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Today's Profile
Anastasia
Myskina
Pronounced:
ah-nass-TAH-seeya MUYSS-kee-nah
Nationality: Russian Federation
Residence: Moscow, Russia
Birthdate: July 8, 1981
Birthplace: Moscow, Russia
Height: 5'8 1/2 (1.74 m)
Weight: 130 1/2 lbs. (59 kg)
Plays: Right-handed (two-handed backhand)
Current Rank: 6th in WTA Rankings
Highest
Rank: 3rd in WTA Rankings (13 September 2004)
Enchantingly pretty in a pixie like way, Anastasia Myskina wasborn
to parents Andrey and Galina who named her 'Anastasia' after the ever-popular
Russian princess bearing the same name. She is best known for being
the first Russian woman to win a Grand Slam in tennis- a victory that
heralded the beginning of the "Russian Revolution."
Even
as a child great things were expected of her. He parents were avid
tennis players themselves and little Anastasia started playing with
them from the age of six. Following the trend of many other kids,
bearing the dream of one day becoming a pro, Myskina enrolled in the
Spartak Academy in Moscow, where she was coached by the mother of
fellow Russian star Marat Safin. It was here at this academy that
she made friends with a certain Elena Dementieva, a young woman who
would have a lot of bearing on Myskina's career. As was the case with
the other kids, Myskina also moved abroad after a while. Her destination
though was not the US but the sunnier climates of Spain where she
emigrated in 1994.
Myskina
turned pro in 1998 at the age of 16, and won her first title the same
year. She won a tournament in Gerogia where in the final she beat
her fellow rival and great friend Elena Dementieva. Since then she
has steadily worked her way up the rankings and is currently ranked
6th in the world.
Myskina's
career hit a purple patch during 2004 when she won the final of Roland
Garros (French Open) where she routed in the final none other than
her friend (yes, you guessed it) Elena Dementieva. To date she has
won eight WTA tour titles.
In
her spare time Anastasia loves to watch movies or read books. Her
favorite movies are "Keeping the Faith" and "Armageddon."
She is a self professed football addict and follows the fortunes of
'her' team Spartak Moscow every week.
In
spite of all her success she is still one of the nicest people around.
In 2004 she played a charity tournament in the USA where she played
against some junior players and after her match she went around the
crowd distributing candy.
Almost
a veteran on the circuit at 24, Myskina thinks mental strength is
her biggest asset. She is also set apart from her counterparts by
two factors. First is that, she chooses to stay in Moscow rather than
move to more lucrative places in the globe. She says that it is the
one place she can call home! Secondly, she is dark haired amongst
the hordes of blond Russians!
Sci
Zone
By
Tawsif
The chicken, though
not much of a carnivore kills more homo-sapiens than an average, hunt-down-the-stupid-deer-and-pose-for-the-National-Geographic
tiger. Funny thing is, it doesn't even need sharp talons and killer
instincts; it just needs to be yummy!
Sorry for spoiling
your dinner folks, but doctors are saying that commercially raised
chicken can cause serious health hazards due to the battery farming
process. Battery chickens are injected with an excessive dosage of
antibiotics, steroids, and growth hormones which don't only cause
obesity among the consumers, but hamper the bio-chemical synchronization
inside the body, thus paving the way to numerous diseases.
When it comes to
food value, most of us are ignorant to the point of being moronic.
Take Fruit Juice for example. Though mistaken to be more nutritious
than cola and hailed by anyone who'd love to call himself health-conscious,
juice doesn't even contain the fibers that real fruit does, and is
more calorie-dense. Juice has the same amount of sugar per ounce that
an ordinary soft-drink does. Hence, our body can't even differentiate
between the two!
Soft-drinks are
not that harmless either. They contain a lot of white sugar to start
with, an average bottle comprising as much as nine teaspoons. White
sugar, as you might know, has all the trace minerals, enzymes, amino
acids and vitamins totally removed during its processing. Hence, it
becomes 'empty calories'; the sweetest excuse to slaughter your life
expectancy.
Soft drinks are
also guilty of containing carbon dioxide which increases the level
of metabolic acids in the blood, kidneys and liver, stressing all
these organs over time. The gas also negatively affects the beneficial
flora of the intestines… No wonder that Ferdous guy jumps around like
a baboon in the Double Cola advertisement. Too much gas for his liking,
I presume.
According to doctors,
eating habits play a major role in the life expectancy of a person.
In our modern technological society, certain food items are rather
hazardous for health, due to the high level of added-chemicals. The
key is to sort them out and avoid them as much as possible.
Excessive consumption
of junk food, for example, is nothing short of suicidal in the long
run. All the wannabe FC's might sue me after this, but junk food contains
a high level of gluten protein phenolic (a nasty chemical that causes
an agglutination reaction in the small intestines, coating the villi
with a thick, mucous-like layer), white sugar, and fat saturated as
well as unsaturated.
Obesity isn't the
only concern here. After all, you can be as lean as a capillary tube,
and munching on a half-a-dozen burgers wouldn't turn you Sumo overnight;
but the junk will jeopardize the chemistry inside your body, thus
dropping your life expectancy faster than the morals of the air-headed
lovers at Dhanmondi Lake. (All right. May be not that fast!)
Having said which,
it's not exactly imperative that you have to abandon the junk foods
altogether. Doctors believe that having your favourite 'bad food'
ONCE IN A WHILE is not that harmful after all. It's over-eating that
kills. There's no point in having battery chickens when the free-range
ones are much healthier and taste just as good.
In the end of the
day, it's always smarter to have a planned food habit. After all,
if we are not physically fit, the chance of attaining success through
hard-work is almost negligible.
Before I start
feeling unbearably erudite and start toying with the idea of shaving
my head off, Ciao!
(For
further information you can always write to [email protected]. Anything
is better than those darned chemistry notes!)
