Faster, Higher, Stronger

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written a post about what I’ve been up to lately. Life has been ticking along nicely for me with nothing particularly exciting happening. I’ve been spending lots of time working, for a charity who provide “play opportunities” for children with special needs and/or disabilities. This is my 7th summer working for them and I’m enjoying it more than ever. I know what I’m doing and playing with kids can never be a bad job! I’m also enjoying the social side more and get on really well with the other staff. All in all I couldn’t ask for a better way to spend the school holidays.

When I’ve not been working I’ve been glued to the telly watching the Olympics. It’s been absolutely fantastic and I’ve loved every minute. I’m not a sporty person and I don’t have the patience to sit through most sporting events, but this one I couldn’t take my eyes off. I’ve already raved about the Opening Ceremony so here are my top 5 sporting moments of the games:

5) Watching Unusual Sports: The Olympics has so many different disciplines and I ended up watching loads of sports I wouldn’t normally watch. I sat through the entire Men’s Triathlon and saw Alastair Brownlee win gold for Team GB. I watched most of the BMX, loving the speed of it and gasping at some shocking crashes. And the unexpected star was Handball, which it turns out is more than the opposite of football- it is a contact sport and involves lots of foul play (especially when the French Women’s team were playing)!

4) Team GB Velodrome Dominance: Without a doubt we are the best at track cycling. We got a medal in all but one event and virtually all of those were Gold. Victoria Pendleton, Chris Hoy, Laura Trott and Jason Kenny were the main stars but credit should definitely go to the coaches who have made us the best cycling team in the world.

3) Mo Farah’s Double Gold: British long distance Mo Farah was one of our biggest hopes for a medal. The country got ridiculously excited when he won Gold in the 10,000 metres and then a week later he did it again in the 5,000. He is such an incredible athlete who has clearly trained so hard and it’s paid off with two gold medals, huge cheers and lots of appearances of his “Mo-bot”.

2) Usain Bolt Sprinting Dominance: The world was already in awe of Usain Bolt after he won three gold medals in Beijing. But there was speculation he wouldn’t do it again now that he had a rival in the form of fellow Jamaican Johann “the Beas” Blake. Bolt proved the nay-sayers wrong and stormed the 100m. And then the 200m. And then finished by getting Jamaica a team gold in the 4x100m relay, in world record time. A fantastic achievement by probably the greatest athlete who ever lived.

1) Super Saturday: On the first Saturday Team GB were really hoping for some gold medals in the athletics. And we got three in 45 minutes. Mo Farah, heptathlete Jess Ennis and the unexpected winner Greg Rutherford in the long jump. It was the greatest ever night for British athletics and the atmosphere in the stadium was incredible. The atmosphere was echoed across the country as everyone talked about what an incredible night it was.

Those are just five of my fave bits, but there were so many fantastic things I could also have included. What were your favourite moments? And if you enjoyed the Olympics, please do check out my Laughing at London 2012 posts where I look at the lighter side of the games (Part One and Part Two).

The Olympics has been one of several things that have made me think about my life. It’s great seeing all those winners being the best at what they do in life and having achieved their ultimate goal. I’ve been considering who I am and what my ultimate goal is. And right now I don’t really know the answer to either of those questions. I’ve changed over the last year and much of the old me is gone. But I don’t think I’ve found the new me yet. I’m in the middle of a journey of self-discovery and it’s exciting. Things are a-changing in the domain of Dan’s brain and I’m looking forward to the big reveal. It’s like when they redesign an airport and it looks all shiny and new and you can’t even remember what the old one looked like. Sort of.

Rather surprisingly I’m getting pretty excited for returning to university at the end of September. I say “surprisingly” because my second year was a disaster in virtually every way. But I feel like I’ve got a lot to prove in my third year, if only to myself. That I can get a good teaching report and be proved a good teacher and that I can create a series of high-scoring assignments.

This week I found my tutorial group for the next year and I am a little disappointing. I have one friend in it, which is great, but apart from that it’s mostly a group of strangers and a couple of acquaintances. If anything this makes the great uphill struggle that my third year looks to be even harder!

But that’s still a long way away and there’s lots to come before then. Early tomorrow morning I am travelling the 445 miles North to Edinburgh with my friend Chris for a week at the Fringe Festival. It will involve lots of stand-up comedy and other shows, street performers, crazy adventures and goodness knows what else. I am currently the most excited I have been in a long, long time. Next week you’ll hear all about it but hopefully in terms of blogging you’ll barely notice I’m gone as there’ll still be posts appearing here, as if by magic!

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy the next week! Edinburgh here I come!