Week 6 in Beijing! Last Week of the Olympics!

Although it's a lot of fun working at the Olympics, the hours are long and I feel a bit more tired each day. I really don't know how the managers are doing it. They come in for 8 a.m. and don't leave until 2:30 a.m. They all look exhausted and haven't had a single day off since August 4th when the media center in the venue opened.

It's really cool though to talk with all the journalists at the games (that is when they aren't complaining). I've spoken the most with Anne Peterson from the Associated Press. If you happened to have read her article on the China-USA women's match, you'll notice she included the President of China, Hu Jintao, was in attendance. I'll definitely take credit for that.

She asked me why it was so crazy in the venue that day and I said, "Hu Jintao is on his way." She replied, "Who's that??"

I was very much surprised someone from AP didn't know who Hu Jintao was. So I told her, "That's the president of China." She thanked me for telling her that important piece of info and immediately typed it into her notes on her laptop. So I like to think I contributed to an AP sports story. But I still think the best part was actually having Hu Jintao sit 20 feet away from me at the match.

(Me, Gillian, and Lorna with USA's Clay Stanley...so good looking haha.)

In other news, both the men's and women's teams made it out of the preliminaries in excellent shape. Last night, the women beat Italy 3 sets to 2 and will face Cuba in the semifinals on Thursday. The men, who were 5-0 in the preliminaries, play tonight. I got to speak with both coaching staffs this week, including men's head coach Hugh McCutcheon. He returned to the team a few days ago after the tragic murder of his father-in-law in Beijing. All the coaches were extremely friendly and told me how happy they were I get to experience this Olympics with them. They even gave me their official pins to wear haha.

(Probably the best player in the world, Rosir Calderon from Cuba.)

Pins are a huge deal at the Olympics. Every team has its official pin they trade with the opponent before each game as a sign of friendship and respect between countries. Basically, everyone else involved with the Olympics has a pin too. Even Emerson College sent us with 15 bags of pins to share. I'm proud to say both the men's and women's volleyball coaches will be sporting Emerson pins during their quest for the gold.

Last night at work was quite interesting. I met China's version of Justin Timberlake. His name is Gu JuJi and he is one of the biggest pop stars in the country right now and he just happened to be sitting in the press tribunes. After the match I chatted with Mark Spear from the Boston Globe. He of course covers the Celtics back home. When I told him I go to school in Boston he asked me if I was one of the Emerson girls.

My classmates and I have been doing a lot of work on our school blog. The address is blog.emerson.edu/beijing. We developed a geotagging map so everyone can see pictures of where we've been in China. It's an interesting site and I strongly recommend taking a look at it.

Only one week left! I'm excited to come back home and start my senior year. Graduation is only nine months away. Ahhh scary thought!

Enjoy the last weeks of summer!