Wednesday February 24th

Today is Wednesday February 24th and it is a class day for me. These days have been a great chance to recover from the long work days and get some stuff done around camp. Usually we have a meeting in the recreation room trailer with Scott Williams or someone else from the company to talk but today was different. Today all the interns were attending a presentation from two members from the IOC or International Olympic Committee. Everyone met outside the venue media center in Whistler at 1130 to attend the two hour presentation. This is one experience not many people get the opportunity to have in the sports world and was a great chance for all of us studying Sport and Entertainment Management at school. Both members from the IOC talked about all the work that goes into planning one set of games and how it is a seven year process. They explained how the responsibility is delegated and split up and how the IOC presents a model plan to the site picked for the upcoming games and they come back and present their own version of the IOC's model. I found this presentation to be very fascinating. I did not know all that much about the IOC except that they were in charge of picking the next Olympic sites. Almost the more interesting part was hearing both of the IOC employees explain their individual rolls inside the IOC and how they got to be where they are at this point in their life. I am unsure of where my career path will take me so I always am interested to see if these people in the industry always planned to do what they are doing. They elaborated also on the specifics of an Olympic committee doing things in-house versus contracting a client to complete some of the work. It was ridiculous how much work and planning has to go into such a big sports event. At the end of the presentation each of the IOC employees gave out some of the "famous" Olympic pins that everyone seems to be collecting. The rest of the day I spent going to the gym and relaxing to prepare for the long days of work ahead. Yesterday I got my first actual day off since the games have begun and it was amazing. I slept in until 11 or so, ate lunch, did laundry and then proceeded to take a nap. This may sound lame or pathetic but the two things I needed to get done were laundry and to catch up on sleep so this day was perfect. It was very relaxing to not be on a schedule at all for one whole day. My entire time here in Whistler has been great but has for the most part been extremely busy and I have not spent a lot of time relaxing. After taking a nap I went and took the bus to meet Dolton at the gym to workout for a little while.