I've hesitated to talk about this, in case I would jinx anything or would be accused of counting my chickens before they hatched (I'd much rather be considered a "counter of cells before they've split"), but it looks like thing are in place to take your favorite blog to Beijing.Yes, I am slated to go to the 2008 Olympic Summer Games in Beijing, China as part of the Olympic News Service. All together now...
"Bahm dahm da-dum dum dum dum.
Bum ba-da dum ba-da dum da-dum dum dum dummmm"
Bum ba-da dum ba-da dum da-dum dum dum dummmm"
If you don't think I wasted 10 minutes making sure I had the right number of "dums" in that , then you don't know Mike.
It took a while for all this to come together, for a number of reasons that I won't bore you with here. In the end, though, my college was one of five schools selected to send grad students/upperclassmen to the Olympics to help with the news coverage. And that's the extent of what I know about the program. Everything else has been given to us in the vaguest of terms, because, basically, the ONS has never done this before. So, here's what I know...
- I'll be in China
- probably for two months
- they think I have a place to stay (at the Communications University of China) and maybe someone will even feed me
- we'll be covering the Games, but there is no information on what venues/sports or even in what capacity we'll be working in
And that's about it. But, screw it, who cares? My next travel adventure has begun and I'm pretty pumped about it.
I know next to nothing about China. For example, if you had asked me yesterday which city housed Tiananmen Square, I couldn't have told you. The only words I know in Mandarin are "been-fau-tong," which means "marshmallow" and "meso-hoh-nee," which directly translated is "I have sex you long time for money." So, yeah, that's wicked helpful. The only info I have on China in my apartment is my bread machine and coffee maker (both have "Made in.." status). Discounting my weekly visit to my main guilty pleasure, Panda Express, I have almost no interaction with anything China-related. Oh, except for those wonderfully vague fortune cookies I always add "in bed" to (since I'm still mentally in junior high).
Turns out, I'm your typical, politically incorrect, American traveler after all.
I'm going into this thing completely blind. BUT I think this does provide a great blogging opportunity... when I learn something, I'll share it with you. So, as I learn Mandarin, you'll learn Mandarin. As I find out the rules of ping-pong, you'll find out the rules of ping-pong. And, if I find out they do have Panda Express in China, I'll post a picture of me eating some of that delectable orange chicken.
Yum, yum.
------
HOLY CRAP
After I wrote this, I looked up the nutrition information for the Panda. Orange chicken has 500 calories and 27 whopping grams of fat per serving. Both are 200% more than the next-worst menu item (discounting the pork dishes, which are so disgusting that even the homeless turn them down).
No wonder that stuff tastes so good. Just call me Mikey McFatFat.
It took a while for all this to come together, for a number of reasons that I won't bore you with here. In the end, though, my college was one of five schools selected to send grad students/upperclassmen to the Olympics to help with the news coverage. And that's the extent of what I know about the program. Everything else has been given to us in the vaguest of terms, because, basically, the ONS has never done this before. So, here's what I know...
- I'll be in China
- probably for two months
- they think I have a place to stay (at the Communications University of China) and maybe someone will even feed me
- we'll be covering the Games, but there is no information on what venues/sports or even in what capacity we'll be working in
And that's about it. But, screw it, who cares? My next travel adventure has begun and I'm pretty pumped about it.
I know next to nothing about China. For example, if you had asked me yesterday which city housed Tiananmen Square, I couldn't have told you. The only words I know in Mandarin are "been-fau-tong," which means "marshmallow" and "meso-hoh-nee," which directly translated is "I have sex you long time for money." So, yeah, that's wicked helpful. The only info I have on China in my apartment is my bread machine and coffee maker (both have "Made in.." status). Discounting my weekly visit to my main guilty pleasure, Panda Express, I have almost no interaction with anything China-related. Oh, except for those wonderfully vague fortune cookies I always add "in bed" to (since I'm still mentally in junior high).
Turns out, I'm your typical, politically incorrect, American traveler after all.
I'm going into this thing completely blind. BUT I think this does provide a great blogging opportunity... when I learn something, I'll share it with you. So, as I learn Mandarin, you'll learn Mandarin. As I find out the rules of ping-pong, you'll find out the rules of ping-pong. And, if I find out they do have Panda Express in China, I'll post a picture of me eating some of that delectable orange chicken.
Yum, yum.
------
HOLY CRAP
After I wrote this, I looked up the nutrition information for the Panda. Orange chicken has 500 calories and 27 whopping grams of fat per serving. Both are 200% more than the next-worst menu item (discounting the pork dishes, which are so disgusting that even the homeless turn them down).
No wonder that stuff tastes so good. Just call me Mikey McFatFat.
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