My first Olympics

Clarissa,

Thank you for your letter! I actually never expected to get one. I figured the post card was my letter. So I was surprised and delighted to receive an actual letter. Thank you! It was great to hear from you personally. :) I'm glad you're enjoying your area, companion, etc. My life lately has been dominated lately by the international phenomenon that has been the 2010 winter Olympics.

You see, I've never really watched the Olympics before. I remember watching figure skating was I was little, and occasionally a few minutes of downhill skiing, or maybe even speed skating, but after the age of ten, I never really watched the Olympics at all. Every two years, they would catch me by surprise, coming seemingly without warning or preamble, briefly appearing in people's conversations or on the news, and then disappear. This year, I discovered that Allie, the roommate I thought I knew so well, was a rabid olympiophile. Stephanie K. is also a long-time fan. Even Stephanie T, who often chooses to watch TV in her room rather than in the living room with the rest of our apartment, suddenly appeared out of her sanctuary and spent an unprecedented amount of time on the couch.

My education began with the opening ceremonies. Stephanie K. and Allie had planned a party weeks in advance with Canadian themed food. The TV was turned on an hour before the ceremonies actually began. When I began to make fun of some of the cheesy commercials or reporter comments, I was sharply reprimanded by Steph K to kindly "tone down the negativity." She said this with the kind of tone I usually heard reserved for people who had just received some kind of personal insult. I held my tongue in shocked silence for the next twenty minutes.

Despite their being over two hours long, I LOVED the opening ceremonies. They were beautiful, moving, and impressive. Of course, there were bits I made fun of (cautiously). I remember asking who one of the reporters was and being told it was (insert correct name), who's ALWAYS part of the Olympics--in a voice full of "I can't believe you're actually asking this question. Are you really that unaware? Do you even know where Canada is?"

After the opening ceremonies, I assumed that the majority of the fuss was over. My roommates would watch their favorite events, when they had time. Other than that, life would continue as usual. Out of the last sixteen, Olympic days, I think there might have been one on which the TV was not on and tuned to the Olympics. Steph K and Allie would rush home early to spend hours doing homework and watching the Olympics, getting worked up over events I didn't even know existed. Even events that were usually sacred to our apartment (like American Idol) were unimportant enough to supplant watching the sixth speed skating race we'd watched. I found myself watching an hour of the preliminaries of women's curling. It was just assumed that that was the plan. I remember coming home and finding the Olympics not on, so Nick and I put on some music and began to make dinner. After about ten minutes, my roommates came in, saw the situation, and asked in surprise and disbelief, "You don't want to watch the Olympics?" I immediately gave in to popular demand and turned off the music so the Olympics could be turned on. Another night, it was close to 9 pm, and Allie and Nick and I were sitting on the couch with, surprise, the Olympics on. Nick and I were looking up stuff on online and pretty much ignoring it. Allie gathered up her stuff and asked us to let her know when the figure skating came back on. I told her I was probably going to turn them off as soon as she left, and she seemed surprised and perhaps a trifle disappointed--I hope not in me.

Now that it's all over, I have to admit. I'm a little bit glad it's over. It will be a relief to be able to talk in the living room without feeling guilty for distracting from the constant, sixteen day, omnipresent, all important, main event. However, I also have to admit, I think I will make room in my life for the next Olympics. I enjoyed watching the incredible skill and passion with which all of the athletes participated in their various events. I liked hearing their stories and the drama behind their performances. Additionally, I am a fan of events that bring people together, foster communication and friendships, and promote solidarity. The Olympics definitely qualifies on multiple levels. It brings the athletes together in teams, then into competition with other teams from across the world. This in turn brings fans and families together, and millions of people around the world are suddenly sharing a communal experience. It even produced an unusual amount of together time in our own apartment. It gave me a topic of lunchtime conversation that I could actually contribute to. Not only that, but I learned a lot about a lot of sports and countries I didn't know about before.

So, in conclusion, the Olympics and I are going to be friends in the future. I'm looking forward to the summer Olympics in London two years from now. True, I will probably not ever let them dominate my life quite so completely as my roommates do, but I think I will never ignore them again either. All in all, I have been grateful for the education experience which my roommates and Vancouver gave me these past few weeks.

Wow, this email turned out to be much longer and more Olympics-dominated than I intended it to be, sort of like my life the last few weeks. I think I'll probably end up copying and pasting this into my blog.

Anyway, thanks for the letter, and I promise that my next email won't be all about the Olympics, really. :)

Eve