle.
> 
> 
Carol:
> > I'm actually most interested in the women's gymnastics,
particularly the brave thirty-three-year-old that I haven't seen
perform yet.
> 
> Ali:
> Bah.  Oksana Chusovitina (qualifying in individual vault if you want
to watch for her) is pretty good, but if I want inspirational, Dara
Torres is where that's at.  She's going for her, I believe, 11th medal
(and first individual) in this Olympics, and she's 41 yrs old (with
the cutest little daughter ever).

Carol:
I'm interested in Oksana and her personal story (the son with
Leukemia, etc.), and, much as I like and admire Dara Torres, who is
probably my favorite athlete at this Olympics, I think it's more of a
challenge for a thirty-three-year-old woman to compete with teenage
gymnasts than for a forty-one-year-old to swim in a mixed field of
swimmers ranging from sixteen to mid=thirties. The sad thing about
women's gymnastics is that you're a veteran at twenty and "old" by
twenty-four, so to come back at thirty-three (to almost certain
defeat) is, IMO, extremely brave and admirable. Oksana's story is
interesting reegardless of how well she performs.

Which is not to say that Dara Torres's story isn't interesting (and if
you like the look of muscular female bodies, hers is amazing), but she
wasn't risking the loss of her child because of an inadequate medical
system, just coming back to swimming after having a child. Both
stories are inspirational in their own way. That's what I like about
the Olympics. The athletes, regardless of how many medals they earn or
what color the medal, are presented as individual human beings that we
can care about and root for (or feel compassion for, in some cases). 

Ali: 
> Carol, if you like gymnastics, you might like trampoline, though the
US stinks the big one and the Chinese will probably take gold here
like they've been sweeping diving.

Carol:
I watched a little of it. One chinese man was particularly good. But
it didn't grab me the way gymnastics does, with its combination of
danger and grace (at least for the women). With the men's all-around,
it was more like an endurance contest--six events instead of four.

I'm looking forward to the women's vault competition tonight. They
won't focus on Oksana--it'sll be all about the U.S. and China,
probably--but they should at least show her. I used to like to watch
Svetlana Boginskaya, the Belarusian Swan. Before your time, I guess.

Carol, who unfortunately doesn't have a DVR or even a VCR at the
moment and just has to watch whatever NBC is covering at the moment