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

There is an unusual feeling around Beijing as the games begin in less than 24 hours.  The atmoshpere in the city is different than any other I have ever felt.  It's not an excitement or a nervousness, rather a mysterious calm.  Things seem too perfect.  This feeling sums up the overall feelings of the games thus far.  

It's that feeling when you walk into the Hospital, that sterile, things are too clean feeling.  As I was walked down the street this afternoon I realized that residents of Beijing are not even comfortable in this enviroment.  They are not used to being watched 24/7, not used to the high-tech security and they are certainly not used to the enviromental precautions being taken to make sure the world sees Beijing in a postive manner.

I didn't know how to describe the feeling for the first four weeks I was here, but I think that I have finally been able to identify this awkward feeling surrounding the city that will host the 2008 Summer Games.  It's that feeling when a movie director tries too hard to make too many connetions in a movie, and none of them work out.  You leave the theatre feeling like you didn't see the true product, and you almost want to go ask for a refund.

Beijing almost has the exact same feeling right now.  Deep down I know this is not the Beijing that people talk about from years, even months, past.  I want to see the "other" Beijing.  The Beijing that won the Olympic bid...not the Beijing that is less than one day away from the opening ceremony.

As I walk around the city, people's faces tell the story of the seven years from annouced winning bid, to closing ceremony.  The faces are tired, exhausted and depleted from the effort put forth to have a positive Olympic experience.  I almost feel bad for the local people.  They know what this city truly should look like, not what it looks like now.

In a sense I feel like I am missing out on the real China, the real Beijing.  I can't blame the city or the government though, because this is the biggest moment in the history of their country.  With industrialization happening in less than a blink of the eye, people around the world are wondering what the "new" China will look like.  A good Olympics could mean economic and political barriers being torn down around the world, while a bad one could mean the reversal of seven years of hard work...the effort might seem like too much, but when you look at what is on the line, can you blame the government for not taking every step to ensure that these Olympics are one of a kind.  I sure can't.

It's pretty crazy to think August eighth is just around the corner.  You can see everyone's nervous energy all around the city and the athletes.  Day by day, more and more athletes make their way to their respective training facilities to prepare for the Games.  

As for water polo, we flash quote reporters just started interviewing athletes a few days ago.  We first interviewed the Greek athletes followed by the Americans.  Surprisingly, they were both very happy to speak with us and the feeling was mutual.  One of the American water polo athletes even took a significant interest in our names and where we attended school.  

It felt good to get our first interviews out of the way.  We were a little nervous at first, but once you start interviewing and opening up to the Olympic athletes it feels like you're having a normal conversation with anyone else.  Then we went back to our ONS office to publish the quotes we just got.  It's a cool feeling knowing the quotes you get and publish could end up in every corner of the world and read by potentially billions of people.

Over the last couple of days we have spent time gathering bullet points on every male and female team in water polo.  This means we pour over countless player and team biographies to find any bits of information that could be used for any pre-game article.   Russell, our sports information specialist will write pre-game articles on every match during the Olympics and it is our job to make sure he has all of the necessary information to do his job.  It is a very tedious job, but we understand its importance so we don't complain.   For the week leading up to the Opening Ceremony we will spend our time accumulating more quotes from water polo athletes and publishing them. So from now on when you see quotes from water polo athletes, there is a very good chance it came from us!