Blurry Days!

I've been completely and utterly immersed in my experience as a Games Maker here at Stratford that I've not only neglected updating my blog, I've also got way too many experiences than I could give justice here in this blog!

Here are some highlights from my last few days of shifts:

• This purple and red poppy uniform we've got is a real conversation starter! I remember on my first shift ever, within 5 minutes of me wearing it, I've already got people asking me about my role and the Paralympics! This is awesome superpower stuff.
• Waking up for a 6am shift is a b****.
• I love being a Muslim! So far I've had people comment on my headscarf, and I get preferential treatment with the halal food we get at the Workforce Dining Area. So far I've had lamb steak, moussaka and spicy breaded chicken, among others. These dishes aren't served out in the normal buffet so I feel like a VIP each time I get food :D
• On my 2nd shift, I was handed the responsibility of using the walkie-talkie to communicate with the other Team Leaders, woo! I felt so powerful when I radio-ed in :)
• I need to learn Spanish! The amount of times I've been talking to Spanish-speaking athletes who *don't* speak English is quite surprising to me.
  
  Me: "Where do you want to go, sir?"
  
  Athlete: "Que? [insert some long and random Spanish gibberish here]"
  
  Me: Oh God help me.
  
  There was one time I was trying to help out this guy to transport his equipment somewhere but *nobody* could understand where he wanted to go! In the end, we deduced that he was a team official who wanted to send some stuff over to the Athletics venue, so I helped him with his stuff and walked him to the bus stop. All the way there, he taught me how to count one to ten and to spell out the alphabet in Spanish :) I got him on the bus and bid him 'adios!' and that was really cool :)
  
  Unfortunately, that bus turned out to be the *wrong* bus for him, so we later saw him right back to where he started and get on a *different* bus this time..
• On a related note, I practiced my rusty Russian on some Russian athletes and I said "I speak a little Russian" (я могу заварить по-русский немного) well enough that they said my Russian was OK (нормальна). Win!
• It feels like an eternity when there aren't any athletes around. If the bus goes every 15 minutes, we would be watching our clocks all the time and those 15 minutes feel like 50 - each time!!
• I've successfully stalked the Malaysian Paralympic athletes - yay! I now know where they live :P :P :P
• I know which duty to avoid in order to escape from being called up to do housekeeping, i.e. replace duvet covers and bedsheets.
• I can report for my shift TWO HOURS LATE and still be able to go home at the original time I'm meant to go home.
• The people I work with are VERY interesting. They all come from all over the place - Canada, Australia, Scotland, Southampton (yay!), etc. Some of them are really funny, it's a barrel of laughs working with them. Some of them talk so much that it's draining just to hear them talk. Some of them have really interesting stories to tell so it makes the time fly by. Some of them sleep on the job (yes, you read that correctly). Some of them have the same team dynamics as me so I feel like we work very well together. It's a big great mixed bag of people we've got here :)
• I've already signed up for more shifts in addition to the ones I've already got because I love the job so much <3 <3 <3

A quickie :P

I'm actually now *too* busy to even update this blog. How about that.

For now, let me just put it on record that this volunteering gig is THE BEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.

PERIOD.

More details to follow.

First Day!

What an amazing 36 hours I've had!

I set off from Southampton with my humongous suitcase, only to be met with a(nother) late train! Getting worried that I wouldn't get into London in time for my 8pm bedtime(!), I was getting really worried when I suddenly got a phone call from my Games Maker Workforce Operations telling me *not* to come at 6am, but "have a lie in" and come at TEN instead! YAYYYYYYYY!

So I checked in to find this amazing room waiting for me!

My crash pad for the first leg of my GM adventure :)

I had a really good night's sleep :)

Then Day 1 came round, and I leisurely took my time to get to work (after contributing some funds to my sponsors McDonald's in exchange for breakfast!). When I got there, we were momentarily bemused to find that there was *no* work to do, so after milling around for 30 mins or so, we were all told that we could go home!

This is the best first day at work EVER!

Anyway, I took the opportunity to go round the Athletes Village, find out where the Malaysian athletes were based and basically have a nose around the area before it gets properly crowded. The place is amazing! It's like a little enclosed town; it has a post office (where you can make personalized stamps!), convenience store, photo shop, phone shop, laundry service, etc. Every nook and cranny had different little nifty things. I took a million photos, but due to strict rules, I'm not allowed to post any of them until after the Paralympics, so there will be a flood of pics at some point (next month)!

This photo should be OK though:

Me in a replica of an athlete's room at the Village. No, I did not break into anybody's room..

The best bit for me is how friendly all the GMs are! At the moment I'm still on a no-name basis, so I don't really remember anybody's name, but it's amazing how easy it is to just chat with random strangers and end up doing things together even if you've just met each other :)

So far I'm really humbled by all the people I've met. They come from so many different backgrounds and they have so many life stories that I'm quite honoured to be here working with them. It's a shame that although I haven't exactly started working properly, I'm already one day down, out of what limited time I have left, so I'm really gonna soak up every second of the experience as much as I can :)

OMG is it past 9pm already? Way past my bedtime!!

It's time!!

On my online trails to cure my Post-Olympic Depression, I found a website called the "Diary of an Olympic Games Maker"! It has lots of really in depth descriptions of all the various stages of becoming a Games Maker, so I'm gonna save myself the effort of doing my own and link you to those blog posts instead:

Selection Event
Role Specific Training
Uniform and Accreditation
Venue Specific Training

I now have a big suitcase packed for my adventure into the Big Smoke. I'm actually feeling slightly terrified at the thought. What if I don't wake up for my 6am shifts? What if my job sucks? What if *I* suck at the job? What if I hate working with the people I'm working with? What if it rains?

I'm getting cold feet.

Almost there!

I'm suffering from Post Olympics Depression at the moment. There was a time when I had four live feeds running simultaneously on my two screens at work, and now it's so.. bare. There's nothing on it anymore. Except for work. Of course.

So I've been reliving the last two weeks by reading several blogs which were brilliant in capturing the spirit and atmosphere of the Olympics. I like the Diamond Geezer's blog for its quintessentially British wit and surprisingly in depth information, while I also enjoy reading other people's experiences of attending the Opening Ceremony and their participation in the Closing Ceremony.

I personally thought the Closing Ceremony was OK, not particularly great, but I guess Danny Boyle just hit the ball out of the park with that one - I guess it was really difficult to top that, no matter how many boy and girl and man bands you throw at it.

At the moment, I'm just counting the days before I take temporary residence in London. I'm really excited about getting out there and continuing the good work that the Olympics Games Makers have done before me. Prior to the Olympics, you wouldn't have thought that there would be this much love for us volunteers. Most journalists were seeking scathing comments from volunteers about how us gullible people were getting exploited by greedy corporates*, and now it's amazing to see how the tables have turned. We're getting standing ovations in the Closing Ceremony, Adidas is giving (even more) free kit, Las Iguanas is giving us free glasses of cava tomorrow (inapplicable to me!), someone's given BBC a call to nominate Games Makers as the Sports Personality of the Year for its Team category, and there are rumours circulating that all Games Makers will be invited to line The Mall on 10th Sept when Team GB's parade hits London!

And all this is happening even before my first shift!

It's a really weird situation to be in. I feel really honoured to be a part of this acclaimed group of wonderful people, yet I also feel like I haven't earned my stripes yet, which makes me even more excited to prove to people that us Paralympics GMs can do just as well, if not better!

Me in uniform! Plus my knitted Games Maker :)

I'm just raring to go!

* Did you know that McDonald's is footing the bill for all our GM training sessions? During our Role Specific Training, we were shown videos starring the comedian Chris Addison showing us what to do and what *not* to do in various situations that we might come across. The training was funny, engaging, and not boring at all. So I find it ironic that when people praise GMs for doing such a sterling job, nobody really gives credit to McDonald's for providing us all with such good training in the first place!

Joy and Agony

As soon as I got to Wembley Arena last Sunday to watch Lee Chong Wei battle it out against Lin Dan, I couldn't believe the atmosphere, it was unbelievable. The people on TV keep bandying the word 'phenomenal' to describe the atmosphere, and they really are correct. There's no other word that can describe how it feels like to be a part of it.

She has lots of flags!

I was hoping that I might be able to borrow a Malaysian flag from someone there. Luckily when I got in, two rows down there were these two guys with a flag each, so I pounced on them :P I ended up with this massive flag that's meant to be held by 6 people!

Us with the massive flag, the top-down ones you drop down the side of a building.

Throughout the match, it wasn't just a duel of badminton prowess between the two athletes; it was also a battle of vocals between the two camps. The noise was deafening! At every point scored, and in between each rally, supporters from both sides would be shouting at the top of our lungs. Us Malaysians would alternate between "Malaysia BO-LEH!" and "Lee Chong Wei, Lee Chong Wei", whilst the Chinese would retaliate with "Lin Dan Chaiyok!" and if I'm completely honest, I think we were totally outdone by the Chinese - they're so loud!!

When Lee Chong Wei was up by 19-18 in the rubber game, the whole Malaysian camp went wild. I think it was only at that point when I actually considered that we *may* actually do this, we might just get GOLD! Alas, as the wise Bane from Dark Knight Rises says, "there can be no true despair without hope". When Lin Dan screamed with joy at winning his 2nd successive gold medal, it was such a painful moment for me, especially when Lee Chong Wei slumped and cried :'(

We're so proud of you :')

There's a lot of debate about our chances of getting an Olympic gold medal now, considering Malaysia's over-reliance on the same athletes. All of our other athletes have fizzled out at the moment, and Lee Chong Wei had claimed that this was his last Olympics. He has now done a U-turn and says that if his physical condition allows for it, then he might give it a shot. He's also committed to developing future world-class badminton players, which should bode well for our future Olympic quests. For now, we'll just have to be thankful that Lee Chong Wei's around so that our London 2012 entourage doesn't return completely empty handed!

Malaysia Boleh!

Tomorrow, I'll be on my way to see Malaysia's Lee Chong Wei battle it out with arch rival Lin Dan from China for the badminton men's singles gold medal!

The Malaysian press has exploded with stories of the nation's hopes resting on Chong Wei's shoulders. Apparently if Chong Wei wins gold, then Baskin Robbins will give away free ice cream at all 61 Malaysian outlets within a 2-hr window!

The BBC ran a story about the incentives that ahtletes would get from winning gold, and I chuckled seeing that British ones only get their faces on stamps! If Lee Chong Wei wins gold for Malaysia, he'll earn upwards of £800k (£200k cash and a £200k gold bar) plus a lifetime pension of £1000 a month (approximately 2 or 3 times the salary of a fresh grad).

Apparently our Prime Minister's wife has flown in from Malaysia just to attend tomorrow's final. Lee Chong Wei's brother and closest friends are also being flown in for the same reason. Let's not speculate how they were able to get tickets at this sold out event...

Seeing how proud the UK is with their golden stars like Jessica Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah, I really really hope that tomorrow afternoon, I'll be able to cry with joy whilst singing my national anthem out loud.

Fingers crossed :)

The Quest for Tickets

Ask anyone around me and they'll know that I'm probably the last person in the world to diss the Olympics. I can deal the with £9 billion budget (actually £11 billion if my sources are correct), coz it's a lot cheaper than what Beijing paid. I can deal with the overt corporate sponsorship, coz McDonald's is funding all the training we GMs get and Adidas is sponsoring my uniform and trainers which I'll get to keep. I can even deal with the gridlock of tourists swarming London transport, coz, well, I'm used to swearing underneath my breath everytime I hit a wall of slowpokes in London. At the height of the Olympics moaning by both friends and the media, I took solace by ignoring the negative press and by blocking my whiny friends.

However, if there's one thing that I must make an exception for, it's the Olympics ticket sales.

When the first ballot for Olympic tickets came up, I put in bids for the cheapest tickets for the Opening Ceremony, and the badminton finals. With the strange ballot process, I had to leave a few hundred pounds in my account just so that it may get withdrawn from at some point in the future by an unknown organization. If fraudsters were looking for a window of opportunity, they definitely had that for a good few months last year.

I had no hope in hell of getting the Opening Ceremony tickets, coz the whole world was gunning for those, so it was a pleasant surprise when I found out that I've been allocated two tickets for the badminton finals. Malaysia's best prospect for gold is in badminton, so I was quite chuffed about snagging tickets.

A year on, my smugness about getting tickets have been turned into desperation because I now want more tickets! MOAR! Especially since I've just realized that when I volunteer for the Paralympics, my accreditation doesn't give me access to the Olympic Park, so I'll have to buy tickets to get in!

So I've been scouting the wonderland that is the official tickets website, looking for more Olympic tickets. My friend's written a brilliant post about the joys of using it, and so has this blog post, and I concur wholeheartedly. Ever since LOCOG announced that they're reselling tickets throughout the duration of the Games, the ticket-buying process has just been even worse. You jump with joy when the website says you can indeed buy the cheap tickets online, then you select the ones you want, click 'Request the tickets', wait upwards of 20 mins before your hopes are cruelly dashed with the ominous 'No tickets left' :(

It hurts, LOCOG, it really does. How can you give me so much hope, just to keep me waiting for so long, only to be rejected in the end? And I keep getting rejected over and over again. Talk about pushing my psychological buttons!

But anyway, to alleviate the situation, I have now panic bought some Paralympic tickets that will get me into the Olympic Park and an ExCeL day pass, so all's well I suppose :)

Opening Ceremony Rehearsal

A few weeks back, us Games Makers were sent an email about a competition for tickets to attend the rehearsal of the Opening Ceremony. We needed to answer one easy multiple-answer question, email it to the organizers and then hope for the best. Well, in the end it turned out the best did happen to a lot of us, coz there were thousands of us Games Makers who turned up at the two rehearsals that were open to the public!

So I got one ticket for the rehearsal last Wed 25th July and I was well ecstatic about it. I realized that this might be the only time I would have the chance to enter the Olympic Park throughout the Olympics, so I really wanted to make the most of my time there.

A lot things didn't go to plan that day; my train from Southampton was 20 minutes delayed, then at Waterloo the tube station was closed due to a fire alert. And then when I did get into the Olympic Park, my two camera batteries died even before I got into the Olympic Stadium, so I had to rely on my old Nokia brick phone to take pictures during the rehearsal!

Nonetheless, I managed to get in, and it was an amazing experience, from arriving into Stratford tube station, all the way to the rehearsal itself. There must've been around 60,000 people in the park that day, and everyone seemed really excited that the Olympics is finally here. Unfortunately they closed off the North Park, so we only had half of the Olympic Park to wander round.

I've got loads of photos on my Facebook page, so if you've got the right privacy settings then you'll be able to see them ;)

During the rehearsals, they didn't disclose everything to us. They blanked out the Queen's heli-jump, and also Mr Bean's sketch, plus we definitely didn't see the cauldron at all. They got Games Makers to stand in as the Queen and Prince Phillip which was awesome! Plus, I was sitting at the front row (woohoo!) which would've been brilliant save from the fact that I'm short and I couldn't really see much past the shrubs that were dumped right in front of me during the Industrial Revolution scene! So I was really looking forward to seeing how it was all going to come together on TV, and it was just as spectacular as I had experienced it :)

I'm slightly peeved that I didn't realize that Tim Berners-Lee was gonna be in it!! I saw a man typing away underneath the raised house, but the screen didn't say who it was, and he just seemed like an ordinary bloke just typing away, as you do.. Now I'll never know if it really was him that I saw on Wednesday, or whether it was just some stand-in!

I left the stadium at 22:20, right at the beginning of the "athletes" march (they got troops and Games Makers to stand in!), and it took me an hour just to get to the tube platforms! Immense credit to the Games Makers in charge of traffic flow. It was a difficult job, yet they were all happy and smiling and their banter with the crowd was ace. Hope to carry on their good work when I start soon :)

P/S: I'm quite impressed that everybody did their bit to #savethesurprise. I guess the winning trick was to get Danny Boyle to come out and ask the audience not to spoil it!