The Week that Was: A New Segment!

Welcome to yet another Friday post. Generally, Fridays is a free-post day meaning that there is no segment (as Random Thought Fridays were moved to Saturdays) but today I am starting yet another new segment. This one is called "The Week that Was". In it, I go through some of the highlights of the week. These can be highlights in my life or in other areas. The reason I have so many segments is so that when it comes time to writing it is a lot easier to come up with something that I have not written about before. It also makes it a lot easier for you, my readers. If you know the type of posts that are going to be coming out on a day you can decide whether or not you want to read it. For instance, you may be interested in weird news and movies but not Doctor Who so you would read Tuesday and Thursday posts but would skip Sunday. See what I mean? Anyway, on with the week that was.

Source: http://www.livelingua.com/blog/survival-russian-for-the-sochi-2014-olympics/

I can not discuss the week that was without bringing up the major international sporting event that has been running since last Friday. I am, of course, talking about the Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia. Australia may not be winning many medals but our athletes are giving it their all and that is enough for me. As long as they try their best and enjoy themselves I am fine. Being a part of the Olympics is such a big thing and there is only ever going to be one Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. I am very proud of our Olympic athletes. Sure, Sochi may have its flaws but as long as our athletes are happy, we should be happy. There was sad news yesterday when a poor boy was killed by his father. Luke Batty was at cricket training with his father (who had separated from his mother and was visiting his son) when he was struck over the head with a cricket bat and stabbed several times with a knife by the last person you would expect; his own father. His father was later shot by police as he came running at them with his knife after repeatedly asking them to shoot him. It was a very tragic moment that shook the small town of Tyabb. His mother should be given a lot of credit however as she did say that no one loved her son more than his father and said that he must have been suffering from a mental condition. This is extremely positive considering that this was a violent man who had threatened to kill his ex-wife on several occasions and had numerous warrants out for his arrest. It showed great strength of character and was a very poignant moment. In my life a few things have been happening as of late. For one, I started school with a full course of VCE. If you do not already know my subjects for this year are; Methods 3/4, Literature 1/2, Physics 1/2, Legal Studies 1/2, IT Software Development 1/2, and General Maths (Standard) 1/2. This has partly been the explanation for the lack of posts over the past few days. VCE is a big two years that involves a lot of independent study and homework so for the next two years there will be times where I will miss out on posts and the many of those times will be because of homework and studying. Another reason why there has been a recent spate of missing posts is because I only received my school laptop yesterday and writing posts on the desktop computer I use is annoying as it is really old and takes a lot longer to type things out. Hopefully I will be getting my own personal laptop this year so this issue should not become as big a problem in the future; especially over the Christmas break where I have no school laptop.

That was the week that was. See you tomorrow!

The Sochi Olympics

That is right, the 2014 Winter Olympics are well under way in Sochi, Russia. Amongst all the excitement of the games there are also a few detractors from one of the greatest moments of 2014. Other than all the issues around Russia's "anti-gay" law which I am not getting into in this post there are other issues surrounding the games that have people asking whether Sochi was ill prepared for this event. Some things are beyond their control while others just seem like ways of cutting corners. Even the opening ceremony had a few glitches. A twitter account with the handle @SochiProblems is an account that has gained more followers than the official Sochi Olympics account. #SochiProblems has also become the default hashtag for complaining about some of the issues.

Source: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/internet/3500861/how-watch-winter-olympics-live/?olo=editorspick

There are cramped living conditions, unreliable electricity, dirty water and much more. The twitter account, @SochiProblems, which I mentioned above has posted many pictures showing some of the issues around the Sochi Olympics including dirty water, and un-plumbed toilets. Work on and around the stadium was still being done five hours before the official opening ceremonies. I thought that I was bad leaving things to the last minute. There has already been a myriad of stories on the different issues of the Sochi Olympics and there are set to be many more. One of the American bobsledders even had to break through a door to escape a bathroom after been locked in. Even the media seem to be suffering a little with their own accommodation not even ready for them when they arrived. However, despite all this we must look on the positives. Our athletes over in Russia are all representing our country well and we should be proud of our talents. We also have to look at some bias that may be shown. Sure there are a lot of problems but had this been somewhere with less controversy would it have made as big a mark as this? It still would have been an issue but would it have been as big? People already had preconceived notions of Russia after its passing of the "Anti-Gay" law making it illegal to tell anyone underage that being Gay is okay and even talking to them about homosexuality is illegal. It really did not start Russia off on a very good foot to greet the rest of the world when the Olympic games did arrive.

We all have hopes in our athletes, see you tomorrow!