Also called “Emo day”.

So I dusted off the blog with a post about a day. Here’s another one.

I spent the whole of Saturday, 19th of July sitting at my computer.

2:40 - 8:50 PM: Refresh the NBC page over 60 times? That and actually reading the quickhit updates on the US Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Olympic selection camp. And read forum posts. And chat with wonderful Gymworlders about it.
9:00 - 01:00? AM: Walk my avatars for the sake of it at Relay for Life. ON SECOND LIFE. And take snapshots.

No much room for social interaction, huh?

So it’s been one of the most emotional days for me this summer.

Leaving any gymnastics fanatism aside, the experience of actually knowing what was going on in the selection camp every minute was quite ground-shattering for me. The whole gymnastics community found out perhaps 30 seconds after the routine of a girl was over that that was it - her Olympic dream was over. We found out the first morning even before the competition that another girl was done, too… breaking her leg a couple of hours before the second most important competition of her life. I hate NBC for its yellow broadcasting and its lack of respect towards the grief of others, but I have to admit I give kudos to them for the quickhits. http://www.nbcolympics.com/gymnastics/news/newsid=152642.html

The US WAG team is great. They will be a real threat for the Chinese dreams of Team gold. Still, it is impossible (or at least it is for me) to feel bad for these girls, you know? These are girls who are my age or younger and who have spent the last ten years of their lives going everyday to a gym. They go through injuries, lack of a normal social life, sometimes though lack of a proper formal education, to be the world’s best - and it was stopped by a fracture, and by two falls in uneven bars routines. Two falls out of other great seventeen routines at least in this year.

These children don’t go to war, go through starvation (at least out of lack of food in their country) or have no access to clean water. But, honestly, I can only imagine what is going on in their minds.

The second part of the day - Relay for Life. I didn’t attend the event earlier because I was, as you now know, tuned to see who’d make it in. Also, I didn’t consider it a priority because the RFL events I had attended before didn’t really make it for me, you know? I didn’t find myself there. It was very hard to visualise how buying a T-shirt would really liberate me from the guilt of not going beyond a purchase to do actually do something about cancer.

I am not even sure if my effort counted as I crashed throughout the about four hours I was at it, but it was something impressive to attend. I don’t think there is a point in writing more about it. I’ll just say that seeing the products of the work of months (not mine, by the way), the attendance and the personal side was very moving. It was moving to pass by donation boxes devoted to someone lost to cancer, or to builds made to make the walk nicer for people, or avatars of all kinds carrying flags and tags with names of people they lost.

It is pretty sad. It really is. I don’t think the essence of it is cheerful, despite what the RFL page says. What I do think, though, is that it is heart-warming to see how something so painful is able to unite masses.

Especially when those in the mass will never meet offline.

I will upload some of the snapshots I took to www.flickr.com/photos/faeriedevilish .
Here’s the story of the woman to whom I dedicated the donations.