Blackberry

No, I’m a multi-purpose dork.

I do lots of research on the theory that somehow knowing exactly what is possible will make me more likely to get what I want. It never works that way and yet still I keep doing it? Huh.

Neither of these things are really true when you consider travel time, practice schedules, and Yale exams. NHK Trophy starts on November 22, but with the time difference, that’s actually November 21 here. Take into account practice schedules and flight times, and Nathan would probably miss around 3 days before the start of the competition, and because those days are right before Yale has a recess, that’s typically right when professors schedule all their exams. As for timing for Skate Canada: Keep in mind that Nathan is either flying out of a small airport (New Haven) or taking a train to NYC and flying out of a big airport (which adds hassle and travel time). Skate Canada is in Kelowna which is exactly like New Haven in that it’s small and there just aren’t that many flights in and out. So he’s on either a 3-hop flight (and yes, I checked) OR he does a two-hop flight plus one extended leg by train or car. So looking up shortest duration flights, he’s looking at a 12 hour trip (on the outgoing journey) to a 17 hour trip (on the return) for him. So look at the overall schedule: Skate America isn’t on fall recess this year, so he missed two days of class the prior week. He finishes Skate America in Vegas on Sunday, takes a red eye back to NYC in time for Monday classes. Then he has to fly back to the West Coast for Thursday practice, which means he’s missing class on Wednesday-Friday. And October 25th is the official mid term date for Yale, and he might not be able to get back in time for Monday classes, either, depending on when the gala is scheduled. I’m guessing that Nathan doesn’t want to miss 50% of his classes in the two weeks before and including midterms. As someone who did that once, I do not advise it. So just because it’s in North America doesn’t mean it’s convenient. Kelowna is slightly better travel time than Internationaux de France, which is 14 hours and 16 hours, and Moscow which is 19 hours and 20 hours, but I think it would really mess with this ability to study and schedule exams to have two back-to-back competitions right then. That being said, the worst possible option in terms of travel is China, because Chongqing omg why.

It only looks on paper like NHK coincides with the November recess because they start the same day. But remember he has to travel halfway round the world (20+ hour flight) to get there, and there are practice days beforehand—so he would be leaving early. And functionally (from what the student told me), many classes tends to have exams *right* before that break. That means that Nathan would have to leave right before exams, which is really suboptimal. I think he’s going to want CoC or maybe IdeF (it’s a lot closer to him, and travel time will get you).

I talked to a Yale student who said that while there were no convenient breaks for Nathan this year, unlike last year, the way midterms tended to be scheduled meant that he was unlikely to want CoR or France, and would likely prefer CoC. I’m also operating under the following assumptions: the rules only officially say that Yuzu/Vincent/Nathan and Boyang/Shoma/Mikhail can’t meet, but everyone knows that the top 3 in the world are technically Yuzu/Shoma/Nathan and they’ll try to keep those three from having a showdown before the GPF, too. I also think that given the way the JSF is being about Yuzu (not listing him first, etc etc), they’re going to have Shoma at NHK, and even though they could have Yuzu and Shoma both there TECHNICALLY I don’t think they’re going to want to. Given that, I think the most likely scenario then is: SkAm: Nathan + (probably Mikhail? but maybe Boyang) SCI: Yuzu + (probably Boyang? but maybe Misha) IdeF: Vincent + Shoma CoC: Nathan + Boyang CoR: Yuzu + MIkhail NHK: Vincent + Shoma Bonus prediction: Daisuke Takahashi at NHK and SkAm (with tertiary possibility for IdeF).

I say ACI short program, which I realize makes no sense on the one hand, but I think there is a reason that we have seen so little of the short program. And then the question becomes, when does he add it to his FS?

My Japanese still needs work at conversational speed, so I’ll need to see it again and check the subtitles, but I think that she asked him what pose he would be in for a 4A when you jumped, and he put it in one pose, and then she said, “so this is what it would be like during the jump?” and he said something like, Oh, during the jump? And then corrected the pose. Please take my very vague and possibly wrong translation for all that it’s worth, which is about the value of 0.2 doll molestations.