It all makes sense now

I was riding in a cab today on my way home from work, and I realized why i like being able to speak Chinese.  As a child, like most children, I loved to have secret languages with my friends.  It started at a very young age.  Before I could write in cursive, I would fill notebooks with this chicken scratch stuff that really resembled a squiggly line.  Page after page of these squiggly lines!  Then in elementary school my friends and I would write notes in our secret language that we had made up.  So when the opportunity arose to take chinese in middle school how could I pass it up?  I got to learn a whole country's secret language.  Even today I get a little joy in speaking Chinese to other people when you know people around you won't understand a thing.  Like in the workspace at NBC, the other runners and I often talk in chinese when it is something about wanting to go home or something you wouldn't want to talk about around your boss.  hehe

On a completely other note, all the olympic volunteers (mostly chinese people) were given these really awesome outfits to wear to identify them as volunteers.  They're these collared shirts with a swirly blue and white pattern on it plus these khaki pants with the zip-off legs so they can turn into shorts.  You can't buy them anywhere except, of course, Ebay.  On ebay the whole outfit is going for about 5,000 yuan ($720USD)!!  I guess every volunteer received two of these get-ups and many of them are keeping one and selling the other to make a pretty penny. 

This picture is one of the Chicago reporters, Phil, in his brand new volunteer pants.  He has been talking non-stop this whole trip about how much he wants one of the volunteer outfits.  Well today, Blessing (one of the other amazing runners) came in with a surprise for him.  One of her friends is a volunteer and gave her his extra pair of pants so that she could give them to Phil.  Phil was so excited he immediately went to put them on and he will probably wear them for the rest of the trip.  Needless to say, Blessing has probably now secured herself a job at NBC Chicago.

Tonight is the closing ceremony, so security is really tight all over the city and a lot of the buses aren't running their normal routes.  There aren't very many cars on the roads either, it makes me wonder if they put an even bigger restriction on driving today because of the ceremony.  Last night it rained, so it was a beautiful day today...the weather was obviously planned, but it is extremely hot out, so to be honest I would not want to go sit in the Bird's Nest tonight to watch the closing ceremony because it will be soooo hot in there!

Tonight should be some crazy parties because USA took gold in basketball – men's and women's – and men's vollyball...definitely going to check it out.  I have yet to stay awake all night and then go to Tiananmen Square for the flag raising ceremony at sunrise, but maybe tonight is the night?