Weather continues to be summer-like, despite 1 March officially being Autumn.
LOCAL NEWS
Chinese students in New Zealand have hit back at claims they are the worst cheats at university. One spokesmen said that the figures were distorted because they weren't good enough at avoiding detection. Another said that those that were caught were just the tip of the iceberg. From Diana's experiences at work, I think there is certainly a cultural view that the result is more important than the effort or accomplishment. Complaints that the results of the investigation will lead people to illogical conclusions like "all Chinese cheat", "only Chinese cheat", and my personal favourite "all Chinese go to university", are just silly.
A sound purported to be an act of bestiality, played on Radio Sport, has earned a weak reprimand from the Broadcasting Standards Authority, which has in turn upset the Churches Broadcasting Commission (yep, there is such a thing, I was surprised too). All they did was play a couple of sound bites together. Yes it was dodgy, no I don't think children are going to run out to the nearest paddock and get up to mischief because of it.
Trucks are behaving themselves, but cyclists have been on the wrong end of a few accidents with two killed and three injured in the last few days.
A six legged frog found in the Waikato continues to attract attention. The initial approaches came from French restaurants.
WORLD NEWS
The Associated Press news agency has gone up considerably in my esteem, by banning stories of Paris Hilton. There is a little conflict here as this in itself resulted in news around the place. They joked that they would add North Korea to the list of banned topics but I can think of plenty of "names" to add.
REAL SPORT
Rory had interschool swimming on Thursday, he didn't win any races but being a 14yo in the 14-15 comp he did pretty well coming 5th in the breaststroke and 7th in freestyle. His freestyle time was 27.89s, more than a second inside the level 1 qualifying time.
Hannah had swim sports at school on Thursday, too. I went along. The girls were generally way better than the boys. Hannah came second in Breastroke and third in 100m freestyle. Don't think she qualified for freestyle relay team but very close. She is going to interschool swimming, so she's happy.
After the game last week for the juniors I was kind of worried that we would struggle to get a win. That fear proved to be foundless when they played Rutherford. It was pretty much one way traffic, the final scored was 12-2. Rory scored four goals. Better still, two players scored their first goals ever in water polo, including Rory's friend Cassidy.
The senior game was two hours later and expected to be very different. It was against Avondale B, but Avondale is a very large school (about three times the number of students) and their A Team is playing premiere (which is very tough). The B team have some very capable girls playing for them, although one was missing. The game was toughest that the seniors have had so far, but they won 7-4. Rory scored one goal, had a few other chances but just struggled, the Avondale goalie is pretty good (as much as I hate to say it).
I went to coach the Springs girls on Sunday, wasn't expecting great things. They did better than I thought, losing 4-5, possibly their best result.
Rory's social league team were winning comfortably, then were nearly caught, and finally won comfortably 11-5. Rory got two goals, I think.
Hannah had another kick around at soccer on Friday night, she took along Miranda Chase, a polo girl who has played soccer for another club. She would be a very good addition to the team. Fun was had, pretty sure Hannah scored a couple of goals.
SPORT
The Blues won 28-9 against Otago. The Crusaders lost 26-27 to the Sharks. Waratahs drew with the Force 16-16. Cheetahs drew with the Chiefs 22-22 (very unusual to get two draws in Super 14). The Hurricanes lost to the Stormers 17-30, which was unexpected (especially as it was at home for the Hurricanes).
Blackburn beat Bolton 2-1, Spurs beat 4-3 West Ham, Man Utd beat Liverpool 1-0, Arsenal and Chelsea both had wins.
There is a big water polo tournament on here this coming fortnight with teams from Serbia, USA, Canada, Great Britain, Italy, and Russia. We are going to try to see a few games.
MY SAD LIFE
There has been considerable activity in the house around buying tickets to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers concert. Attempts at deadlines on websites, borrowing credit cards, slipping cash to people in queues, you name it.
Hannah got a large amount cut off her hair, it's quite different now, still past shoulders, but definitely shorter. She has trouble getting it in to her swimcap, even though there is less of it.
Semi-interesting observation of Rory the other day. After watching the movie "Big Trouble in Little China", he was doing lots of things with "swords". Even beating up the sheets hanging on the line. And he's 14. Funny how the boy never really leaves the man.
Big occasion on Saturday for Rory was going to his friend Cassidy's house to help demolish the old garage. He wandered off happily, large boots, safety goggles in pocket, Fubar in hand. He looked like a member of the Village People, the construction worker guy. We didn't see him again until the following afternoon.
Rory got very, very lucky with his cellphone this week. He returned it to have the Bluetooth fixed. They decided that for the $320 it cost it was cheaper to give him the $320. Better yet, he got to get the phone back (I did offer to take a reduced figure and they didn't want to as they wanted to completely discharge their liability on the warranty). After he got it back, the Bluetooth started working again.
Paul and the Bambis were here for dinner on Saturday. Me and Hannah played Paul and Bambi in volleyball game. Hannah whacked me it the head, which hurt a lot but was fine next day. For the record, we won, but we have played a lot more than Paul and Bambi.
Paul is having a cleanout and is giving junk to other people. Now they all need a cleanout, too.
Kids had a water fight the other night and took great delight in hitting me in the crossfire. Come to think of it, I wasn't in the crossfire, I was well over to one side…….At least the water was good for the lawn which is looking very dry.
That'll be all for now.
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