As only a few people may have noticed, my blog went down for over a month. A very cool plug-in I was using (YARPP) played very badly and my hosting shut down my database because of the absurd number of SQL queries the plug-in was making. But I’m back! And I wasn’t going to blog much in the past month anyways because I was too busy soaking up and getting roped into Olympic events going on in the city.

So, to ease back into blogging, I’ve compiled my personal top ten moments:

1. Watching the gold medal men’s hockey game at Herb’s place and–I swear to goodness–during the final minutes of the third period, I willed some excitement to the game and the U.S. scored to tie the game just before the end of regulation time! Sid the Kid from my hometown was not living up to the “Sid’s Games” that Lil’ Sis told me Maritime news are hyping up and I was especially sad in the first minutes of overtime when he would get a shift and my friends groaned and shouted for someone else to play… and then he scored and turned everything on its head. You don’t have to be at GM Place watching it live to roar and cheer and scream and jump up and down by far!
2. Watching the men’s hockey tournament with mild interest in the preliminary round–wasn’t it a given our team would win their games??–and realizing that a frustrating loss to the U.S. actually translated into our tickets purchased during the very first round of ticket sales were for a Canada-Russia game! “Most anticipated hockey game since 1972!” They were the only tickets we nabbed and we weren’t parting with them no matter how much we could have sold them for. Oh, you cannot fully appreciate the atmosphere unless you are in it. It was so happy, so loud, so surreal.
3. Being downtown on the second Friday, the rowdiest day of the Olympics. I was distressed that the partyers taking over the streets didn’t seem very “Olympic-y”–since when are fishnets and bunny ears and otherwise looking trashy or like a douchebag patriotic? They just wanted to party and be publicly intoxicated with less chance of repercussion. The police and authorities wised up and closed liquor stores earlier every day after that. Oh, Canada. Oh, Vancouver.
4. Flipping away from the Canada-Slovakia game to watch short-track men’s 500m finals: replay and repeatedly replay to analyze for ourselves what happened, who touched who where and when, cracking up at Marianne St-Gelais’ elated uninhibited celebration for her boyfriend’s success.

5. Making it into the Atlantic Canada House the first day it opened and getting into the first tasting session without enduring the 3-hour queues that formed by just the next day. I wished I knew about the volunteer opportunities for ACH for I would have pursued one. I was so proud that my home region’s pavillion was generous–free food and concerts!!–and popular. I was proud that they showcased mouth-watering tasting samples from our prosaic local ingredients.
6. Getting sucked back into men’s figure skating with the exciting short and long program. I was rooting for Evgeni Plushenko all the way, pleased for Canada’s Patrick Chan no matter what others say, and intrigued by the handsome American skater who did win gold. Even NPY also got really swept up when Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir beautifully skated their way to gold in ice dance. Oh my goodness, they are so young.
7. First Canadian gold medal won on Canadian soil and NPY immediately emailed or called me, I can’t remember which. He was so into the Games and patriotic, it was adorable–he could name every Canadian medalist, their events, and medal colour.
8. I could hear nightly fireworks launched from Yaletown as a resounding reminder that a big event was taking place right here in the city, even if I couldn’t make it out that day. NPY and I got to watch them on the final night and it was glorious, in no small part because of the happy context: a fantastic Olympic Games, with your city as the host city, drawing to a triumphant conclusion.
9. Unveiling the opening ceremonies after months of secrecy and seeing a fiddling segment, no matter how I don’t think Canada in general has a fiddling culture. Then, watching the closing ceremonies a week after the fact, with John Furlong bungling his French translation and the mind-boggling insanity that qualifies Canadians poking fun at themselves.
10. Chinese New Year fell on Valentine’s Day which fell on the third day of the Olympic Games. Thus Valentine’s Day took a backseat and I made a tour of visiting the relatives I have in town over the weekend. It was special to spend time with family as required by custom, but also to share with them the present excitement overtaking the city.

On this day..

• Look Before You Leap - 2009
• Next Top Model - 2006