The last two days have been a little weird for me, since I'm so used to waking up and going straight to the Yingdong Natatorium every day.  Now I don't even have to set my alarm in the morning, but that will change in a couple days when I'm back at school.  Yesterday I went to lunch with a few friends and had the best dumplings I've had the whole trip.  Then we went to the Silk Market, which was flooded with tourists and Olympic athletes who were doing some last minute shopping before heading home.  We recognized a few water polo players, as well as an American track athlete.  I bought an extra suitcase, since I didn't have enough room for all the gifts I bought in the suitcase I brought from home. 

    Today I went to the Temple of Heaven, which was the last sightseeing spot on my list.  What we saw was really cool, but the main areas were closed to the public, since the Paralympics were holding a special event there.  Beijing has wasted no time converting from the Olympics to the Paralympics.  On the ride over to the Silk Market yesterday, I saw workers taking down the Olympic flags that lined the street and replacing them with Paralympic flags.  After the Temple of Heaven, we went to lunch at yet another Beijing duck restaurant, which was very good.  I spent the rest of the afternoon packing my bags and cleaning up my room a little bit.  Even with the extra suitcase I had a little trouble getting everything to fit, but eventually I crammed all my stuff into the cases.  We have all morning tomorrow to get ready to go, but I wanted to get as much packing as I could out of the way today.  

    In about two days, I will be landing in the USA.  I never thought the American culture would seem weird to me, but I won't be surprised if I have a little bit of culture shock when I get back.  I'm sure it will take at least a few days to get used to life back at school.  I've written this here before, but leaving China leaves a bittersweet feeling.  I loved my experience here, but at the same time I am more than ready to go home and see all my friends and family.  I was also away from home for the entire month of June, and I haven't seen a lot of my friends since last school year ended.  They're all back at school already and having a great time.  My little brother also starts at Ithaca College this semester and I can't wait see how he likes it.  

As the Olympics wind down, there are many things that stand out in my mind from the past two and a half weeks.  One of the more interesting occurances that happens at every single sporting events is the Chinese seat fillers who attend almost game.  I expected some seat fillers for lower round games, but they seem to show up at every single match.  I wouldn't mind, however they literally only know one chant and that's "Go China Go."  This chant would make complete sense if, say, China was playing in the match, but when the Netherlands and the United States are squaring off for the gold medal in women's water polo, I just don't see the reason for it.

There was actually an article written on the China Daily website that touched on this very problem.  According to the article, Chinese fans are not familiar with most of the sports at the Olympics, and are therefore unaware of the normal chants that fans partake in.  This makes a lot of sense when you think about the development and growth that China has been going through over the last 15 years or so.  Some of these western sports like BMX, Moutain Biking and Water Polo are completely foreign to most Chinese citizens.

My question then turns to why the BOCOG did not teach their seat fillers basic lingo about the sports they would be attending. A booklet containing some of the bacis rules and lingo associated with each sport would have not only helped them during the actual game, but it would also allow more people to talk about the results and upcoming games once outside of the venue.

China put a lot of money in the Olympics, and a couple more Yuan might have helped their citizens better understand and appreciate what they were actually witnessing.  This literally is a once in a lifetime opportunity for spectators from around the world to witness the best athletes in the world, but without the proper knowledge I am not completely convinced they can appreciate it fully.

So after we were able to cure our Opening Ceremonies hangover, water polo matches finally began yesterday with the men followed by the women today.  As expected, things got pretty hectic after the first whistle went off when Canada squared off against Spain.  

We flash quote reporters went up to the press tribune to watch the match while taking notes and formulating questions to ask to the athletes and coaches after the game.  Then as the match ended...it was showtime!!!  We walked quickly downstairs to the mixed zone where we did our interviews and gathered our first quotes.  I was one of three in charge of the taking notes during the press conference (which nevevr accumulated to much due to the media's lack of interest in non-medal matches) so I didn't get my first quotes until later that day.

It all happens so quickly.  From the time your interview begins to the time you are finished it a total of about 10-15 minutes.  This means the questions and answers have to be short and sweet while maintaining 100% accuracy on everything that will be published.  The 10 minute deadline from the end of the match until it has to be sent to our editors makes it highly stressfull, but almost as much fun.  It is a pretty cool feeling to see your quote you got on your own be published in the Olympic database for all journalists to see and possibly use in their articles.

After the first two days, almost all of the athletes and coaches have been very kind by giving up their to speak with us because they are not required to.  They can easily say "no thank you" and continue walking right by us and there would be nothing we can do, it is a simply the nature of the business.  Ironically enough, I got the feeling that a few athletes wanted to be interviewed more than we actually wanted to interview them.

So much has been going on over the past week or two. It's been nonstop, daily work and training. I’ve interviewed some of the world’s best water polo players and got to watch team practices for the Olympics. It is interesting to see how various teams practice and work with one another. The unique personality of each team really makes working at the Olympics so much more fun as you get to research, interact, and understand teams to the most specific details. 

Everything seems to be going by so fast these days too. I’m definitely having a life changing experience that is remarkable in every such way. I’m getting to meet not only Chinese people but people from all around the globe, mainly journalists. I’m only going to meet more people from the international media as the days go on and especially when the Olympics are just about to start. I’ve already seen signs at my Olympic Sports Center venue for the media— AP, Reuters, Xinhua, and AFP. And then there is of course the good ol’ ONS- Olympic News Service, where I work.

The group of people I work with are from all around the world. Countries represented include Russia, Italy, China, U.S.A., and Australia. Working for ONS has taught me a lot about working in groups and with people who have extremely different personalities and backgrounds than I do. I have had experiences that at the moment made me frustrated with the person I worked with, but then taught me more about people and getting to understand who I am better.

Our job as flash quote reporters is to interview the athletes for a few minutes and then get the best quotes we can possibly can and report them back to the ONS. So far, I got to interview members of the men’s water polo teams from Greece, USA, Canada, Germany,Italy, Montenegro, Hungary, and the list goes on. I interviewed Greece’s team captain Georgios Afroudakis, USA’s Peter Hudnut, and Hungary’s world class player Tamas Kasas. Afroudakis and Kasas are known in the water polo world to be some of the world’s best water polo players.

My first ONS interview was with George Afroudakis, which went well. I was nervous about it at first because he is somewhat of a sports celebrity. It is hard not to be worried about whether or not your questions may come off sounding a certain way.   
  
The Olympics have now officially started. The wonderful days I've been having interviewing Olympic athletes, meeting new people, exploring Beijing, and preparing for the Olympics have been great. Now I am ready and thrilled to begin work with more flash quote reporting and interviews.   

Beijing 2008 has begun! 

Sherry