And Away We Go

Wow. Here I am, in Blog World. Or, more aptly put, Serious Blog World. Or Write-Your-Entries-in-Microsoft-Word-Before-Your-Blog World. Oh yes. My game face is SO on right now.

Oooh, I’m starting this at 4:44. I like the number four. Good omen. :)

But anyway!

I’ve wanted to start a “real” blog (as opposed to my half-assed Xanga) for a while, but was always afraid of not having anything to write about. Honestly, my daily life is NOT that interesting. But now that some more interesting stuff should be happening in the near future, I feel like this is a good time to start.

An important piece of information: I love the Olympics.

For those of you that know me in any kind of significant way, this fact is super obvious. You’re probably raising your eyebrows at me and wondering why I bothered to state something worthy of a giant ‘DUH!’. Well, it’s because that’s the purpose of this blog; my journey en-route to the US Olympic Committee.

And that journey begins now.

I want to work for them someday. No, scratch that: I WILL work for them someday. I WILL intern with them someday sooner (during the summer of 2012 if all goes as planned. London, anyone?). But before that, I need to work on getting there. This blog will chronicle all things relevant to that.

Of course, creating this blog at this exact moment is a bit premature. Yes, I have a pending interview with former Olympic medal-winning swimmer (and a current VP of US Olympians) Gary Hall, Sr. (tomorrow! Eek!) And yes, I could potentially be going to Greece this summer to volunteer at the Special Olympics with my school. Key word: potentially. Though this week "potentially" has turned into "maybe" has turned into "probably not." More on that in the future. To be honest, I’m starting to freak out a little bit at the lack of knowledge. It took a greatly increased frequency of phone calls home to finally begin to breathe normally again. Word to the wise: parents make great therapists. :)

Since this first post will be functioning mostly as an explanation, it would probably be remiss of me not to explain myself, title-wise and URL-wise.

“Swifter, Higher, Stronger” = the Olympic motto. Citius, altius, fortius. Pretty self explanatory. It’s all about challenging yourself, improving and achieving.

Just my luck, however, was the fact that someone got to this URL before me. Trust me, it was a pretty nice “womp womp womppp” moment. So I hit up Google, hoping that the brilliant folks over there would give me some kind of 10-20 character inspiration. And when does Google ever fail? (Actually, I’ve seen it happen, so let’s not go there.) I stumbled across mapsofworld.com, which told me this:

“A friend of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, Father Henri Martin Didon, of the Dominican order, was principal of the Arcueil College, near Paris. An energetic teacher, he used the discipline of sport as a powerful educational tool.

One day, following an inter-schools athletics meeting, he ended his speech with fine oratorical vigour, quoting the three words "Citius, Altius, Fortius" (faster, higher, stronger).

Struck by the succinctness of this phrase, Baron Pierre de Coubertin made it the Olympic motto, pointing out that "Athletes need 'freedom of excess'. That is why we gave them this motto … a motto for people who dare to try to break records."”

(Baron Pierre de Coubertin is the founder of the modern-day Olympics. If you didn’t know that, for shame! :P)

The freedom of excess. I like it. There aren’t many places in my life where I allow myself to get to the point of excess, but the Olympics is definitely one of them. Just ask my Olympics-themed Bat Mitzvah… and the Olympic flag currently draped over the back of my desk chair… and the shirts I have from every Games since 2002… and the Team USA sweatshirt I all but live in during the winter months… and the DVD of highlights from Beiing 2008 that’s sitting on my shelf… and the countless hours I spent in front of the TV, giving up my social life, while the Vancouver Games were going on… and my plans to go to Sochi in 2014… and, ya know, my dream to work for the USOC. And this list isn’t even all encompassing! Pshh, and people think I’m obsessed with Castle? I mean, let’s be honest, I totally am, but that obsession pales in comparison to my lifelong love-fest with the Olympics.

So this is my place to ‘excess’ to my heart’s content! Join me, won’t you?