Public Fascination

No one loves being stalked. What drives people to crave about celebrities private lifestyle? After all, they are just the same human being like us. But does it really matter what they do? Does it really affect our lives? Or is it to simply there to just let us know?
Knowledge/information seems so critical and important when it comes to celebrities. Sure they maybe pretty, handsome, charismatic, famous or rich but why do people want to be like them? They want to be just as rich, handsome and famous. People think it is wrong to have private lifestyle if you’re a celebrity. They think every aspect of their lifestyle should be open to the media and the public. But most are very different from what they are to the media and to what they are in private.

Generally, public views of celebrities are, they are perfect. They expect them to be flawless and be good in everything in what they do. If they make a mistake or if they are horrible at something, it almost becomes a rule to criticize and point fingers at them. What we don’t respect is that, they are a person of their own. Everyone needs private, alone, quite time of their own. Their own secret, private little space. Imagine having every detail of your life being shared to the world. Everything that you do, it has to be done so you won’t be criticized or made fun of or mocked. You really can’t be yourself.

However, they do their part. It seems that people can get inspired and change attitudes to what they see in theatres or however you visually see it. It may be good or bad. That may lead to why a lot of us want to be more then what we are, they want to be everything they can be, often asking for too much. It has become a media driven century past few years, over-exaggerating circumstances that may not be big, getting the worst out of any criteria. While they should be just left alone, let them do their things and go on with their life. It seems like we are only making obstacles for other people and giving pain and hard times to go through. Most are silenced and cannot reveal their true personality because they are scared. If we leave them alone, do what they want to do, they can be enhanced and make such better role models. That day may be far away, but certainly many people are waiting for it.

Focus Assignment

Lance Armstrong was a spectacular cyclist. He won the Tour de France six times, winning the World Cycling Champion; he was rising to the top in the cycling association, only what separated him from the rest was he was American. An American in cycling was like France baseball team in the World Series, the underdogs. One thing so great about him is that in the middle of his career he was caught with cancer, but still managed to recover and dominate in cycling. He also started a cancer foundation to raise money for future cancer research. He was a hero. Public have accused him for cheating because of the use of drugs during cancer recovery that might have helped him in Tour de France, but of course the public and the media always find it’s ways to bring people down.

Lance Armstrong was born in 1971. At this time in Plano, Texas football was the major upset. If you weren’t a football fan, or a football player you weren’t with the crowd. As a child, he was very skilled at running, biking and swimming. Of course that meant that he loved triathlons, and that’s what his childhood was about. He started his career by participating in every triathlon he could find, and was starting to make more money then his mother. His mother had problems with guys, divorced three times, and she was a secretary. Lance began to make name for him, and many people recognized him. He was invited to all kinds of contracts and deals and he joined the American cycling team. He soon quickly rose up and would start to dominate, but he had problems, he was not liked in Europe. He was a known as a stupid American, and he liked to trash talk to older, much respected cyclers. But the major thing that slowed him down was cancer, he would not trade this for anything in the world, because he was enhanced, matured by the experience. In his hard times during cancer recovery, he was much scared, but much confident because he wanted things done fast. He could want to kill cancer and the very next day he would be back on his bike. His will to believe in things is what made him survive, and comeback even greater to the public world.

It wasn’t a very long time until he returned to cycling but he sure was a different person after. When he won Tour de France, he shocked the whole world and not only was that surprising, he won it 6 times. He now inspired many people and published many books about his life, stories of hard times, times of fear and love. Lasting words that he said after cancer "Without cancer, I never would have won a single Tour de France. Cancer taught me a plan for more purposeful living, and that in turn taught me how to train and to win more purposefully. It taught me that pain has a reason, and that sometimes the experience of losing things–whether health or a car or an old sense of self–has its own value in the scheme of life. Pain and loss are great enhancers."

After the last pages of the book

After the last pages of the book.

• He said he would have chose cancer instead of Tour de France if he had two options.
• He had two babies now. One named Luke David Armstrong.
• He lated remember the saying of one cancer patient, "You don't know it yet, but we're the lucky one." he said he will never forget about this.
• He stated he would never ever forget about his experience in cancer.

After the 90% Readings

My notes after the 90% Readings

• He was going to attempt the TOUR De France.
• In 1999, he almost broke his shoulder in the Tour of Valencia.
• He began to realize that in biking, he was matured, he was in style and in pace, he was no longer attacking simultaneously.
• He later on the Tour de France, a dream of his life.

After the 80% Readings

My notes after the 80% Readings.

• Lance wanted to marry Kik, so he told his mom "Lets go look for diamonds"
• He proposed with the diamond ring to Kik, in europe and asked her to marry him, She accepted.
• His first race after 18 months was the Ruta del sol, a five-day jaunt in spain.
• He finished fourth in the U.S Pro championships while his friend won it.
• Lance was now confident enough to go back to Europe.
• He later raced in Tour of Luxembourg, he won it, then Tour of holland, finished fourth, but wasn't ready for Tour De France just yet.
• On octorober 1, 1998 he finished fourth in the Vuelta. He knew that he got better.

After the 70% Readings

My notes after the 70% readings

• He was finally out of his Chemo treatment.
• He wanted to launch a cancer foundation.
• At a press conference about the cancer foundation, he emt Kristin Richard, a girl who he eventually fell in love with. She was generally pronounced Kik ( Keek).
• For the the two months, he worked with Kik for the foundation.
• One day when he was signing auto-graphs near a restaurant, he met Jim Hoyt, hes homeboy from Plano. He had wanting to donated five grand to the foundation.
• Lance wanted to make a comback in cycling, he had talk to Chris and chris said you should try and making a comeback again.
• Later Kik was going to travel to spain, Lance asked to go with her and she agreed.
• When he was making his comeback, no one wanted to sign a deal with Lance. Later, finally he found a american sponsor and a team that would accept him.

After the 60% Readings

My notes after 60% readings

• After Lance was going through recovery, he wanted to exercise because he had lost all muscle throughout the recovery and treatment.
• When it was his time to leave the hospital for the second time, he was offered a wheelchair but as stubborn and cocky he is, he said "No way, I'm walking out of here".
• Bondue came to visit Lance and Bill, and had a conversation about Lance's contract. He wanted to end the contract with Lance and Bill was stunned and said "I don't belive what I'm hearing". Bill swore to Bondue to get out of here and asked have you come all the way here to tell me that, because it isn't the time right now. Bill was sorry that he had to provide another bad new for Lance.
• Chemo made him so sick, sometimes he would lie a whole day in bed, he would cough out black ashes from his chest and he would feel constant nausea. But the way he fought it out, Doctors were amazed. Hes HCG count has risen from 49,600 to 92,380 in just few weeks.
• When Lance tried to bike again, he got on the bike with his friends and would go laps around the town. Secretly, his friends were worried about him that they went so slow to try and pace Lance. One day, he fell on his bike because he felt sick, inside he thought "is this dying?" but all it was that he needed some rest.
• He thought his nurse LaTrice was an angel.
• On December 13, 1996 he took his last chemo treatment.
• He became good friend with LaTrice.

After the 50% Readings

My notes after 50%

• Lance was desperate to kill cancer, he told his nurse LaTrice that give all you got and I will take it.
• He was soon going to have a brain surgery, and he was wanting to get over it, but inside he was afraid. LaTrice said that if you are not afriad of having brain surgery, you are not normal.
• Lance was also selling his car, and his goods to make payment for the surgery since his health insurance with motorola expired ( he didn't know that it expired. )
• The night before the surgery, he began to think about all things, such as would I go to heaven if I die? or would god say you're going the other way because I wasn't chrisitan?
• He continued to belive, in himself, the doctors, the treatment, and whatever he chose to belive in, it became his strength.
• The brain surgery went well, better then what the doctors expected.
• Seven days after the brain surgery, he went back home. He felt that he was winning the race with cancer and beginning to kill this thing down to size.
• He had suffered months because of Chemo, a terrible treatment but he had to go through it. Chemo made him go through all kinds of states, being ill, nausea and weakness. He said "Chemo felt like a living death".

After the 40% Readings

My notes after the 40% readings

• Lance found out that he had cancer. He first told Rick, and he told him that he didn't have the courage to tell his mother, so he told Rick to tell her mother instead.
• Lance's mother began to cry when she heard about this.
• Lance began to tell his friends that he had testicular cancer.
• He was scared that this might end his career, his life, and he might not be able to have babies.
• He had gone through a surgery the very next day.
• They had to go to a Sperm bank in San Antonio.
• The next day, Lance found that he had a huge blood clot in his catheter and his chest was swollen. Now, he was in a rush to go to San Antonio.
• He only had one chance to bank, and he would have to have his first chemo treatment.
• His next surgery was very dangerous, with a succession rate of only sixty to sixty-five percent.

After the 30% Readings

My notes after 30% readings

• In one of his races, he came last out of 111 racers. He was very depressed after and wanted to quit.
• He phoned Chris Carmichael and told him how he feels, and Lance was convinced to keep going, keep trying.
• Two days later, he was competeting in the Championship of Zurich, he finished second and people were suprised by his result.
• At this time, American Cycling was very low, it wasn't revolutionized, so everyone was surprised at a american biker at this time.
• Lance also got in touch with Och, who was always looking for young rising american riders.
• Lance didn't have good manners, he was one of the trash talking americans. Europeans didn't like him so much for this, and later he created a mess with Moreno Argentin, a respected cyclist in Italy.
• Several days later, in a race that people thought Moreno Argetin was going to win automatically, Lance stole the race and won it. Moreno couldn't belive it.
• Lance attempted on the Tour De France, but he wasn't experienced enough, he had to pull over in the alps.
• Lance was not a smart racer, Och always told him to race intelligently and he would win.
• He later won the Worlds in Oslo championship, he couldn't belive it.
• One of the races, Lance's friend Fabio Casartelli died, Lance was sad to hear it and won this race as if winning for him, he said "It wasn't just me riding at this time, there was two of us".

After the 20% Readings

My Notes for the 20% readings

• Lance and his mom had very close relationship, Lance didn't need a father he admitted him self.
• He began to make his own my, by participating into every triathlon he could enter and find.
• One race, he nearly collapsed but his mother gave him helpful words and he made it to the finish line.
• He began to make some reputation in local bike races and quickly advanced into Cat 3 division, and he won.
• At age of 16 he began riding with people to are in their late 20's, some people saw future in him as a professional biker.
• At age 16 he was making around $20,000 a year, more than what his mother makes.
• He loved riding bikes and running, and him and his mom traveled all over the states competing in triathlon's and local bike races.
• He became every open to his mother, and so did his mother became very open to Lance.
• One day when he was riding a bike, a car crashed into him. He was impaled from racing for at least two weeks, what the doctor said. But after a few days he took off his casts and stitches and got prepared for the big triathlon that he was looking forward to. He came third on this race, and his doctor couldn't belive this.
• Lance didn't like things slow, he was always want things done fast. He could walk when he was 9 month's old and would never stop on a yellow light sign.
• He later was invited by the U.S Cycling federation to go to Colorado and train with the junuior U.S Nation teal, then to Moscow for his first big internation race. His school didn't care and support his absence, even with a good excuse like that. So he had to find a new school, with better system and services who would allow him to graduate and pass his courses.
• Chris Carmichael, the team's director gave Lance a call and invited him to go to Europe, for big time cycling. Of course, Lance accepted the offer.
• On the big race, he didn't listen to Chris, and ended up being 11th place. Chris was rather pleased with the result but he said Lance could have done much better. Lance was impatient, he began attacking too fast and didn't have a good pace.
• He needed to learn the fundamentals of racing which can only be learned by experience.

After the 10% Readings

Lance didn't know that he had cancer, he had an excuse for every kind of illness. Here are my notes after the 10% readings

• Lance Armstrong didn't have a father, but had several step-fathers like Terry Armstrong, who changed his name.
• He didn't like Terry Armstrong because he used to whip Lance and he would send letters to diffrent girls.
• Lance lived in Plano, Texas.
• He started to compete in small races in school.
• He joined the school swim team when he was horrible at swimming to get him self some reputation.
• As a child, Lance was very skilled at biking, swimming and running.
• He loved triathlons, when he first heard of them, he signed up right away.
• His first triathlon was IronKids a junior triathlon. He won this race by a lot.
• He loved the suffer-fest and loved enduring pain.
• Terry Armstrong and Lance's mother finally divorced.
• Lance's mother was a secretary, getting paid $12,000 a year.
• That allowed them to move into a bigger house.

What I Know So Far

Currently I don't know much about Lance Armstrong but he is a famous professional biker and is known for winning alot of races. What inspired me about this guy is that he is a cancer survivor.

• He is american, and he revolutionized biking for americans.
• Famous for winning many races, such as TOUR DE FRANCE.
• Famous for suriving cancer.
• Dosn't know his original dad.