Training Day #2

Yesterday we had our second day of training, it was pretty cool because we were seperated into our venue groups. So the cycling flash quote reporters all sat together and we had team ice breakers to meet everyone. Many of the Purdue students are doing cycling so we knew eachother, but there were a few students that we met. I got my accreditation card so I am like hardcore official now. It also gives me free public transport including the Metro. It is pretty cool, it has my picture on it (front and back), it has LSB (Laoshan Bicycle Cluster, which is my Venue), the "Beijing 2008" name and symbol, and it says BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games), and of course my name, "Jason Myles - ONS Flash Quote Reporter - Press Operations" It is really cool :) There are 951 people working for the ONS, and I think over 200 are students.

At our training they were telling us how we are going to meet a lot of people in the journalism industry, and that these connections can be great in the future. A lot of the Olympic News Service managers and heads of this project were flash quote reporters just 8 years ago. So it would be awesome to get good connections for jobs in the future. The ONS is bidding to be the News Serive for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, but I think for the 2012 London Games they are going to use their own News Service, but there are plenty of huge sports events that the ONS covers, so lets hope I do a geat job.

After our training (which was just a half day) we went out to lunch at a pizza buffet. It was interesting because they had all the pops, coffee, cappuccino, juices and BEER on tap! So there were a lot of drink options, all included in the price.

After lunch we headed back to the dorms were I took a nice little nap. In the evening we went out to dinner with our Venue Manager, we all like her a lot, she is really cool. She is from Australia but has been in London for the past 7 years working for the AP. This is her third summer games, she was in Athens and Sydney! She has a lot of work experience and talk about connections! She knows a lot of people. It's funny, the man who was her editor when we was like 18 is now the head of INFO2008 or the ONS or something, and that's how she got the job for the ONS (I think that's right). So maybe in 20 years she will give me an awesome job, haha.

Where we went for dinner was AMAZING! It was "Paul's Steak and Eggs - True North American Diner" and it was!!! It was so good. We met Paul and he is from Canada and had restaurants there and in the States. Now he has 3 here in China, with a new one opening next week! The food was good (and truely western) so we will be back a couple times I'm sure.

So now I have 6 days off! I am not sure what I am gonna do. I was thinking of going to Qingdao (a port city on the yellow sea... I think it's actually an island), or we may go see the terracotta warriors, which would involve a 12 hour train ride... both ways. So we will see what we do. Also, Hairspray is coming to Beijng for a week, haha, so I think some of us are going to see that!

I will keep you all posted!

-Jason