Fitting (Pre-)Finale

It really is surreal watching the Paralympics coverage and then seeing the athletes compete. All I could think of is "They got on my bus!!"

Bright and early at 6am!

Today's been pretty star-studded at my station. There was a Chinese athlete who has won 2 gold medals, and I got Natalie du Toit (RSA), who entered both the Olympics and now Paralympics, and Ellie Simmonds (GBR), who has won 2 gold medals and a bronze, plus the most important VIPs ever, some of the Malaysian Paralympic athletes. They all got into buses at my station :)

Later on in the day, I was tasked to man the station on my own(!), so I had to do the headcounts, check the accreditation and decide when to use the duplicate buses all at the same time. At some point, some athlete came over with the wrong accreditation.

Me: (looking at all the accreditation cards) "Excuse me sir, you've only got Athletics on your card, so you can't get on this bus."
Random Lost Guy: "Ah okay why's that?"
Me: "That's because.." (looks up)

OH MY GOD IT'S THE BLADE RUNNER!!!

Me: "erm.. (stammering) uh.. it's coz your card needs a Swimming accreditation so that you can get on this bus, sir."
Oscar Pistorius (RSA): "Ah okay, so which bus goes to the stadium then?"
Me: "Ah the stadium bus is right at the front, sir." (points to the bay in front of mine)
Oscar Pistorius (RSA): "OK thank you." (walks away)

OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD!

ARGH WHY THE HELL WASN'T I DOING THE ATHLETICS STAND TODAY?!

So yeah, I got completely starstruck at that point. I was half wanting to go grab my camera and run to him and ask for a photo, but I started to think that I can't really say, "Hello again sir, I told you to get off my bus, can I have a photo please?" so I just stood there eyeing him from the corner of my eye until the next stadium bus arrived and he disappeared.

SIGH.

I think today's been a really fitting (near) end to my stint. I've still got a 2-hour shift coming up this weekend, but I've been told that NOBODY will turn up for buses during that shift, so I don't really consider it as a proper shift.

So today, I've been going round all over to take photos of all the lovely people and places I've been working with.

Feeling the hi-viz love :)

I went round saying that this was my (technically second) last shift, and I was really surprised at the response I got. At least three Team Leaders said that it was great working with me, and it's so amazing hearing them say that, it really means the world to me :)

Especially considering the amount of people I've sent onto the wrong buses!

One of my awesome Team Leaders, all the way from Australia!

I swear I think I'm spoiled now. This experience is hands down the best ever highlight of my entire life. How can anything ever top this now? All my future Unilink jobs are gonna seem so pedestrian after this!

It's almost the end :(

Tomorrow's technically my second last shift, but my last one is actually just for a couple of hours end of this week, so in my mind, tomorrow's essentially my last full shift.

:( :( :(

A few days ago, I abandoned my really boring station to go get some action at a busier bus stop. Once there, I was going through the motions until I started to get tired. I asked my Team Leader if I should swap with someone stationed at a less busy stop so that they won't get bored.

Me: "Shall I swap over to B6 and let someone takeover at B5?"
Team Leader: "No, I want you at B5."
Me: "Eh, why?"
Team Leader: "Coz you're quick."

:D :D :D

That meant so much to me, I forgot how tired I was and carried on :)

So yeah, I'm gonna really savour every second of my shift tomorrow. It's gonna be really bittersweet walking through the Village for one last time.

Malaysia Day

One of the activities that the lovely people at Workforce Check-in do is to run competitions to keep our spirits up. Last Sunday, I was declared a winner of one of them.

My prize: joining the Malaysian Paralympic athletes in their team welcoming ceremony inside the Athletes' Village.

:D :D :D *cartwheels* :D :D :D

At first I thought I was just gonna be standing on the sidelines watching them, but it soon became apparent that I was meant to stand there WITH them.

:-O

It was really awkward in the beginning to just barge in and join them, but they were in really good spirits, and they were really kind to me, considering I was there effectively to "tumpang glamer" (share their limelight).

Very sporting sportsmen!

I swear our Malaysian Paralympic athletes are coolest, funniest, most down-to-earth people I have ever seen. I loved how they "borrowed" the props for the welcoming ceremony:

Did I or did I not say they're the coolest people ever?

Five countries were being welcomed at the same time: Singapore, Niger, Korea, Laos and us, Malaysia. The team welcoming ceremony had lots of local London kids dancing and singing various songs like Queen's We Are The Champions (which I also sang out loud with the team, naturally), before each country's representative would then present their gift to the Athletes' Village management. This was then followed by playing the country's national anthem.

We Malaysians were the only team who sang our anthem out loud! Singing "Negaraku" out loud with the rest of the athletes is the BEST highlight of my Games Maker adventure by far :')

As an added bonus, after the ceremony, I was lucky to get invited for a Malaysian meal with the athletes :D

In Malaysia we call this "langkah kanan"

Afterwards, a subset of 5 of them (1 doctor, 2 coaches and 2 athletes with disabilities) asked me to bring them to a good place to buy London tat souvenirs, so I naturally took them to the tackiest cheapest place I could think of: Queensway!

I still can't believe that I dragged this motley crew of people in bright orange (and a wheelchair!) up and down the stairs of the London Underground.

You can sort of see the wheelchair on the bottom right-hand corner of this picture.

I also can't believe how disgusting Queensway was when we got there. There were mountains of trash everywhere after the Notting Hill carnage carnival. It was a bit embarrassing to show them this side of London, but I just joked around and said "Welcome to the *real* London!"

Anyway, it felt really amazing being part of this entourage. We were stopped by so many people - Malaysians and non-Malaysians - from the tube station in Stratford, to the tube carriages of the Central Line, to every 100 metres of Queensway. They were all asking for photos and wishing us well in the Paralympics. I really felt like we were celebrities for a while!

In one shop we went into, the shopkeeper kindly gave each of us a free keyring as thanks for our custom. It's now proudly hung on my Games Maker sling bag, as a proud reminder of this special day :)

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.