Inspirational

Lance Armstrong was the most influential athlete in history. Lance went through extensive brain and testicular surgery. He battled testicular cancer before he was crowned Tour De France winner 7 years in a row. The Tour De France is a 23 day, 21 stage bike race that covers 3,500 km of France. Lance is one of the main athletes that have influenced my life, inspired me to become a better athlete. One of my swim coaches used to quote “Pain is temporary, Failure lasts forever.” Lance quoted that when he broke the record of five consecutive wins by Miguel Indurain. When I first heard that quote I was about 10 years old, my swim coach would always say, “Every event is going to be your best, because if you fail you will never get a chance to re-do that race, but you can overcome the pain after, only if you know you have pushed to do your best.” Now this quote is imprinted in my brain, it is something that I will never disregard. He has inspired in ways that no other athlete did, can or will. He has showed me that you can overcome anything, if you set your mind to it.

Top 3...

The topic I have chosen is Swimmers, I will be ranking them by the accomplishments they have achieved in their own swimming career.



My personal favourite is Michael Phelps, he was the youngest swimming, at age 15, to break a world record. During the 2000 Olympics Michael Phelps swam the 200m butterfly in a world breaking time of 1:54.58. He was soon to become the male face of swimming. Giving up his eligibility at the college level he turned professional. In 2004 Phelps competed in Athens winning 6 gold medals and 2 bronze medals. Phelps was offered $1 million dollars if he could break Mark Spitz' 7 gold medals in one Olympic showing. In "The Race of the Century" Phelps lost to Ian Thorpe (Australian) and Pieter Van Den Hoogenbang (Dutch) placing him 3rd in the 200m freestyle his only hope was the 4x100 Freestyle relay. Which was a disappointment when their team took home the bronze. Phelps will be competing in Beijing in August, and yet again is offered the $1million by sponsor speedo, if he is to win 7 or more gold medals in his possible of 9 events.



The greatest swimmer in history is Mark Spitz, the 1972 summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, was the most memorable Olympics in history. Spitz won 7 gold individual medals also swimming world record times in each of those events. That was a world record for most gold medals won in one showing. Over 7 years Spitz won 9 gold Olympic medals, one silver and bronze. 5 Pan Am golds; 31 National U.S AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) titles; 8 U.S National CAAC (Collegiate Athletic Association Championships), and finally in those years he set 33 world records. Spitz will be the inspiration for many swimmers including Phelps himself.

Ian Thorpe was the world's best freestyle swimmer, Thorpe has won 5 Olympic gold medals, the most ever won by an Australian. In one world championship he became the first to win 6 gold medals, but in total he has won 11 world championship, the second highest number won by a swimmer. Thorpe was not only the greatest freestyle swimmer in his career, but also the youngest swimmer at age 14 to represent Australia. Thorpe is the only person to have won medals in the 100-200-400 freestyle. Giving Thorpe the nickname Thorpedo. With his size 17 feet which can often be mistaken as flippers, he makes the perfect freestyle swimmer. Thorpe was named swimmer of the year not once but 4 times. He is a phenomenal swimmer people will not overlook.

All three of these swimmers have given the world a reason to remember them, they have all had their share of achievements and swimmers will always look up to them.

Review

I fully enjoyed watching "Never Back Down", directed by Jeff Wadlow. Right from the start it was filled with action and suspense. A teen is faced with many life problems, as he moves to a new school. Jake Tyler gets set up by a girl he likes, and is forced into fighting with "The King." He soon learns of this Combat Martial Arts Club and joins. Which will all lead up to the biggest underground fight club fight night called the Beatdown. Jake soon finds out his best friend was beaten up and taken to the hospital. Only then he decides to take part in the event to get even, because "Everyone has their fight". The movies shows that everyone has their story and that everybody has life struggles.

"Ignorance is Bliss"

Once I learned about how horrible the conditions are in slaughterhouses it made me really think about how hard extremely poor people work for the rest of us. I learned that most of the people that are working in slaughterhouses are illegal immigrants. If they get hurt then they do not have any health benefits or disability. It makes me wonder in all the slaughterhouses in the US how many people are going to die today. Although this bothers me it is not something that I think about on a daily basis. I do not feel responsible to educate other people, but self education was valuable to me.

Afghanistan

Being completely honest, I do not know have much knowledge about Afghanistan. After reading those letters I still do not know enough to think about it on a daily basis. I believe that Canadians should not be there, because it is just making the situation more extreme. It never involved the Canadians to begin with it was between the US and Afghanistan, but the US involved us. Just because we are part of North America doesn't mean that we should automatically be expected to be invovled with everything that goes on with the US.

A Girl's Story

The kiss finally ended and Linda realized that she did not actually love Gregg. Michael saw the contemplation in her eyes and asked what was going on. "I am in love with you, and I'm supposed to be getting married" she replied as she was walking away. Michael started running after her and asked "Where are you going?." Linda was now crying, and she was also very confused and said that she would call him later. When Linda finally arrived home her eyes were red and swollen, Gregg asked her what was wrong. She told him to it was nothing and that she was going to have a shower, but she would be done in time for dinner. While eating dinner she brought up her adventures at the river bank, and her meeting with Michael. Now came the hard part of her trying to explain that she didn't have the same feelings for him anymore, and that she was in love with Michael. In fact they were getting married in 6 months.

Blogs

Blogging topics aren't really the concern for me. I feel if I am given a topic I could find something interesting to say about it. Open ended questions always interest me, also along with opinion questions. For myself I like to express a range of different views. For example one topic takes many different view points such as psychology. The most interesting topic for me to write about is when you take something that’s happened to you in your past, and write something reflective. As for marks I think that at the end of each term we should get a completion mark at the end of each term. For individual blogs get a mark out of five, but with that mark it is more to show that we took the time to think about what we were writing.