On top of the world

Birthday wish

September 2015

Before I knew it, summer break was over, and I would be starting my first ever online school.  It is a special international school that many top figure skating athletes are enrolled in. During this summer break, I also met Jun-hwan Cha of South Korea; he came here to train back in March. But he normally trains in the afternoon, so I haven't gotten to see him as much. But now with school starting and us being enrolled into the same school, we are starting to get to know each other more. He will be in some of my classes, including AP Bio, which Katya and Nam will also be in. We will be logging onto WebEx after morning practice to meet our teacher and other classmates.

"Hello class," our teacher, Mrs. Caruso greeted us. "Let's all introduce ourselves with our names and a fun fact."

"Hi!" a girl around my age piped up.  "I'm Evgenia, but you may call me Zhenya. I'm from Moscow, Russia, and I train with Eteri Tutberidze. I'm really into anime!" she said with a giggle. She spoke with a thick Russian accent.

"So...you're a weaboo?" Katya asked bluntly.

"Eh...you could say that!" Zhenya replied with a cheesy grin and the eyes that looked like this: ^^ "Oh, and this is my 'sister' Alina! She's not in this class; she's just here to say hello. Alina, skazhi privet, vy budete (say hello, will you)?" The younger girl with space buns gave us a meek wave.

"Konichiwa (Hello). Watashi (I am) Kihira Rika-san," a real Japanese girl said softly. 

"She is from Japan and she trains with Hamada Mie-san. She likes to jump on ice and listen to music," her translator told the class.

"Hi. I am Cha Jun-hwan. Call me 'Jun'." 

"Jun is from South Korea, but he trains in Toronto with Brian Orser. As a child, he worked in the modeling industry, and he has also been in several commercials," Jun's translator told us.

"Hey everyone. I'm Nam. Fun fact: I like to play video games!"

"What's up? I'm Roman. I like YouTube."

"I'm Katya. I like sleeping."

"I'm Lyubov; y'all can call me Lyuba if you want. Um, my 15th birthday is tomorrow, actually." I looked down shyly. 

"Ooh, happy early birthday," everyone wished for me at various times.

"Thank you," I replied. I eyed Zhenya and Rika carefully. I was aware that I might be competing with them someday.

"Ok everyone, it's very nice to meet all of you! I'm Mrs. Caruso as you all know now, and I love to travel and see nature. My favorite topic that we will go over is ecology, but that will be much later this year. Today, I will introduce you to biochemistry. But first, let's go over the syllabus!"

The time flew by, and my arm was just about ready to fall off from taking notes. Luckily, Katya was recording her screen so we could refer back to the lectures for studying. For the lab portion of the course, we had to option to either watch all of them being done online, or we could go to the local community college to watch them being done. Katya, Jun, Nam and I decided to go with the latter option, so starting next week (when labs start), we will take a bus from the rink to Seneca College to see the action.

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Today I'm 15!

Yesterday, Katya's parents bought me an ice cream cake with pink frosting because Katya told them that my favorite color was pink and that I liked vanilla ice cream. They stored it in the freezer for me and presented it to me today. I decided to bring it to the rink to share with my friends and the coaches. Katya and I kept the cake in the rink with us until Yuzuru came in and saw it. He waved to Katya and I and then started shouting.