Hope you're all spending some good, old fashioned family time on Family Day! It is very icy, so it's a chance to teach your family some of those good old drama warmups, which are great for any occasion. Have a competitive round of the geography game, or work cooperatively on a "Martha" activity! (One of you goes in and says "I'm a sea star on the beach" and then someone else goes in and says "I'm a rock covered in barnacles" and so on, until everyone is in the scene and you have a nice little picture.)
Are you watching the Olympics? I am not big on the ceremonial stuff, lots of you had concerns about Vladimir Putin's attitude to the LGBT community and I hate the huge expense when there are so many things in the world that need our attention and our money -- I think the Olympic committee should choose one place to have the summer games and one place to have the winter games (like Athens for the summer, for obvious reasons and Lillehammer, in Norway because if you remember the Olympics that were held there, the town was idyllic and everything was picture perfect) and they would have all the venues ready and the athletes' village and so they wouldn't have to build everything from scratch every time. All the countries who participate would pay into the upkeep of the place and so it wouldn't all fall on Norway's or Greece's shoulders. BUT the individual stories and the desire of the athletes to put it on the line and go "further, higher and stronger" can inspire all of us to do our best in whatever field we choose.
Here are some general thoughts about the Olympics:
1. There shouldn't be any judged sports. Just the sports where there is a clear winner without any "style points" or things like that. I liked Mark McMorris's attitude (he's the Sasktachewan kid who won a bronze medal in Slopestyle snowboarding). He said his sport is a judged sport and so he just goes out and does his best and tries not to think too much about what the judges do. He said this when the interviewer pointed out that his routine was more difficult than the person's who won the gold medal.
2. I think the athletes should just represent themselves. (This was what the Greeks wanted when they started the Olympics -- they'd stop all their political and warlike posturing for the time of the Olympics and the people would participate as individuals and not as representatives of their "polis" or city-state.) Then maybe they wouldn't feel like they'd disappointed their entire country if they didn't perform as well as they hoped. It is hard enough to do your best when it's just you without having to carry the entire country's hopes and dreams as well.
3. I like hockey and curling but I don't think their should be any team sports, just because of what I said in #2. Just everyone doing his or her best for him or herself.
Lots of you commented that you thought the Olympics shouldn't be politicized, and I think my three above points could really get us beyond the politics, but maybe it's too idealistic to think we could do that -- people are political animals, after all. Did you know that "politics" is from the Greek and means "relating to citizens"? So maybe we can't help ourselves.
If you're wondering about homework, you can always practice your Shakespeare recitation. You should know it perfectly, word for word, and if you want to do it really well, you need to think about what it means and try to communicate that to the audience.
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