BLOG SHUT DOWN

I just want to apologize to the people that were following my blog...once I got to China my blog was shut down and blocked by security people in China. They somehow put a block on my blog so that I could not make any posts during the games. This was a problem with a lot of people that had blogs.
But anyways my time in china was bitter sweet. The bitter part was the fact that I feel short of my goals of swimming best times and medaling. Instead I swam average swims and found myself having a hard time finishing races...perhaps due to the minimal amount of training that I had following my appendicitis and surgery but I'm not going to make excuses. The sweet part was the fact that I swam in the water cube in front of 14,000 spectators and my parents, brother and cousin and his wife. The most people that I have ever had the pleasure of competing in front of.
In the morning of the 100 butterfly I wore an blue 70 and in the ready room before my race the suit ripped in two places as I was stretching before my race...not the best way to start the meet. The entire race I was thinking about my suit and not the race my turn suffered from this mental block. The result was that I swam .50 of a second slower than my best time and made finals in 8th place beating out the 9th place person by .06 of a second. I ended up swimming the same time in finals and remained in 8th place.
The 100 free went about the same, as I swam a mediocre time at about .30 slower than my best and missing finals. In the 400 free I was able to drop 2 seconds off of my best time placing ninth and missing finals by only hundredths of a second. Then in the 50, my worst event, I was able to improve my time by a couple hundredths but missed finals. So as the meet moved on, my swims gradually got better.
I also competed on both the 400 free and medley relays which we set american records on both relays but still falling short of the medal stand.
All in all the memories that I take away from my competitions themselves are not the best but looking back I am fortunate that I can say that I competed in the 08 paralympics and that I gave it 100% in the water cube while representing my country in front of 14,000.
Thanks to everyone that has followed my blog and supported me through my travels to japan and china!! and sorry again that my blog was shut down.