Carol Johnston: The One Armed Gymnast

 ^{Carol Johnston, was born in 1956, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She started out as an ice skater then,  she began doing gymnastics to strengthen her legs for figure skating, and fell in love with it.  Starting at the age of 12 she put her heart and soul into gymnastics.  1n 1979 Carol competed in the Canada winter games, then in 1976 she competed in the Junior Olympics in Montreal, and also at the Hawaii Invitations.   Shortly thereafter, she enrolled at Cal-State Fullerton for college. "I thought I could improve as a gymnast at Fullerton," Carol said. "I also thought it would be good for me to be out on my own." In her freshman season she became the conference beam champion.  In her sophomore year she won beam and placed third in floor exercise at her school's conference championships. She and her teammates traveled to Seattle, Washington for the NCAA Championships. Placing second on beam and floor, she earned All-American honors.  Determined to win gold at the 1979 NCAAs, Carol trained her hardest that season. Fate took a sad turn however, and she tore her right ACL while warming up for a UCLA vs California State meet. The injury was  devastating, but provided Carol with insight, "Now I really know what handicapped is" With her leg in a cast, she plowed ahead with conditioning.  she was determined to be back as soon as possible.}   "I have a chance at a title, and I just have to do it," she explained. "That's my goal." Carol did come back, but soon after she landed low on a tumbling pass, reinjuring her knee.  Doctors repaired it, cautioning her that if she landed on it wrong again she may never walk again. Carol headed the advice and quit competitive gymnastics. "Having one arm was never a limitation, but my knee was,"  Carol explaned. The move was hard for Carol, but by continuing to coach gymnastics to young children she was able to remain in the sport. 

Olympic History

Olympic History

Gymnastics is one of the only sports to have appeared at every modern Olympic games since the first competition in 1896. Men's artistic gymnastics was the first to appear, followed by the women's artistic events in 1928. According to the British Olympic Association, the first games involved athletes from five countries competing on six apparatus, including the horizontal bar, parallel bars, pommel horse, rings, vault, and rope climbing. Despite the fact that it was not until the late 1950s that the competition structure in place today was evident. Rhythmic gymnastics, an elegant discipline using hand-held apparatus, was first included in the 1984 LA Games, and the most recent Olympic gymnastics discipline is trampolining, which appeared at the Sydney Games in 2000.

                                                   -Katie

You Might be a Gymnast if...

*You might be a gymnast if...
*You sit in the splits no matter where you are.
*You own more leotards than regular clothes.
*You always do handstands in the pool.
*You are on your hands more than your feet.
*The first thing you do in the morning is stretch.
*You hear a good song and instantly start choreographing a routine.
*Aerial is not a mermaid.
*Practice makes perfect isn't just a saying, but a way of life.
*You can stick it without using glue.
*You do pirouettes while waiting in line.
*You promise to never stop gymnastics.... like an energizer bunny that just keeps going.
                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                     ~Katie



   
  

My Great Pyrenees.

My Great Pyrenees, Mia, is what you would call a badger, because she has a mask of color across  her forehead. Most Great Pyrenees are all white, but sometimes they are born with badger markings.  Great Pyrenees are often stubborn, but with loving consistency, they can be trained out of it.  Great Pyrenees are very intelligent, and they have their unique personalities. They do funny things, such as carrying their food bowl around when its empty.  Mia lives to snuggle, and play. When Mia wants attention she has a funny habit of going into our rooms and getting stuff she knows shes not supposed to have, like clothes off our floor, or bath toys out of our bathroom. She once tipped over a water jug that I had left on the floor, after watering plants inside. When she saw that the jug was spilling out water, she picked it up by the spout so that it was up-rite again.  Over all, they are a wonderful breed, and I don't think I will ever get a different type of dog.

Thanks for reading!

-Katie

The History of Medicine

   

The History of Medicine

  If you were sick in 1900, your doctor couldn't do much more than help you be comfortable until your body conquered the illness, or until the illness conquered you. The doctor had very little in his little black bag, although he did carry, morphine and aspirin to ease pain, quinine to fight off malaria, smallpox vaccine, and digitalis for heart failure.

   Oh how that little black bag has grown. Nowadays, we have medicine for almost every malady known to man! If you had a cold back in 1800 they didn’t have medicine to make you feel better.  As for now, there are approximately 13,000 prescription drugs on the market today, and several drugs can often be used to treat the same condition.