olympic fever

i have a lot of great memories from the 2000 summer olympics in sydney, australia. i remember being glued to the television every night watching bob costas report on my favorite international athletes wearing either skin-tight uniforms on the pommel horse or next to nothing in the pool. and if that wasn't enough, waking up the next morning to see the winners giving interviews on the today show, which was aired on location. noone can take these memories away from me. unfortunately, i spent the 2004 summer olympic season in spain and was unable to to watch, though i ran to the internet cafe to check the standings all the same.

fast-forward to 2008 and i am once again, missing american nightly coverage of the beijing olympics. in fact, it's a strange feeling for me to be interested in watching any sort of sports competition, as i usually deem it as a waste of my precious time. however, the olympics is able to transform what otherwise would be an ordinary viewing experience for me into something special, something i can relate to. as unpatriotic as i can be at times, i do have a sense of pride for america's atheletes and their stories. bob costas has always been good at bringing on the pathos, showing montages of each competitors backstory, of all the struggles and successes.

this years olympics are also particularly special to me because of their location, the great country of china, near and dear to my heart. while i find it ridiculous that the commies are already not playing be the rules, i have to laugh at the media being up in arms over their censorship, something that i've already grown accustomed to in china. websites like youtube.com, wikipedia.org, and bbc.com are notoriously firewalled and it's suprising that the olympic committee couldn't have known this information before they picked beijing as the location. or that they could have even trusted the commies to follow the rules and regulations of playing host.

in any case, i know this is a proud moment in the damaged past of china, and that 1.4 billion chinese could not be more thrilled to have china be put on the map in one giant way. i am proud for them, too; i've never visited a country whose people loved their country as much as they do. so many bad things are said about china, surely we can all name them. but there is still so much good that shouldn't be overshadowed and i think the rest of the world seriously needs to take notice that china is and will take over the world in a few decades.

in the meantime, good luck to all the american's competing. bring home the gold!