Submitted for Steve "Scuba" Lauer (a student from the University of Maryland who is part of the IC delegation)

Today at Handball training, Thomas and Silje showed us the World Championship Quarterfinal game between Germany and Spain.  We discussed foul calls, defensive formations, and strategies demonstrated throughout the game, which came down to the wire with Germany prevailing 27-25.  At the end of the game, our two supervisors pretended to be athletes fielding our questions about the game.  After writing down two or three good quotes, the group headed back to the main room to write up Flash Quote Reports; a few students acted as copytakers while the rest dictated their newfound quotes.  Once completed, we headed to a press conference with the head coaches of the two teams – Thomas and Silje again – to get longer more comprehensive quotes.  When typing up the Press Conference Highlights afterwards, I was the copytaker for our group, who covered the Spanish coach.  We recapped the entire session and will continue to practice our flash quote questioning and recording until the Olympics start.  The more we learn and watch the game, the easier it is to formulate intelligent questions that will produce interesting responses.  With nine days left, we will be professionals by the time our first game comes around.

When we arrived at the ONS office, to our surprise, a plethora of black Adidas shopping bags laid about the room.  Our uniforms were finally here!  We were jealous of our fellow students covering fencing since they have had their uniforms for over a week.  We proceeded in glee to try on out shirts, jackets, hats, etc.  Our Chinese co-volunteers were having just as much fun with it as we were.  Camera flashes lit up the room every 30 seconds, and one of our ONS managers, Irene, followed us around the office with a video camera.

Our excitement did not last too long though as Thomas(ONS Reporter) and Cilje(SIS) readied us to do some flash quote training.  On today’s agenda was copytaking.  This is when one reporter, the copytaker, is designated to enter all of the flash quotes into the system while the rest of the flash quote reporters read off their quotes to the copytaker.  The whole idea of this process is to increase the amount of flash quotes and the efficiency in which they are made available to journalists.  Activities like these are very helpful for us as repetition is the key to our success as flash quote reporters.

Today was a glorious day for the handball team because of news that we will have access to another venue.  We as a group were happy to find out the Handball Quarterfinals and beyond are located at the National Indoor Stadium (NIS).  We traveled over as a group to the gate hoping that we would be let in.  At first, we weren't sure if our cards had been activated and thus, would have hindered access to this unknown territory!  But to no one's surprise, everything went smoothly!  Everyone was just shocked on everything is really shaping up!  There is going to be no better place to be in the world come 08.08.08.  The NIS is located on the Olympic Green juxtaposing the Fencing Hall and the National Aquatics Centre.  We took pictures of the National Stadium, where athletics (aka track and field) is going to be held, as well as, the gold medal match for football (aka soccer).  Today we got a sneak peek of the NIS itself!  The NIS's main focus is gymnastics and will be devoted to the lovely sport of handball come August 21st. My fellow teammates and I were just absolutely amazed with the venue in itself.  Tomorrow, July 29th, we will be given a formal tour by our ONS manager.  Also, we are going out to dinner tomorrow night with all of the ONS handball team to definitely strengthen bonds within the group! Please check back for updates on our new home and our dinner party!

     Now that I have been here for a while and everyone has been assigned to their venues, many of us seem to have become more serious about our purpose here.  Venues such as Water Polo, Handball, and Fencing look promising. The first day of Handball training consisted of yet another tour around the venue. At first I was becoming a bit bored by the constant refilling of water along the tour and the playing with hacky sacks during the ridiculous amount of free time we were given away from our training. However during our first training session I finally have obtained a clear understanding of what I am doing and why I am here. During our most recent training day the handball group attended a brief lecture in reference to team building. Following the lecture was an actual handball match. Some of the other journalist and I quickly developed a fondness for the Denmark club team, Denmark is widely known for having one of the strongest women’s handball team in the entire league. Though there were other favorites as well, it became quite a task for us all to keep our composure and most importantly remember that we were journalist not spectators. With that in mind the group did a fantastic job executing the following tasks that included gathering information (Quotes) from the athlete’s and immediately reporting it to the editors. I was assigned to interview a great player from the Denmark club team who had previously been captain and throughout the game maintained a very strong defense.

    Surprisingly she was more than willing to answer my questions. As the interview began she offered to sit on the floor with me so that I would be more comfortable when asking my questions. Furthermore she even offered to slow down while she was speaking so that I would be able to quote her accurately. At that time I realized that not all athletes were self-absorbed individuals, expecting the media to devour their every word. Many athletes, especially this one are just like regular people. It was a great experience interviewing her and by becoming more comfortable I was able to get some really good quotes. I hope to have a similar experience with everyone that I interview.  

I have interviewed countless athletes in my day, but never in my life had I interviewed a handball player before Thursday. The handball ONS flashquote reporters were assigned to interview players from a women's club team from Denmark after an exhibition game they played against the Chinese national team. 

While I was watching the game, it was easy to formulate the questions I wanted to ask. In the first half the Danish team played remarkably well. They finished the first half only one goal behind the Chinese and scored in the closing seconds of the half on a fluke goal by centreback Maura Visser that was tipped in front of the goal and floated over the defense. Because this goal brought Denmark to within one and swung the momentum in its direction, I asked Visser about the goal.

I also found out that on Wednesday the Danish team lost to the Chinese by a 20 goal defecit. Knowing this helped me form another question to Visser about the adjustments they made to come back from such a bad loss.

My last question regarded the Chinese defense. I learned through talking to one of Denmark's goalies, that the Chinese play a very strange style of defense in a 3-2-1 formation. This formation is never used in Denmark, so I asked Visser about how she adjusted to this as well.

Though I hadn't interviewed anyone in three months. This was a good activity for me to get back into the swing of interviewing. After this experience, I am even more excited for the games to start and to interview actual Olympians.

As one can probably assume from the title, the handball team today enjoyed a match between a Danish club team and the Chinese national team.

For many of us, this was our first time actually "rehearsing" for the flash quote-interviewing athletes to provide information on INFO2008, where all the journalists run to in order to receive information to write their article. (I apologize if this has already been explained in another blog.)

My first impression of going through the almost-real-process of our job, was an absolute excitement-something more than that, which a word in my dictionary cannot possibly explain. The athletes were not only welcoming and happy to answer our questions, but what tops it all, is the adrenaline rushing through the body after capturing a good quote, in much excitement to report back to the system. It's like another sport by itself.

Speaking of sports, the tournament was fantastic and thrilling to watch. Although the Chinese national team competed against a club team and may not have been that of a good challenge, but it was still a close enough game that was exciting till the end for us and the athletes because of the "unknown result."

I felt: ah..this is the exact nature of sports, having goosebumps all over your body because of the fantastic save that the goalie made or the teamwork that holds different people together towards one goal. Literally one world, one dream. Although this was just a sneak preview to the real thing, I felt the most powerful thing about sport; people from different backgrounds, physical features coming together as one, to achieve one thing. To be next to and inside that atmosphere, is just absolutely incredible. It tops all the great adjectives in the world.

Submitted for Steve "Scuba" Lauer (a student from the University of Maryland who is part of the IC delegation)

Today at handball training, we thoroughly covered the rules of the game.  We started by fielding questions that we formulated yesterday.  This clarified many confusions brought on by the unique sport, for example: did you know that if a goalie tips the ball out of bounds behind the net, it’s a goalie throw-in (whereas in soccer it would be a corner kick).  Handball could definitely be viewed as a mixture of several other sports; needing to dribble the ball in order to move more than three steps makes it similar to basketball, shooting at goals defended by a goalie with occasional free and penalty throws make is similar to soccer, and substitution on the fly is a concept taken from hockey.

For the rest of the day, we watched videos showing different foul-related scenarios resulting in a yellow card (warning), 2 minute suspension (harsher), or exclusion (severe).  For each call, we got a one phrase explanation on screen about whether the call on the court was correct or not.  We saw body slams, defenders drawing fouls, players punching each other (in the head or more sensitive areas), and, of course, Europeans flopping to get a call from the referees (these poor calls were pointed out).  I sort of wish we had this day before watching our first handball game yesterday, as I feel much more educated about the game of handball – but we’ll get to use our newfound knowledge on Thursday when we watch the Chinese women’s team scrimmage a club team.

Today we had our first of actual training with the ONS at the handball venue which within the Olympic Cluster.  The morning started off slow, but that was mainly due to the fact that our Sports Information Specialist (SIS) will not be arriving until tomorrow.  She is the person in charge of introducing us to the sport of team handball, going over the rules, and providing us with a better understanding of the types of questions to be asking athletes in our interviews.  Nonetheless, we were still introduced to all of the other ONS volunteers that are working team handball.  A few of them are students on our campus, so not only were we able to make friends but we now have a couple kids to guide us through the treacherous public transportation each morning.  Later on in the afternoon, we were actually able to watch a handball scrimmage between the Chinese national team and a club team from Beijing.  The club team surprisingly held their own against the national team, but we later found out that a couple of the Beijing players are expected to compete with the Chinese national team, including the China’s best player in past years, Feng Ning.  Unfortunately we did not see top-of-the-line, world-class handball as China has no previous Olympic accomplishments and is only participating because it is the host country.  Even still, it was a cool experience to finally witness a handball match in person and I now have a much better sense of the sport, its rules, and potential strategies to bring up with athletes in interviews.

The handball crew woke up this morning just before eight o'clock to start our first day of actual training for our upcoming tasks during the Olympics.  We started on line 13, transferred over to line 10, and hoping that the new line 8, just for the Olympics would be open.  The subway was extremely crowded on one line, but almost empty on the following line.  The trains are air-conditioned and make for an easy commute to our future workplace.  After much confusion and language barriers, to our dismay line 8, was not currently in service.  We found out it is opening on 08.08.08, the same day as the Olympics commence.  After a few moments of wandering, we decided to take cabs to our respective venue.  To our surprise, the venue was much closer than we thought!

At work, we met with our international colleagues, from various countries such as Cuba, China, Australia, and Brazil.  All together, we discussed our expectations and procedures of our future duties.  Fairly interesting.  We learned about all the different types of venues that are found both here in Beijing and elsewhere in China.

After we went through the clerical work, we played hackey-sack with our superiors.  No, this isn't like the hackey-sack in the United States, but it is a piece of plastic with feathers attached with the same premise.  People gathering in a circle and kicking this object around!  A lot of time was spent trying to perfect our skills.  Hopefully by the time we leave, we will become masters of this device.  

We were fortunate to have had access to watch a preliminary handball match with Team China versus a handball club team from Beijing!  It was very cool to finally see a match live and in person.  I actually was able to pick up a handball and attempt to throw it in the net.  The ball is very sticky which definitely surprised me.  I guess that helps with control with throws and catches by teammates.

Tomorrow is a new day and another day of work.  Please check back later for updates!

The ONS handball flashquote reporters visited our venue Thursday and were treated to a viewing of the Chinese women's Olympic handball team's practice. We had all watched videos of handball to try and familiarize ourselves with the sport before we got to China, but seeing it live is something completely different.

Seeing a live handball practice gave me a new appreciation for the true athletic ability of these players. The quick no-look passes and fast footwork the players were practicing was very impressive. It is an unbelievably fast moving game and the speed of the shots the players rifle toward the goal is amazing.

Another impressive aspect of the sport is the goaltending. The Chinese goalie is very tall in order to cover as much of the net as possible. She moves incredibly quick as her teammates line up to take shots on goal, blocking the low shots with her feet and the shots with her arms and hands.

Though, this was only a practice, seeing live handball for the first time was a great experience. Now that I have an even bigger appreciation for the sport, I cannot wait until the real competition begins.

After settling the first week and concluding that Beijing, China is at least five times bigger and liver than the of so fabulous NYC (My hometown), I have also come to realize another great thing about Beijing, it’s growing diversity. While coming back to my dorm form dinner one evening I happen to bump into a student who was visiting from another American school. By the looks of her face she was equally surprised to see another African American student in Beijing. Through her I met four other students, all were visiting from Delaware State University.  Later on in the week the student were invited to a dinner to meet with students from Ithaca College. Everyone seemed happy to have met another group of people that were not only in China for the same program, but also had arrived in Beijing five months prior and knew their way around most of the city.  

One of the students told me of all the different kinds of people that she’s met during the past few month’s. When I was invited to attend a birthday party for one of her new friends that she had met in China, I knew it would be impossible for me to resist.  Expecting to indulge in yet again more Chinese cuisine I was surprised to turn the brightly lit nigh strip of high restaurants and nightclubs, into to a Brazilian restaurant. As I walked in I noticed that bright greens, yellows, oranges, and reds were splashed across the walls.  The atmosphere was filled with the sounds of modern Brazilian tunes, and the smell of off the grill cooking.  Looked around the top floor, reserved entirely for the birthday event. To my surprise the room was filled with people from all over the world. My friend introduced me to the birthday boy turning 23 before sitting down with the other guests. While eating I was amazed to be in the company of such wonderful people from Eastern Europe, America, Brazil, Portugal, and several countries in West Africa. There were so many people from a variety of countries who had all come together to celebrate one individual’s birthday. Best of all each person that I had spoken to that evening had a different story of what had brought them to the heart of China. Many of them media related and some others more academic. This experience for me has been another sure sign of a country moving forward, fast.    

(image courtesy of deblurr.com)

            After two days of lectures, all of us went together to check out the venues we will be working at for the first time.  At the lackluster lectures we received our passes that get us into the venues and provide us with free public transportation throughout the city of Beijing (which is sweet).  First we went to the Olympic Green where the fencing volunteers will be spending there time.  I have to admit I’m very jealous of them.  Along with the fencing building which is connected to the media center, the green is made up of the National Indoor Stadium (the gymnastics venue), the Cube (the swimming and diving venue), and the 91,000 seat Birds Nest (the track and field venue).  The Green appears to be a fine place for the Olympics.  Surprisingly though, everything is not ready for the Olympics quite yet.  The Dragon Hotel (A huge hotel in the shape of a dragon) looks months away from completion.  But the world has already made its’ reservation so it better be finished up soon. 

Being at the Green pre-Olympics was very special.  But in three weeks when everything is finished, the venues are filled with fans from all over the world, and the best of the best begin to compete I can only image how awesome the Green will be.  Hence, my jealousy of the fencing volunteers.

            We handball volunteers will be working literally across the highway at the Olympic sports Cluster.  It holds the venues for the modern pentathlon, water polo, and of course handball.  At the cluster we met the Chinese handball crew we will be working with.  We only had limited introductions but everyone seemed nice and just as excited as us.  While there, we were privileged to watch the Chinese women’s team practice.  They looked to be working very hard as you could imagine.  After this weekend we will commute to the cluster during the week to continue preparing for the games to begin. 

            In just three weeks instead of twenty IC students watching a practice it will be thousands of fans from varying nationalities watching the Olympics.  We will be there too and we will be ready to take flash quotes with immediacy, competency, and one hundred percent accuracy. 

America **** yea

            Berg

we just found out we have a midnight curfue set in place by campus security....  weak 

Submitted for Steve "Scuba" Lauer (a student from the University of Maryland who is part of the IC delegation)

In the past two days, we learned our roles and responsibilities during the Olympics through a series of lectures.  InfoStrata Solutions (ISS), a business that makes optimal decisions to solve other companies’ problems, is working with BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games) to ensure that all volunteers are ready to do their jobs and represent the ONS (Olympic News Service) to the highest standard.

Yesterday, ISS reviewed all of our prior training in five hours worth of slide shows and YouTube clips.  As flash reporters, we are expected not only to write down quotes from coaches and athletes verbatim immediately following games in the Mixed Zone (between the court and the podium/locker room), but to create an image for the ONS that welcomes athletes to give desirable quotes and occasionally ask questions to draw out interesting answers.  Interspersed throughout the lectures were flash quote quizzes from heck.  A few examples of who we had to take quotes from: a Jamaican sprinter immediately after a race, a speed-talking Kiwi announcing his retirement, and an Indonesian badminton player who knew a few English words but had major difficulty putting together entire sentences.  These are extreme cases, but covering handball should be interesting as none of the countries in competition feature English as their primary language.

Today mostly entailed team building and ONS brand awareness exercises.  We started with some standards, such as the no-speaking-but-rearrange-group-in-order-of-birthdates game and the tie-six-peoples-ankles-together-and-make-them-run-a-race game.  Being tied up to Aussies and Iowans was a unique experience.  They also had us solve a riddle and create brand names for each group.  They really stressed that while thousands of athletes are being evaluated as individuals during these games, the ONS will be judged as a whole; we should not compete amongst ourselves, we must help out others when they are struggling, and we must sacrifice all ego for the sake of the bigger cause.

While we’ve learned much over the past two days, it was also apparent that many of us need a lot of work to make an impression (or avoid a catastrophe) at these Olympics.  I personally am committed to spending some of my precious free time researching handball and recording quotes, because failure is not an option.

Tomorrow we begin the first of our two days of training.  It is incredible to think about all of the things we have experienced thus far in Beijing without even beginning our work with the ONS.  The Organizing Committee(BOCOG) organized  three days worth of excursions for all of its student volunteers in which we visited such sites as the Great Wall, the Winter and Summer Palaces, and the prosperous village of Xiang Tang.  This was a fantastic introduction to our stay in China, and it greatly furthered my interest in its history.

The sites listed above were unbelievable to witness, but what made the experience that much more enjoyable were the connections we were able to make with the other volunteers.  We ate lunch and dinner during the previous three days with other BOCOG groups from all over the US and Australia and were also given a few students from the Beijing Sport University(our host university) to travel around with our group.  It was great to make so many new friends who surprisingly had more in common with us than I had expected.  I personally connected with two other students who happened to graduate from my same high school.

With that said, I could not be more anxious to begin our training with the ONS tomorrow as it will only increase our experiences and friendships here in Beijing.

Pass the plate please. A familiar voice called to me, I thought of my friend Flora. I was quickly brought out of my daydream and found myself at a table with some of my classmates who were also volunteering for the Olympics News Service. We were having lunch at a restaurant in Beijing when someone had asked me to pass him one of the dishes on the table. I handed over the dish and slipped back into past thoughts of my friend at home. She has lived in America for most of her life but came to the US when she was seven and in her own words has been raised very Chinese. Flora has always been the kind of person who woke up very early in the morning and was barely tired. The big, busy, crowded streets of Flushing, NY never seemed to bother her at the least. In fact during some of the most unbearable days of the early summer, Flora would simply respond to the merciless heat from the scorching sun, with the opening of her umbrella. What I have always found most perculiar about my friend Flora is that she best communicates with others through food. Whenever some of her other friends and I would go with her to a restaurant, instead of simply letting us order our own individual meals, they way we have all been culturally accustomed to, Flora would insist on ordering a variety of small dishes and encourage us all to share. I have often taken note of some of these traits and have always assumed that they were simply those of a unique individual, and were in no way culturally related. However it would take a trip around the world to understand both the connection between my friend and the cultural norms in Beijing, China.

My third day in Beijing, China has been spent touring the ancient ruins of the Summer and Winter Palace, indulging in Asian brand snacks, meeting other volunteers from around the world, and of course sneaking in a few hours of sleep on the bus in between tourists stops in hopes of working off the rest of my jet lag.  Earlier in the day I had noticed that many of the Chinese tourists used umbrellas to protect themselves from the 115-degree attack that followed throughout the day. The umbrellas varied from bright solids like turquoise blue, orange, hot pink, and green. Others served more as a fashion accessory with their metallic material and lace trimmings. I pulled out my own umbrella, which was usually intended for the rain and thought why not? I also recall hearing a few of my classmates express their slight frustration with the constant crowds. After being here for a few days I began to realize that the city of Beijing is very similar to my own environment at home. Though I’ll admit I’m not so crazy about the crowds either, on my third day of being here I don’t really mind them. After a long stay at the winter palace the class retreated to the tour bus both hot and tired. Once on the bus our tour guide announced that we would be stopping off at one of the top restaurants in Beijing for an early dinner before making a final stop the Peking (Excuse the spelling) Opera.

When we went to the restaurant the entire group was split up into three tables. While seated the waitresses at the restaurant made several trips back and forth with a variety of small dishes, like Flora would have ordered. All of the dishes were placed in the center so that at some point someone we would have to pass the plate, and everyone would have to share. I see now that this approach to eating is not only communal but is actually a lot healthier. Through picking a small amount from a variety of dishes instead of just dumping a huge pile on your plate, people are subconscious forced to consider the needs of others at the table, and only eat the amount needed as opposed to being stuffed.  Aside from the opera, my experiences with dining and traveling have helped me gained a better understanding of a friend whom I always assumed was just being eccentric.  

I don't think my feet have ever hurt as much as they do right now.

It's possible that I lost my feet and have been walking on my ankles. 

If you figure this out, please let me know.

Today, we climbed the Badaling portion of the Great Wall of China. You have no concept of how massive, impressive, and intimidating it is until you're right there. According to Wikipedia, which we all know is an infallible source of research for school projects, the wall in it's entirety is about 4,000 miles long. It's amazing to think after all the climbing we did, we didn't even touch a fraction of it.

The sheer amount of stairs we walked made us thankful that the Ithaca campus has such a small amount of stairs. I know, you're laughing.

Some portions of the wall are also so steep that on the way down, you almost tumbled to your untimely death.

I'm pleased to report that all of us are alive.

After the wall, we grabbed some lunch (they put out french fries for us!) and then headed over to the Ming Tombs where we visited the excavated tomb of the 13th Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. I commented to Dr. Wigglesworth how I love being in a country that has actual history . . . everything in the U.S. seems so new!

Well, I'm going out to drink some píjǐu now (you can figure out what that means!)

On July 15th, we will begin our flash quote training for the Olympic News Service (ONS) at the Mengxi Hotel in Beijing.  As Cory mentioned before, we met with our ONS supervisors on Tuesday, and were given a brief understanding of what we are going to accomplish.  Our ONS team definitely has a positive attitude and will definitely be a pleasure to work for.  I volunteered to follow Men's Handball and am pretty pumped for the competition to finally begin!  Day one of work starts July 20th.  There will be more posts once the wheels start rolling!

As for today, which is day five of our excursion across the world, we were able to meet and greet our colleagues from all over the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.  The BOCOG graciously provided all of us a tour of a rural village in Beijing as well as, dining at two massive restaurants for lunch and dinner.  This really is such a great opportunity to meet new people!

Tomorrow, we head to the Great Wall and the Ming Tomb with our colleagues! Lots of walking and climbing, but definitely going to be worth it! And to think, just six short months ago, I would never have imagined being in the position I am in now... ESPECIALLY IN CHINA!

The eight Ithaca College HSHP students who are covering team handball at the Beijing 2008 Olympics met with our Olympic News Service supervisors Tuesday. Our three supervisors Yinghui Yuan, Ling Zhang, and Yuanjin "Irene" Ni accompanied us on a tour of Beijing Sport University, led by the Dr. Hongwei Guan. 

We were able to check out all of the facilities on campus and even caught a glimpse of the Chinese national Olympic rhytmic gymnastics team practicing in a training center on campus.

Later on in the day we were more formally introduced to our supervisors, received our official invitations to the 2008 olympics as volunteers, and were fitted for our volunteer uniforms.

The uniforms are very impressive and are comprised of a shirt, pants, and some very good looking Adidas running sneakers complete with the Beijing 2008 logo on the side. We were also presented with an in depth handball rulebook to familiarize ourselves with the rules of the game.

For the next three days, representatives from the ONS will be taking us on a tour of Beijing with stops that include the Great Wall of China and a very famous restaurant known for its Peking duck.

We are also scheduled for a meeting at the Mengxi Hotel in the coming days to learn more about what we will be doing as flash quote reporters.

So far, we have just received some preliminary introduction to what we will be doing here. More detailed information should be coming after our meeting. That's all for day one. Check back daily for updates.