Canadian Gold

First of all, I have to admit, I have a ranking system of patriotism.

It goes sort of like this:

1. If there is a Chinese team in a given competition, or if the Chinese are somehow related to a given event, I will automatically support them. Unless I personally disliked the people in the team. But usually I do not have such close relationships with them, so for the most part, the Chinese are automatically on the top of my cheering list.

2. If, for whatever reason, there are no Chinese teams, but a Canadian team is present, I will cheer for the Canadian team, regardless of who the other people are. Unless, once again, I personally dislike the Canadian team members or I personally like the other team members, but that usually does not happen either.

3. If #1 and #2 are both not true, and there is a US team, I will cheer for the US team. With the exceptions as mentioned above.

So I suppose it goes without saying that I was cheering on the Canadian hockey team during the last game of the Olympics. I was elated when I saw the winning shot, by Sidney Crosby of all people (which was sort of expected), and that Canada had finally won the most important gold medal of this entire Winter Olympics. I am also glad I have not forgotten the lyrics to "O Canada" yet.

However, that alone would not constitute a blog post, at least not in my blog. Maybe on Sergio's blog. As it happened, because of Canada's hockey gold, two interesting phenomena occurred.

First, as I would like to point out rather obviously, I have a Facebook account. (No, really, anyone who reads this probably already knows, but whatever. I need to mention this to lead to the next part.) And I had such an account back when I was still in Canada, and it is still very much in use. Therefore, half (and I believe, the last time I counted, exactly half, although this might have changed what with Dino and Irving randomly adding me) of my friends on Facebook are Canadian, and half are American.

During the hockey game, some interesting wall posts resulted.

Random Guy: 1-0 Canada . Omg we better win...

Other Random Guy: 2-1 canada lets gooo!!!

Another Random Guy (right before 3rd period ends): NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Some Soph at Our School: holy shit usa!

Other Random Guy: Canada!!!!!!! Crosby!!!! Gold!!!

Melissa (finally, someone with a name): wtf they're not even a real country

Random Girl: OMGGG CROSBYY!!!! Woot! Hahaaa USA=suckers xD

Some Soph at Our School: one of the best games i've seen. good work USA.

Jun: Fuck Yeah CANADA!!!!

(*Jun's post was followed immediately by Irving's comment, "where do u live, again?")

This reminded me dearly of the wonderful experiences I've had in Canada, where there would be people who would deride the American people. I tried to persuade them otherwise, seeing as I have lived in the US before, and the two really are not that different, but alas, I failed.

And came right here to hear people deride Canadians.

Really, they're not all that different. Even in the ways they insult each other, of course tailored slightly to fit the context.

But I figured showing the reactions side by side would be interesting.

(Oh, and, in calc class today, Sonny and Dino asked me whether I had heard of curling. Because, apparently, it's huge in Canada. And when I said I had heard of it--not in Canada, but in the US, actually--he immediately assumed that I knew how to curl. Trust me, I am far better at chess than I am at curling, and to be honest, I have only won one game at chess, and that was because my opponent gave up since the game was taking too long.)

Hockey gold also places Canada with 14 gold medals, which brings up the next interesting piece, namely the number 14. I now firmly believe it is one of my lucky numbers.

To name but a few 14s that were more than nice, there was the 14 I got at NEML, which subsequently resulted in a fancy prize of $12.5 in giftcard money (they gave two for people who scored high enough to get $25 and so forth... which is probably what only math people could have even thought of) and a book filled with math problems.

There was the 14 questions I got right on the AMC.

Chinese New Year's this year was on February 14th. As was Valentine's Day, although I suppose that was not quite the "cheerful" holiday I had been not-so-expecting anyway.

I have 14 lower teeth.

Okay, the last one, albeit true, is totally unrelated. Regardless, those are a lot of 14s in my life, all related to positive things. So my theory on 14 being a lucky number of mine is not entirely untrue. In fact, it is very, very plausible, and perhaps I should host a special event on the 14th of every month as a continuing respect for this holy number.

Or, more beneficial to me and to the people at our school in general, I could use this as an excuse to postpone school starting time until 8:14am, because teachers would be much more miserable if we had to go to school at 7:14am, and the next alternative has to be 8:14am. If we could also get out at 2:14 pm, my life will be complete.

It's just like 11:11, except even better.

(My wishes for 11:11 never happens, anyway. Neither do my birthday wishes, although I suspect that may have something to do with the fact that my cakes do not have candles.)