The end of the Olympics is not “the end”
Tomorrow is my last day working as an Olympic Games volunteer. This is bittersweet. While part of me looks very forward to going home, not standing in the rain for hours on end, spending time with my kitty cat, having the energy to go for a run, and seeing my wonderful boyfriend … part of me is also very sad this experience is coming to an end. I have met and worked with some truly wonderful people, been present at some historic Olympic moments, witnessed some incredible kindness and amazing feats of fanaticism, and been part of something much, much larger than myself. It has provided me with time for reflection in an atmosphere I couldn’t have created on my own, and I will leave a little different than I arrived.
Even though tomorrow is my last day working at the Olympic Games, it won’t be my last day wearing the affectionately-called Smurf outfit for work. I am one of the lucky few who will return to serve at the Paralympics. And while the Olympic Games were an amazing experience, I expect the Paralympics to be even more so.
our possibilities become limitless. –Jamie Paolinetti
My one minute and 23 seconds of Olympic fame
On February 11th, one of my Twitter-using Facebook friends posted a comment on a photo I had uploaded. It said, “Did you see this: If you live in the Seattle, going to the Winter Olympics, @NewsGuySully would like to talk with you.” I emailed Chris Sullivan (of Newstalk 97.3 KIRO FM) to see if he was looking for spectators only, or if he was interested in speaking with workers as well. He said both, and we exchanged a few more emails.
Last week, I made the trek to Whistler Village after a shift at the Olympic Park to meet with Chris. He asked me a bunch of questions. Keeping in mind that speaking (particularly off the cuff) is definitely not my forte, here’s what made it on the air this morning:
By the way, there are an estimated 25,000 volunteers at the Olympic Games.
Change at the Olympics
I fell fast asleep on the Workforce shuttle this morning. I arrived onsite groggy and dragging my feet, despite getting a free Snickers bar and my ninth-day-of-volunteering gift at check-in. From the get-go, the Spectator Care gang on the whole appeared tired, and the morning seemed to last forever.
After seven straight days of sunshine, winter seemed to be making a return to the Callaghan Valley. There was no bright glowing orb of happiness in the sky today. There was no doffing of jackets. No handing out of sunscreen. It was all kinds of gray, and some time after lunch, the gray became flecked with white.
The return of the cold and the snow is bittersweet. The Nordic venues have been both blessed and plagued by temperature highs like one might expect in April; not February. The sunshine and warmth have been sweetly savored by workers and spectators alike, but day after day over the last week we have watched the walls of snow along the pathways melt alarmingly quickly away. I am personally always happy to see snow falling. At this point, there is no way the base will be recovered but it is still comforting to know that the demise of the entire snowpack will at least be curbed.
On a somewhat related note, weather may cause changes at the Olympics, but the Olympics itself also causes change. I think one of the reasons I am enjoying my time here is because I am surrounded by so many like-minded people. That point was really driven home to me this morning, as I stood on the shuttle that takes us from the Workforce check-in tent to the cross-country and ski jump stadiums. There was a young lady talking to a colleague about her experience. She was describing it in terms of how everyone back home was going on with their lives as normal, but how life for her had sort of stopped and when she went back it wouldn’t be the same. It touched me because I have been feeling the same way. It’s an enormous feeling, and one I’m not quite sure what to do with at this point … but one I am enjoying nonetheless.
in order to become all that we can become. –Max de Pree
We’re all winners at the Olympic Games
Well, it is now day 11 of the Winter Olympic Games; day 12 of my time here. I had hoped to blog a little more often than this, but things tend to take on a life of their own sometimes. I have been here long enough that my days here have become somewhat routine (but not necessarily in a bad way).
I am part of the Spectator Care division of Medical Services. We are the first responders for all spectators at Whistler Olympic Park. This covers quite an area, from where they are dropped off via buses, all the way up to and including all of each of the three stadiums (cross country, ski jump, and biathlon). The portions of the venue(s) we cover on a particular day are entirely dependent upon what events are happening when.
Here’s the typical day for me:
I wake up at 4:15 a.m. so I can leave the condo by 5:10 a.m. so I can catch the local bus to the Squamish Transit Exchange, where I catch the 5:40 a.m. shuttle to Whistler Olympic Park in the Callaghan Valley. I generally arrive there in time to process through security, check-in, get my lunch voucher, pick up two bottles of Dasani, and hop the Workforce shuttle over to the day lodge, where we try to be ready to go by 7:00 a.m. I then spend all morning walking back and forth along the pedestrian walkways or around one of the stadiums until it’s time to grab lunch (which generally consists of soup and a roll, a sandwich, a granola bar, a piece of fruit, and a Coca-Cola branded drink of some sort). Lately there has only been time enough to eat the soup and roll, and the rest gets shoved into the pack for later. Then it’s back to walking a different part of the venue, eventually ending up with walking around one of the stadiums. It’s a lot of walking – hours upon hours of it. We generally get to leave around 4:00-4:30 p.m. If I’m lucky, I’m home by 5:30-6:00 p.m. on those days. And I am usually beat.
The nice thing about Spectator Care (as opposed to Athlete Care) is that we pretty much get to see all of the events. That and we aren’t confined to one small area. All of that walking means I’m still able to wear my ski pants without a belt. (Not that they haven’t gotten tighter – my current diet, which seems to be filled with things like poutine, Toblerone, and Aussie burgers, isn’t really doing me any favors.)
That said, that’s all I have the energy for tonight. I’ll try to write again, sooner this time. And maybe I will manage to post at least a few of the more than 600 pictures I’ve somehow managed to take already. In closing, I will just say that this experience has been truly amazing … and I feel like a winner just being in the mix.
My bid for the Olympics
I am not an athlete — at least not good enough of one to have ever even come close to having Olympic dreams. The closest I have gotten to an Olympic competition was as a spectator in Park City. I only got to see one event there, but just being in the “Village” was an incredible experience. So when Vancouver was awarded the 2010 Winter Games, I knew I had to find some way to be there.
Back in 2006 I had actually looked into getting a paying job with the Games.. But any U.S. citizen who’s ever looked into working in Canada discovers pretty quickly that is a nearly impossible task … unless you fit into certain special categories of workers or have an employer ready to sponsor you. As that dream was basically dashed, the seed for volunteering was planted.
I loosely contemplated the idea of applying to be a volunteer for a few years, but by the time the Games drew near enough I was gainfully employed. Having a full-time job with very little vacation makes the notion of committing to a few weeks of volunteering seem nearly impracticable. At some point, though, I decided that the likely “benefits” of such a one-time opportunity outweighed any possible negative consequences … and I threw caution (and potentially my job) to the wind. My bid for the Olympics officially began on April 6th, 2009, when I submitted an online application which put me “one step closer to joining the volunteer team that will host the world for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.” I wasn’t really ready to host the world, but I definitely wanted to be involved in the party. I felt that it was probably a long shot, and that I was a bit late in the game already … but I was not entirely without hope. (Those who know me well know that I really never am.)
My deepest desire was to do something involving risk management, but the volunteer application is pretty extensive and broad in terms of garnering what sorts of skills you have to offer that might be of use to VANOC … and I reconciled myself with the notion that I’d just be thrilled to do “whatever” for the chance to be a part of it all.
The middle of June came and went last summer, and I still hadn’t heard from VANOC. I decided that my chances might be improved if I could secure my own housing. As one might imagine, rentals during Games-time were already not only pretty scarce but pretty exorbitantly expensive. I decided to contact a friend who lives (and owns a business) in Squamish to see if he might have any leads for me. I was looking for anything, no matter how sparse (as long as it was cheap and came with parking) — even a small slice of a basement floor shared with a boatload of others would have worked. It turned out he had an extra room he uses for occasional inventory overflow that he was willing to let me crash in for free. I still don’t know how I will repay him, but I was (and am) grateful beyond words. Life has a way of working things out for the best, and one thing I have learned over the years is that it rarely hurts to ask (and more often than not, asking has very positive results).
Two months later I received my first offer:
Volunteer position offer – Vancouver 2010
Job title: Ski Patrol: Athlete Care
*Event: PARALYMPIC
Venue: WHISTLER PARALYMPIC PARK
Functional area: MEDICAL SERVICES
Ski patrol? Really? Um … okay. I felt I had a lot more experience in other areas, but if that’s what they needed (and they felt I was qualified), who was I to question their decision? Ski patrol it would be! I didn’t need to ponder whether I was going to accept — in my mind I was already there.
One month later I received my work schedule. I let them know I had no problems with it and that I still hadn’t heard about the Olympics. I had heard rumors that people were being turned away already because all of the slots were full, but until I directly heard otherwise I figured no news was good news. The next day I was asked if I could work both the Olympics and Paralympics — and if so, I could be added to the cancellation list. Less than a week later, I received notice that a vacancy had become available and was asked if I was interested. “Yes; definitely! Thank you!!!” And I was in.
Offer number two arrived that day:
Games-time position offer – Vancouver 2010
Job Title: Ski Patrol: Spectator Care
*Event: OLYMPIC
Venue: WHISTLER OLYMPIC PARK
Functional Area: MEDICAL SERVICES
Now that I had accepted positions at both the Olympics and Paralympics, I was faced with the daunting task of informing my boss. I had no idea what his reaction would be. I wasn’t conflicted about having accepted my volunteer roles already, but the thought of telling my boss that I would need about five weeks off from work actually made my stomach turn. I think it took me a few weeks to muster up the courage. He congratulated me and said he expected our workload to be light enough to allow some flexibility for time off. Whew!
While it kind of sucks that I basically have to pay myself to volunteer at the Games, I fully expect the experience to make up for it in non-monetary ways.
but what they become because of it. — John Ruskin
Here’s to becoming something!
Forgotten dreams
Some rights reserved, xkcd.com.(I’m not a big fan of most cartoons, but I loved this one!)
Desiring and attaining happiness
The other day I shared a quote by Max Ehrmann. I then shared that quote with a friend. He informed me that he had a different quote by the same author on his profile. It was also excellent, and it did not take long for me to discover that both quotes were from the same source — a prose poem called, “Desiderata.” Purportedly, Ehrmann’s reason for writing this piece at age 55 was, “because it counsels those virtues I felt myself most in need of.”
These words speak strongly to me. And so I share them here with you.
Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.Max Ehrmann
Motto
