enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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There's just a tiny bit of sun peeking out from behind a cloud..

I shouldn't really be writing. I woke up late. Doh!

The cycling skirt is on; I'd love to go for a ride. Sunday mornings are for rides, as far as I'm concerned. I'm looking out the window with concern, however, as rain and thunderstorms are due.

I don't really mind rain, but on my road bike it is disastrous. The tires really are not suitable for those conditions in the hills. So I'm trepidatious. I should have gone to bed earlier and gotten up earlier and gone, but...I didn't... :)

NOt sure about the risk. I do hate being caught out in a violent thunderstorm, particularly in the forest.

Oh well. I'm making some coffee right now and then I will decide.

I watched a bit of the Olympics last night, and I must say that I started to get annoyed! I shouldn't say this, but I do get annoyed that with many sports it is just a head-to-head between people from rich countries! And re. the drug use...people are naive if they think that a large portion of the athletes there are not on drugs.

I never knew anyone who was using drugs when I was competing, but I did hear rumours. And anyone who thinks that athletes who are tested often are likely innocent...don't be naive. Mari0n Jon3s was tested 160 times in and around her 7 medals at the Sydney games. It's just that she had a good lab telling her exactly when and how to take the drugs, and she knew what the testing window would be. It's scary.

I remember coming in 7th once in a major marathon and at dinner with the race director it came out that the woman who had won, and a couple of her compatriots in the top five (Russians in this instance), had previously tested positive for testosterone (more than once!). She'd tested positive at the same race, no less, only a few years before! My personal view is that people who have been caught once should be banned for life, but I'm rather harsh.

Even those Sp33do swift suits tick me off...The same five countries battling it out for all of the medals... Why can't they just level the playing field, throw everyone naked into a pool?

Even in track, where at least in the distance events you have the opportunity to see a guy from a poor country in the southern hemisphere who grew up running without shoes kick some rich northern hemisphere butt, you've got the issue of everyone trying to medal at the Olympics and so playing strategy rather than pure, sheer guts to run fast. It seems a waste of money and time.

And the drug testing system...again, it ultimately will catch the people from the poor places with the inadequate regimes...and will not catch the people from the countries with the most sophisticated laboratories...

And then add in the China issue...

I have to say that beyond a morbid fascination (which is why I am keeping my tv off), the Olympics make me feel rather sad. The purity of sport is gone.

And would someone please tell me how WINDSURFING is an Olympic sport???

:)

I'm just joking. Well, not about the Olympics in general. I'm a bit skeptical.

I've got to tell you something funny though. My ex-boyfriend S. ran in the Olympics twice. Do you know what he told me: The Olympic village is all about s3x. (I'm sure that he loved that.) I guess you get a lot of young, fit people together...well, I just can't get that image out of my head. :)

OK. Now to take my old lady cycling legs out to do something on the hills.

But first, let me say that this entry is funny in light of the fact that just yesterday I was thinking about how much I HATE cynics. I just can't stand people who automatically think that something CAN'T work, because they don't want to believe. That really bugs me.

So it's funny that I feel this way. I think maybe it is world fatigue. When I was young I thought the Olympics were a beautiful expression of world pride. Now I realize the truth. And I guess with all of the children dying every day of treatable illnesses...I wish that all of this money had been spent instead in more useful ways. I want to believe that the world can become a better place, and I actually don't believe any longer that the Olympics make any contribution to this.

OK. Well, it's just a feeling. I have a general feeling of fatigue with world order lately. I wish that I could do something to make the world a better place, but it all seems so overwhelming. I was thinking yesterday about the idea that you must learn not to get what you love but to love what you get. I think that this is true. So I'm trying to feel this way about my job. I get to be one of only a few hundred people who manage something really large and important to the well being of more than 30 million people. But is this really doing anyone any good, or just perpetuating the ways in which society organizes itself around privilege? I wish I could just take a few billion of it - or at least change a law with a stroke of a pen - and redirect it... he he he he

Yeah, I think about things like this. Sometimes I really wish that I had followed through and become a librarian. But I knew that this would mostly end up being a job that would not satisfy me because it would not adequately tax my brain. Furthermore, libraries are always the first thing to get cut and really only rich, already literate people mostly use libraries anyhow. All I have to do is look at the new fiction and dvd collections of my local library to see that this is true.

Yeah, it's true, if you want to have the power to effect larger-scale change you've got to do it through political economy. You've got to change philosophies and change the way that money is spent and on whom it is spent. I think I've known this all along.

Eh well. I don't have much of interest to say today. I should go out and ride and take a camera with a fresh battery this time. But first, cafe!

10:16 a.m. - 2008-08-10

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