This is the second installment of our semimonthly series following the life of U. She's running a little late after her morning training session and she didn't want to leave her skates in the car. Yes, Flatt is frazzled. It's about that time for the U. But she's still smiling. She'll be crossing the continent on a jetliner again Wednesday, heading to the Toronto area for Skate Canada.
Skate Canada will be the official start to Flatt's skating season, her first major competition since beginning college and changing to a new coach and rink with the move from Colorado to California.
It also marks the drive to perfect her programs, en route to the U. All eyes will likely be on Flatt, to see how her skating has progressed -- or regressed -- since she started at Stanford and changed her training.
Traveling and studying, as Flatt has found, can be complicated. Flatt left for Boston on Oct. It was her first charity skate since June, and she thought it was perfectly timed. She participated in a youth skating clinic on Saturday before her performance.
Her flight home on Monday morning was more than she bargained for. The plane made an unscheduled stop in Salt Lake City to refuel and the trip took eight hours. She spent four of those eight working on her first midterm paper for her Introduction to Humanities class and missed her Monday class.
