Theodora Elucubrare

Smeared with the strange clay of North Dakota, wet with the waters of the hot springs of Idaho, I am arrived in beautiful Kamloops, BC(actually, surprisingly enough, with my New Yorker's disdain of any city that isn't New York, I'm not being sarcastic).
( End of Nationals )
( Cut for half the country and some of Canada )
( Animals! )
( Championats Nord-Americains )

Fakest name in the country, after a strong showing from "Syringa, Idaho" and "SeaTac, Washington" goes to... Tsawwassen, BC! (Cheating, but, I think, justified.)

I would just like to note that I was most likely the only one warming up to "Veglia, o donna". And doing Italian exercises in the locker room, from my book with sketchy sentences like "I left with Silvia's sister."

Holy God, I hate this Nationals. Not even in a angsty way, although I did get taken out in qualifying position and not advanced, but partly because of the rink. This rink is god-awful. The ice sucks, and although people assure me it's regulation size, I'm seriously inclined to doubt them. But I usually skate on awful ice in tiny rinks.
No, I hate this rink because the widest thoroughfare is, if I am inclined to be the Magic Foot-Giving Fairy, about ten feet wide. Every time I want to get somewhere, I am provoked to homicidal rage, because not only are the corridors incredibly narrow, everyone thinks that it is a good idea to have conversations in the middle of them, and the meet director thought it was a good idea to post results in one of the narrowest parts.
Another reason I don't like this Nationals is the reason I don't like every Nationals, which is that they have no idea how to run heats. In Québec (and my dad says, "Yes, but yell 'ça va, là' and see how many people understand.") there can be twenty-eight people in the group and they go almost straight to semis. Here we have twelve people - that is three heats of four in the 500. We want four people in the final. So, it seems to me that the logical, time-saving (me-not-skating) thing to do is pick first place and the next fastest time, and go to finals. But no, they pick first two and the next two fastest times. I don't get it.
Also, lovely word placement on the schedule tells me that we do a "3000 super meter final". What is a super-meter? Is that going to be on the Chem AP? "Convert from nanometers to supermeters by multiplying by 87.0934584."