Never in my life have I felt so uncool.

I'm having a bit of a love affair at the moment. A love affair with the Winter Olympics. The thing I like about the Winter Olympics is that I am an expert at every single event that I watch. Last night it was speed skating ( disaster for the poor Australian boy- firstly the humiliation of having to wear a tight body suit and then falling over) and the bizarre ski thing they do with all the bumps. You know the one that you can feel their knees slowly disintegrating with every bump. It's is called the Mogul, named after what their surgeons are after they complete all those knee reconstructions. And then they do back flips and stuff in the middle. Needless to say quite a few of them fall over. Including our poor Aussie Boys.  See thats how in love I am. I am taking ownership of the team and using the word Aussie.

This is how you ski the Mogul. You sit like you are going to the toilet. My knees are hurting just looking at it.

For those of you that don't know I am a really, really good, sorry crap skier. I think it lies in that fact that I was old when I first clipped on a pair of ski's, and I know how much it is going to hurt if I fall over. I will not bounce back. I will not just need a few puffs of that green whistle and then be on my way. I think that is wear my admiration comes from. I also don't look cool in my ski gear. At all.

Note to self- This year I will wear a long ski jacket and try my hardest to be cool and not look like an awkward 13 year old.

One thing I am very good at though is falling of the ski lift. I attempted (and succeeded ) to perform what is possibly the best stack ever, with a bit of a front flip, followed by a back flip and concluding in a rugby type dismount with my hands over my head. Added to the skill was the skis not unclipping so the whole routine was completed with straight legs. I knew I had performed to the level of at least a 10 because
 1. Dee, who was with me nearly wet her pants and 
2. The group of students who just second before I waved and yelled out at with most probably something entirely inappropriate like " Hey Losers"just seconds before were also nearly wetting their pants.

 On a complete side note I am starting to get a bit concerned because I am starting to get a habit of falling of chairs. In the last 12 months I have fell of the stool in celebrity chef Kylie Kwongs restaurant  (yes she was there and I'm sure saw it , that may be the reason she was happy to have a photo with me) and last week I fell off my chair at work, once again in front of students. They looked up to find my on my hands and knees with my chair on my head. 

So back to the Olympics. As far as I am concerned the epitome of coolness are the snowboarders. They are hectic (I know they use that word because I pretended to be friends with some at Fall Creek, I stood behind them and automatically felt cooler just to be in their vicinity. They didn't wear ski pants. They wore jeans.) They have cool names like Crispin and Nate and Kenny ( whose great uncle invented Vegemite and was apparently as crazy as a cut snake), and the Giant To-may-toe. It is almost like their parents knew they were going to be cool when they grew up. They have cool hair that flips beautifully when they pull off this helmets, which I am sure they are wearing under sufferance,  have crystal clear skin and straight shiny teeth (anything in the snow is expensive so those little babies have been in that snow before they were in Private School) and wear mittens with style. 

This is Kent "Kenny"Callister, he can flip both his board and his hair. Maybe it is all the vegemite.

They can pop on a beanie and look hard core. They wear big jackets because they don't fall over and get snow up their top. Hell they can even pull of that bib thing with that absolutely hideous print on it. Seriously Sorchi we need to talk about that. They even listen to their IPODS when they are competing. I'm sure they are listening to something cool like Foo Fighters or Van Halen. Or Kayne West.

  This is what I would be listening to if I was on the half pipe.

They finish their turn on the half pipe with a little jump on to the seat while they wait for their score. While they are waiting they do thing like make those cool hand gestures at the camera and do crazy things like pretend to be doing bench presses with they board. They don't even get upset if they get a bad score. You can almost hear them saying to themselves " Hey Dude, did you see me wipe out after my backside 180. I was totally psyched and then I did a faceplant. Gnarly".

Without a doubt my favourite athlete is Alex " Chumpy" Pullin. Never heard of him before last Friday, but anyone who can pull off wearing a tshirt with their name on it and still look cool is a hero in my book. And for that matter- anyone who can carry off the nickname Chumpy is way cool.

Just in case he forgets who he is. Snowboarders do hit their heads a lot.

Must dash, I have the luge to watch. 
Hectic.