Day 6 short reflections

The picture speaks for itself, doesn't it?

Freaking 54% first serve percentage is NOT going to carry you through anywhere near the final. The shots were messy, he was allllll over the place, Tipsarevich wasn't even playing great tennis but he still managed to take a lead in the first set.

Lucky for Murray, Tips retired (what is it with these Serbians??!! RE: Djokovic) in the second set after calling a doctor on court, popping a pill, and then deciding enough was enough. The camera shot on Murray's face when Tips left the court after the game said it all. He knows it's not good enough. I hope he gets throttled by Cilic; the 20 year old Croatian player, currently ranked no 13.

6ft 6inch Cilic will bring the game, he has a tendency to get bashed around, and flopping over his long legs, but when he's focused, he is really good. Murray will be looking to swatting this fly out the way.

I am supposed to be revising for my Psychology of Addiction exam which is less than an hour away right now. This is how much i have given up on everything in my life except tennis.

Matches to look forward to today:

1. Paul henry Mathieu vs ROGER FEDERER (last match of the day) should be sweeeet.

2. Philip Kohlschrieber vs Djokovic (lets see what tricks Djokovic has up his sleeve)

3. IN PROGRESS NOW I WISH I COULD WATCH!!!!- IGOR ANDREEV VS DEL POTRO- both absolute warriors.

Tennis, where were we?

Seeing Federer drop tears like he used to drop winners at this years Australian Open was enough to put me off tennis for a good 4 months. I've since recovered, but amidst the inconveniences of, well, my degree :/ i've had to put tennis at the back seat for awhile, till now! Roland Garros is upon us- Clay Court Kingdom, for only one King. I need to pay severely for my lack of devotion and thus need to gather my thoughts on this one..

2009 aims for top players:

1. Nadal- Win Wimbledon again. This will absolutely set in gold his number one position, and his new legacy as face of tennis for the new generation. Perhaps most importantly, Nadal's aim will b

e to defend his winning position at Roland Garros. RG is HIS Tournament- it has been for four years, and if this becomes the fifth consecutive year he will have officially set a new record of five consecutive years as French Open winner (with only Borg being the runner up with four consecutive year wins).

2. Federer- HAS to try his hardest to at least GET TO THE FINAL at Wimbledon. Winning, is another thing, but if Federer can't make it to the final, he will lose a lot (probs all) of his cred not only from other players, but the majority of the tennis world. He also needs to capitalise on his good fortune of winning the Madrid Open, hope that Nadal's knees play up more, so he can bag the French.

3. Djokovich- I'm not entirely certain what's going on with Djokovic anymore, he always seems to be just swanning around, making it into tournaments, but never making any obvious 'mark of significance'. Djokovic lost to Nadal at Madrid, despite Nadal whipping out the unforced errors every few minutes..I am not impressed with Djokovic anymore, obviously this is not a nice thing for anyone to say, taking into account that i am not anywhere near the gruelling standards these guys are currently at, but still, i always accepted his arsey pretentious behaviour before, owing it to his self-righteous upbringing...? Djokovic always seems so ridiculously close to being a outstanding player, but just lets everyone down (including himself) in the process. I think we can all expect some 'drama' from him at RG in the form of some 'knee injury'.

4. Murray- There is just no getting rid of him. Obviously Murray's priority this year is to make it to make it to at least semi-final for Wimbledon. In his head, the aim is to be number 1 at the end of the year......Not happening. But he will try, he always does. The past few months have seen him improve in leaps and bounds, most notably in his fitness, his movement on court, mental strength and execution of tactics. If he wants to get anymore close to no 1, he needs to rack up all the titles he POSSIBLY CAN, and also has a ton to defend too. Murray needs to display all the potential he has, a young and promising player (has to be said, unfortunately) like himself needs to show people what he's got early, especially since there's more than enough young guns crawling up the ranks.

SO, last month's big news was Federer's win over Nadal at the Madrid Open; clay court, which has undoubtedly given Federer a HUGEEEEE psychological boost. This sort of circumstance is exactly what he needs before going into clay court season, and here's proof of that on an exclusive with CNN:

"He's won four straight times here in Paris which shows how tough he is, but if you play him the right way there will be chances, he is only human and we wait for that moment when he is not at his best; hopefully that will be this year," the Swiss said.

I am struggling to catch all the matches with revision and all, but Federer's win over Alberto Martin was a clean cut, 6-4 6-3 6-2, in just under two hours... Also looks like he has had a nice hair cut :D

Someone tie me to 200 balloons so i can fly away from this world.

Grizzly Bear / Two Weeks from Minimaxwell on Vimeo.

When doctors get sick

Life has these strange ways of reminding us that it still exists within every fragment of our bodies, and we can't ever get away with not participating in its horrible little games. 

It only takes a single, unexpected text, an hour before an examination to pull you back into reality- which so easily fails to possess weary souls:

'I need u 2 pick Ash up frm school. Dad has been admitted into QMC'

With a lack of response to calls and texts back, we can only spend the next 4 hours convincing ourselves that we never got that message. That we could still remember the Broadbent Filter Model of Attention within the half hour left of this exam, and that we can always be stronger than we feel. Nothing seems real, and the car ride home from school will inevitably be a hopeless, dewy-eyed Pokémon discussion.

Back home, one car may sit unusually complacent on the drive, so that little boys can smile at the sight of it and gush 'Dad's home'. It is difficult to understand what sort of introspections a 7 yr old may have, when 7 years have been and gone where Dads are never home before 7pm. 

When we turn around, and suggest to them that the car has never moved off the drive from morning, there is only something short of a simper and a quick glance back in the vehicle's direction as a response.

An hour or two may pass before someone puts forward the suggestion that an outing to the hospital is a very good idea after tea and biscuits. They drive, they visit, they sit, they exchange a kiss or two and then they leave. Car rides home can be nothing more than creative silence.

On arriving, we may sit out in the dusk with a face wet from silent tears, and tremble, holding the hopelessly brave, while they cry indecipherability onto the lapel of an equally affected other. 

But we can see our luck, when it is reflected on the windows in the front porch, showing the difference that lies between losing something, and being reminded of how much there is to lose.  

The patient can only be grateful for the luck that is felt through the endoscopic instruments reaching down their throats, sourcing the pain. There's a sweet familiarity to these techniques; the imaging, the precision, the countless research meetings, the computer, purging with clips of the convoluting gastrointestinal tracts. There's a pain that they get used to making a living out of in starch white coats, that they never imagine could plant itself in seemingly capable bodies. And seeing their colleagues look on, diagnose and discuss, while their own body has shown the signs of disintegration, is enough to shake them all into the reality that provides their bread and butter. The reality that they will all be in someday, lying on the white beds, breathing the white air and hoping that they will be cared for by someone as competent as themselves.

Brain Music: Four Tet

I never appreciated Kieren Hebden's work so much before, but since starting revision for Yr 1 Psychology properly, 'Pause' is the one album i have on repeat almost constantly. It's a been a while since 2001, but the record is still just pacifying 'brain music' that seems to flow as one with the neurones firing around in my confused cerebral hemispheres. Maybe it's the context of my work this week (which has been a lot to do specifically with brain areas and their functions) but i couldn't help but think of 'four tet' as 'four tête' i.e. four heads, which in reality is quite true of the brain anatomy.

The motor cortex and frontal cortex can be thought of as one since they both belong to the Frontal lobe of the brain. The sensory is part of the Parietal lobe, and the visual is part of the Temporal lobe. While the Occipital lobe constitutes the cerebellum area.

Each of these lobes have a specific function, so seem to be four separately functioning 'heads', yet they all combine so beautifully into a integrated system. Unique in their capacities, yet entirely dependent. 'Pause' by 'Four heads' is such a complete album, listening to it makes me feel so aware of this integration of all these working parts of my head, and the stimulation of motivation that fabricate themselves from physical brain matter.

'Twenty Three' specifically reminds me of CSI music, the one that they use in the sequences of 'laboratory investigation scenes' where samples are being analysed, and tested, and fingerprints are taken etc etc. The rhythm is a driving force for my brain, in a highly positive sense, which for me portrays it as less of a 'slave system' in remembering this bombardment of information, but as a strong, and fully capable organ, that i shouldn't ever be afraid of exhausting.

[When i was little, and i felt things were too tuff, i always used to imagine bits of brain falling off inside my body and tumbling into the rest of my body, and the hollow of my chest and empty belly. Now i realise it is so far from that sort of fragility! ]

Another source of joy comes from the beginning of 'Mosquitoes' where the sound resembles that of a blue whale song (You have to wait a whiel before you hear the whale,there are better ones, i haven't properly explored to find some decent sound clips). I love listening to whale and dolphin sonar communication; for the thrill of it just being so foreign to me, and how there's this whole other language i will never be able to learn, no matter what. Kieren's work on this album is both foreign and familiar, which must be why it is so entrancing. Like whale song is familiar as a language of some kind, the children making noise on the track 'Park' is familiar, but the setting of the song is in a other-worldly medium. Just as whale song will never be comprehensible to us, nor will anyone be able to understand it for what it really is, other than a form of sonar communication.

'Glue of the world' stimulates my working memory, 'Everything is alright' are the action potentials flowing through my motor neurones to my fingers that allow me to keep keep keep keep keep keep keep keep on on on on on on on on on on on on on typing typing typing typing typing typing typing typing typing typing typing typing typing..........................

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...........................................and never stopping....