My life is pretty cool at the moment....

This is just a warning, but my post will be very long today. It's been a few very eventful days since I've last blogged- so bare with me! (I even made a list! haha)

I have actually been working everyday (expect last monday because gymnastics had an off day). My days consist of coming in the afternoon- towards the end of the competition. I have enjoyed this because I have seen 3 of the 4 medal ceremonies (I didn't watch them mens all-around ceremony because I was actually helping someone). I have been able to sneak up to the tribune (where all the journalists sit to watch the actual event) and today's ceremony was AMAZING. I didn't think it would be such a huge deal to see the american flag being raised and the anthem playing, but I got goosebumps! Those girls were AMAZING. The one thing I can't get over is the fact that many of the chinese workers and journalist have been cheering. (it sounds dorky, but it's like the first thing I was ever told when covering a sporting event) Not the biggest deal ever, but the people were cheering when america messed up during the girls team events. That's a bit much for me! Also many of my workers were crying when China won the gold for the girls team event. You're suppose to be working! Its ok though, because each of them came up and personally congratulated me today when the U.S. took gold and silver. I just smile and said "thanks, it was a lot of hard work!". ARE YOU KIDDING ME? haha it is just different and I find that a lot of my supervisors (including my non-chinese ones) don't have a lot of journalism training. I'm probably just a complete nerd, but it kind of bothers me sometimes.

My days start with me picking up the china daily which is published in english currently for my pleasure. The first day I found my first huge fact error in the second article I read (and I have to say I read 96% of articles because they're funny and I'm that bored sometimes). Some news stories/ observances:
-There are no captions- there may be a few, but the picture on the front will have no caption along with about 65% of the pictures. Sometimes I like to know what I'm looking at
- Putin doubled the prize money for athletes to 150,000 dollars- now we know why Becky Hammon really wanted to play for Russia- speaking of her there was a great column on ESPN: http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer08/columns/story?id=3530332

Today I had the pleasure of helping the a sports journalist from the New York Times. He's in charge of graphics and we got on the topics of newspapers. I told him I read the NYT regularly when I'm at school and he asked if I was a person who like to read a paper paper or get it on the internet. I said that I grew up reading the paper paper, being at school I check the dispatch website at least once a day (often times more- I really help get the hits up for the hockey blog) but nothing beats reading a paper paper for me. He said he's the same way, but his job has gotten a lot more interesting with doing stuff for the web, you can just be so interactive. It was a very interesting conversation and when he left (not getting what he wanted after 30 minutes, thank you China and the Gymnastics federations) I got a NYTimes pin (pins are very popular to trade and I probably have close to 30 now) and a NYTimes key chain (which I have to say I felt pretty special!). It's interesting to watch the media work- I think it will always fascinate me. On one hand things frustrate me- not getting taken seriously, stupid and cocky journalist, fluff stories, and worrying strictly about money- and this is why I've had a hard time figuring out exactly what I want to do. But at the same time talking to people like the NYTimes guy and watching people take it seriously and that deadline rush- those are all things that remind me why I wanted to do what I hopefully someday will do. Thats my little rant back to China haha!

Monday I had a day off and BOCOG (who we are ultimately working for) got us tickets to beach volleyball. That was so fun to finally go to an olympic event as a spectator! After that a group of us went to get dumplings and then Eric Allie and I walked around on the green for the afternoon. We stopped in a lot of sponsor buildings and just mingled with different people. That night we realized that the today show was being filmed right beside us so we stayed to get on the today show. This was so fun! We were right in the front and right before the weather Eric started an MIZ chant and we got a shout out from AL! We met them all, but I can't say enough good things about Ann and Meredith. Ann gave us what seemed like a graduation speech and we really should invite her to be out speaker in december. I have pictures up on Picasaweb (the link is in the upper right hand corner). We have seen the Meredith and Ann at gymnastics the last few days and my friend got to escort Meredith out of the building today. AMAZING

One other funny story I have from work is the other day a few journalists from Toronto came in and started talking to me. He asked where I was from and I said Columbus and he responds, "oh, Rick Nash!"..... I just started laughing typical canadian.... I just said I knew who he was- but it was pretty funny. I had to call his cell phone later and he asked me where good bars where. I proceeded to tell him where we usually go out and he ends the conversation with, "well let me know if you find someplace".....seriously, let me just call this guy up next time, he does refer to me as the Ohio girl...I think he was just impressed that I didn't look lost when he said Rick Nash....

On a more serious note, everyone knows about the volleyball coach's father-in-law. When it happened, I have a friend at another venue who was reading it on the web to find out more information. A chinese girl in her group came up and when my friend looked a little upset the chinese girl said "don't worry it's just fake news".... my friend responds with excuse me... and she says "its fake news.....like Tibet....the government tells us it's fake news, they just want to scare us." I just found this interesting

I also was talking to a girl in my group who I think is very intelligent. She is one of 2 people from Remin University (where we are staying) that gets to study abroad in Hong Kong next semester. Her ultimate goal is to study in the United States- she is far smarter than me, so I hope she gets to. I have talked to her a lot about the communist party and her views on China and here are a few things that stood out to me:
- the people of China got no outside news from other countries in the past so she explained to me that her parents and people before her only had China's to compare with the current China. SHe said she is lucky because she has the internets so she now can compare China to something- although she doesn't think this will cause any changes because China doesn't like change- the want harmony and change would disrupt that and that scares them.
-They walk in line and don't question things. She thinks I'm funny because in the green the subway line has 5 entrances and to get to the entrances you have to go down a flight of stairs and there are at least 12 of those. Anyways, there is only one entrance and 1 flight of stairs open one night and I was mad because its 1 am and we have to walk to a different set of stairs. I told them to ask the guards why and they wouldn't they just said because and I said why would you have that many entrances if you can's use them (security is not an issue on the green because everyone on it has already been screened- there is no way onto the green without it) they admitted to me it was stupid, but didn't even question it. I told them I would just go past the guards and down (I have before) and they looked at me like I was the biggest rebel every and wouldn't let me.
- Along the same lines my friend told me she wants to study abroad, but if someone said she couldn't go she wouldn't question it. I told her if someone told me I couldn't do something I would do it just to prove them wrong. With that she told me this joke:

there is a boat sinking and the captain must get everyone off:
He goes up to the German and explains that scientifically he must get off (I guess Germans are scientific....Will are they?) so he jumps off
THe captain goes too the guy from France and says it's really romantic to jump off the boat- so he jumps off
Goes up to the American and says you have more freedom in the water than on the boat- he jumps off
goes to the Chinese (last person on the boat) and says.....everyone else jumped and he jumps off

I just thought it was funny that she told me that and it wasn't like she was sad but she knew it was true. SHe said sometimes she's sad that she has to hide ideas and be less creative thinking, but she explained to me she's lived like this and followed rules for the last 20 years of her life. I guess if I grew up like that (thank God I didn't) I would be the same way. She also said that the chinese was very inefficient something that has been very hard getting use to at work and training- I feel like I'm wasting time. I asked her if she was excited to be in Hong Kong and she said yes because she'll have more freedoms and I asked if she thinks she'll have a hard time coming back and she said that she thinks she'll have as hard a time coming back as I'm having adjusting to how things work around here.

I guess I've bored you with enough stories now. I'm working tomorrow TRAMPOLINE! fun, I feel like I'm at camp again haha! I am going to track finals tomorrow night (sat morning in the states) so look for me on t.v.! I can't believe I have less than 2 weeks left and I will try to write more in the last weeks.