But Tessa's played it up. She can take an instant and amp it into a thorough immersion experience. She's gonna ride that Windsor U pony til it breaks down.
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| College girl Tessa in her collegiate-style scarf |
She gives a lot of the credit to the Windsor faculty, which has permitted Virtue flexibility around her skating schedule in terms of completing assignments and taking exams.A lot of the credit? A year and a half of course work spread out over five years at a low-regarded university** and she still needs a Tessa-specific schedule to get it done? Tessa. You seem so intelligent.
How much walking and discussing in the ivied halls can she have done? How much of a contribution to that precious balance between Skate Tessa and Other Life Tessa is happening here? I don't think Scott not being next to her is why she's not recognized. She's not recognized because she's never there. Even her instructors are probably all - who now? But give the school a boost in an article and the people who work there become charitable.
Underneath this Collegiate Tessa fantasy Tessa is re-purposing her occasional school attendance as Tessa-speak for two things. One is the actual balance she and Scott have attempted to create away from the rink, together, at home. They take care to create connections apart from skating - to say the least. Together they've put a lot of work into that aspect of their combined balanced life. Balance - and keeping an eye on the future when they won't be competing - is something both of them have planned for and acted on. But not at the University of Windsor.
But the second thing Tessa is doing is using her "education" narrative to steer people into believing she spends most of her off-ice time away from Scott. Oh she loves school. Oh how she prioritizes the non-skating side of her. A girl like that, with so little non-skating-related free time, is not going to waste it hanging with her figure skating partner. Her nature is such that she wants a complete break from all that when she's not skating - a complete break into a different world - different PEOPLE (we got that too, right?). A world that doesn't include Scott. That's why she loves to talk about school. It's SCHOOL I love - not Scott. Besides, I live with my mommy. A girl who lives with mommy can't be with Scott Moir! Only Ryan Semple and Fedor Andreev!
About the University of Windsor - of which the urban dictionary says:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=University%20of%20Windsor
I remember when the Super Bowl was in Detroit - the celebs packed in as if it were Miami or New Orleans, mostly because everybody could hotfoot it across the border to party their brains out in Windsor. I never thought of Detroit as slacking off in the party department but going by reports from that time (2006) it can't touch Windsor.
I know I'm offending Windsor-ites but Tessa's wholesome knitted scarf, autumnal jacket, starry eyes and the "I love to be on campus" narrative, as if we're talking, say, the U of Michigan, is off.
It's not fair to snark at someone diligently working towards a degree while in an elite sport but what is taking Tessa so long seeing as she and Scott live such separate lives off the ice and other figure skaters seem to hit their academic milestones in a more timely manner all without down time due to compartment syndrome (remember, her bouts with compartment syndrome gave her more time for school!). And considering Tessa makes out as if every spare second she's soaking in the college experience. ***
The "I love school!" portrait does invite a couple of eye rolls simply because it's marrying something true (I bet she enjoys school) to something self-serving like Tessa's relentless on-message self-portrait of a girl who hates to think about ice (and Scott) or figure skating (and Scott) when away from the rink - a girl who glows when she's across the border "on campus" and adores the chance to have stimulating conversations with the U of W intelligentsia****, who loves balance so much she can't possibly be spending free time with that partner she loves but just hates being around off ice.
Tessa likes to lay it on thick.***** Also interesting is the drop that Kate Virtue lives with Tessa, per the article. Probably just editing out a couple of other people living with Tessa. I'd believe Kate is there at this time. I don't believe, and have reason not to, that Kate moved camp to Michigan until recently. Just add that to the lies in the book.
The thing with half truths is the sanctimony around them, like - oh it's only a semi-lie. No, it's not. It's a big manipulation. I also wonder why Tessa bangs the balance gong so so SO hard. If she's so about balance, why didn't she take last season off? That was the perfect opportunity to have a whole season of balance - a balance break. They both say their coaches wanted them to take that season off. What other permission do you need Tessa? Remember what you always say - you try to do things separately from Scott whenever there's the chance - I know the line as well as you do. Why did you instead choose to spend all that time training with Scott for a single competition when you'd have two more shots at it prior to Sochi? That's more time you could have spent being balanced away from Scott. Instead Scott's the one scooping you out of your hospital bed after surgery, he's the one who decides to relocate to London while you recuperate instead of going sandbag in Canton, instead of studying you're skating - all this hanging out - so unnecessary. I don't know girl, sometimes your stories - they confuse.
So - they did the 4CCs gambit and went for it at Worlds for no reason, really, under extraordinarily daunting circumstances. Why?
The "balance" as presented by Tessa is OTT. What she wants to be or thinks she ought to be, not who she is.
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*Actually, Windsor University's definition of a part-time student is "one who is registered in fewer than four courses in a term" which leaves room for "no courses in a term" and "doesn't go to school whole terms at a time."
**The Canadian university student forums I've read seem to agree Windsor sucks and deserves its low ranking and that whether it matters depends on what the student wants to do after college and what they studied at Windsor.
***I wonder if Ice, Sweat and Tears will show Study Hall Tessa struggling to keep pace with the demands of the UoW's curriculum while we see Scott hoisting a few in Ilderton - the favorite "us time" destination for the Dube_Moir lovebirds.
****Is there an Audrey Hepburn Goes to College movie? Because Tessa's portrait of school doesn't feel lifted from actual experience.
*****FF to 2045 and Tessa will be Skate Canada's in-resident Director of Sports Psychology with a therapeutic focus on rationalization.
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Windsor University doesn't make the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, which ranks the top 400 universities internationally. That's not a shocker. Windsor also doesn't make THE's top 400 in North America.
Windsor is unranked by Quacquarelli Symonds not only in its world rankings (700 schools) but in its Canadian rankings.
The Windsor University Faculty Association went on strike in 2008. There were a list of important issues including terrible pay, the hiring of unqualified professors and gender inequity but this one jumped out:
5. Horrible financial decisions. VP Finance, Stephen Willetts, was hired at the UofW to create long-term financial planning. So he hired an outside consultant team to come in and do hid job for him. Ross Paul was paid $615,000 for leaving the school (hard work, we know). The new logo cost $1.5 million dollars. And we wonder where our tuition fees go?Maybe Tessa thinks she's at school more than she is because Windsor is/was so similar to Skate Canada. Zebra Studios re-formatted Skate Canada's logo in 2011 and it looks to me as if SC has been obsessed with the logo-as-brand ever since. Cause when your sponsors go bye bye sink some $$ into a new logo, shove it in people's eyeballs and the money will commence flooding in.
