Well, London, world, mopping blog readers (leave the best until last, eh?), it has been a year.
I doubt I will surprise anyone by saying this, but I miss being in London and it being 2012.
I am currently not in London and it is 2013 (well spotted, I can hear you say), but I can hear the Underworld track ''And I Will Kiss'' in the background of the BBC's ''Anniversary Games'' (a song which has, since, become my most loved of EPIC DRIVING TRACKS, if you would like a fact of the day), I can see the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Stadium, I have just watched the Games Maker who sat next to me at the SPOTY Awards be interviewed (small world and all that), and am just about to re-witness the Queen jumping out of a helicopter. So, as far as I am concerned, today is a good day. Just as it was a year ago.
On my desk at university I keep a laminated article of quotes that people made about the Games Makers. You know, just because in moments of essay-desperation a casual ego-boost is always helpful. (Dear lecturer who will remain anonymous, you may have set me this essay, but I mopped the Olympic badminton courts, SO THERE, NURRRRRRRR).
As fellow blogger and former sports editor of the Independent, Charlie Burgess, said:
''The Big Purple and Red Society really did work. Let’s keep it that way''.
We did the Olympics well, London. And so, with my Olympic-fix sorted for the time being and with renewed pride to be British (welcome to the world, George the Royal Baby- I would be lying If I said that I wasn't one of the super-keen-enthusiasts who kept the Tatler live-stream from the Lindo Wing on for two days), I feel fairly well prepared to head off to be an English Language Assistant in Germany for a while. But not until I've had my interview for the Commonwealth Games in 2014. This volunteering malarkey has to be done properly, after all.
As I mentioned in my last post, I was interviewed about my mopping adventures by my local newspaper in September. The article came out in October and is to be held entirely responsible for my new nickname...: 'Mrs Mop'. Anyway, if you're interested in finding out how I managed to be ''living the dream while mopping the floor'', the link is here: http://www.lep.co.uk/sport/other-sports/meet-mrs-mop-1-4985851
Also, the Games Maker Choir, who I first saw at the Athletes' Parade, are releasing a single tomorrow and are attempting to get it to Christmas number 1. The song, featuring Alistair Griffin, is called 'I Wish For You The World', and is b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l. Obviously, I am not the slightest bit biased (although, in all seriousness, I was at James Arthur's first audition in Newcastle, so I am technically qualified to make the judgement call), but it would be the perfect end to 2012 to see it top the charts (at the moment it's 2nd in the odds behind the X Factor winner). All proceeds go towards Olympian/ Paralympian charities, so go and download it tomorrow! For now, you can like their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/#!/iwishforyoutheworld
And now... if you've stayed with this post until the end, I would like to break the news to you that this morning I got tickets to go and see the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards live in London tomorrow. It goes without saying that this probably calls for a comeback of the mopping blog. So, for now, watch this space and please excuse me while I go and try to find a dress.
My day began before 6AM this morning (round of applause, please) and, bleary eyed and not at all bushy tailed I made it to Wembley on (wait for it)... the 5-stops-train. Finally. Boom, pre-8AM-Jenny.
I had planned to sleep on the way there, but the man next to me had seemingly decided to recreate his own nightclub on the train to Waterloo and, whilst at the time I was pretty narked at Britney for keeping on 'dancing til the world ends', knowing my sleeping ability, I probably would have slept through all of the train changes, so it's probably a good job that he was such a loud Ms. Spears fan.
I arrived at Wembley to discover that pre-8AM-Jenny wasn't as on form as I had thought and, although I had remembered to charge my camera battery, I'd forgotten the memory card. Again. Hello, dinner-time dash to a Wembley camera shop after Argos and their ''only available for home delivery'' memory cards failed me.
Today I mopped for:
Men's doubles semi-final: Y. Cai & HF. Fu (China) vs. KK. Koo & BH. Tan (Malaysia)
Today we went for, not only the synchronised mop (insert ooh-ing and ahh-ing here), but also the mop after the match had ended, so we had to go off court and then go back on again, which was very exciting and involved walking very quickly backed by some super-cheesy music.
After our match, we went up to the stands to watch the remaining games of the session. After a brief (particularly deep) dilemma this morning consisting of Canadians speak English, I speak English, Russians speak Russian, I speak (albeit very bad) Russian, I decided that I was on Team Russia (сборной России- yey for language geekiness and dual language keyboards!), so I was very happy when they won their match. Potentially not as happy as I was when Denmark won theirs, though. Although supporting Denmark in a stand full of Koreans was minorly awkward...
We then went back to the stands in the afternoon (making it a 2-0 victory to the FOP Team on entering the stands today) to watch China play a lot of very impressive badminton and to hear their national anthem on repeat. In the women's singles final red-shirted-yellow-shoed-Chinese-girl beat yellow-shirted-red-shoed-Chinese-girl, confirming my point that it is really all about the yellow shoes. After the match, red-shirted-yellow-shoed-Chinese-girl put her medal around the neck of her coach, which was super-cute, and her coach was Zhang 'physio-replacement-leg-strapper-upper-for-retired-player-from-bronze-medal-player-match' Ning, which was a super-exciting blast from the past (even if her rather too big Team China top did make her look slghtly more basketball than badminton).
For the women's doubles final, the Japanese national team came and sat infront of us. Courtesy of their lesson, I now have two words in my Japanese vocabulary (oh, and I can say 'hello gorgeous' in Korean, just for the record). The Japanese lost, but it was a really close match and their team were fantastic to watch: they would start off sat up normally, lean forward as the rally went on, and then either jump back in their chair (if they lost the rally) or jump up out of their seats (if they won the rally). They were happy to take pictures with us, too, and we were out of uniform, so the camera came out... (until I encountered camera problem #2 and it ran out of battery).
After the matches we went out for tea at an Indian restaurant with some of the line judges and managed to gatecrash what seemed to be both a wedding and a 21st birthday party. This called for some interesting dancing and, for us anyway, Jess Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah all won to a Bollywood/ Nicki Minaj/ Katy Perry mash-up of ''the best hits, playing all night''.
I made it safely back home (after a somewhat bizarre train journey during which a man in leather pants with ribbons asked the question ''do I have too much glitter on my face?'') and I am now just about to go to sleep ready for another very early morning tomorrow. Woop *sarcasm* woop.
However, seeing as it was the women's doubles final today, I will leave you with these:
Guess what I found?!
Olympic spot of the day: Zhang 'beat Gail and Natan in Athens' Bo in the Ibis car park
My countdown to travelling down to London for the Olympics (note to self: buy train tickets asap) entered single figures today, so I thought that I'd get the blog-ball rolling.
Yesterday I had to go down to Wembley Arena for Venue Specific Training (also called VST by the many abbreviation loving people up at Olympic HQ).
Travelling there was minorly stressful due to a combination of Hard Rock Calling festival at Hyde Park, closure of the Victoria line and (probably mainly) me getting over-excited by a couple speaking German at the ticket-buying-booth next to me, meaning that I bought a ticket going to a station in Wembley that my train wasn't actually going to travel through (only to find out a couple of hours later that I actually have a Osyter card for unlimited travel in London until after the Olympics, so didn't even need to buy a ticket in the first place). Yes, Jenny! Anyway, thanks to the ticket conductor who, after briefly contemplating sending me back to Marylebone, decided to take pity on me and let me out at Wembley, I actually made it to the Arena with time to spare and sandwiches to eat. (Not-so-Olympic fact: Cliff Richard has performed at Wembley Arena more than any other artist).
The day began with presentations from various Team Leaders and Security Managers etc. for badminton and rhythmic gymnastics (who we're sharing the Arena with during the latter part of the badminton competition). The enthusiasm from everyone is, however cliché, infectious, and, if the lady managing the rhythmic gymnastics competition would have emphasised one more time how dynamic baton throwing can be, she would have had me switching sports there and then on the spot (Olympic fact: rhythmic gymnastics is one of two remaining female-only Olympic sports, the other one being synchronised swimming). As it happens, though, they apparently don't need a floor mopper, so I'm left a slightly gutted that I'll potentially never see the dynamic-ness of it!
We then split off into the teams that we'll be working in during the Olympics and, after completing some more training (I'm now an expert in the technique of safely lifting things), we went on a tour of the Arena and of some of the temporary builds in the Wembley area which will be used by the athletes for warming up etc. We've only moved into the Arena during the last week, so it is still very much a work in progress, but it is looking good! (Olympic fact: Wembley was used as a venue in the 1948 London Olympics, meaning that it is one of two venues being used at both Games, the other one being Earls Court). The usual stage has gone (though I did greatly enjoy walking out through the stage door onto the non-existent stage), the media booths and big screens are set up, and, most importantly (!), the badminton courts are on the floor. The umpires chairs were wrapped up near one of the warm up courts and (although I can't reveal any details), I can promise that they, along with the floor, and the floor mops, will have quite an exciting colour scheme!
The day ended with a treasure hunt around the Arena, which (despite the temporary builds all looking pretty identical) saw an epic win for the Field of Play team (helped along by our Team Leader just a little...), and resulted in a very happy Jenny, because winning involved chocolate.
I got back to Euston fine and with an hour and a half-ish to spare before my first ever First Class journey back up north (for some reason the ticket was cheaper for First Class than for Standard, but I'm not complaining!), so I decided to be a hardcore Games Maker and go to Trafalgar Square to take a picture of the Olympic countdown clock. I got to Leicester Square before the line closures and West-End go-ers got the better of me and I realised that I probably wasn't going to get back in time for my train if I took a too big of a de-tour... On the plus side, my Oyster card definitely works and I am now one Wenlock (Olympic fact: the founder of the Wenlock Olympian Games in 1850 is credited as the founding father of the modern Olympics) and quite a few Percy Pigs better off than I was before.
It was so good to actually be in the Arena and to see everything coming together after so much time. The next time that I'm there will be in a week or so for Sports Presentations, which are basically dress rehearsals of everything, so that the media know timings-wise how long things such as ceremonies and players/ umpires walking out onto court will take to broadcast.
Until then I'll leave you with this ridiculously cute gem, which I found on our training-CD:
I am currently not in London and it is 2013 (well spotted, I can hear you say), but I can hear the Underworld track ''And I Will Kiss'' in the background of the BBC's ''Anniversary Games'' (a song which has, since, become my most loved of EPIC DRIVING TRACKS, if you would like a fact of the day), I can see the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Stadium, I have just watched the Games Maker who sat next to me at the SPOTY Awards be interviewed (small world and all that), and am just about to re-witness the Queen jumping out of a helicopter. So, as far as I am concerned, today is a good day. Just as it was a year ago. 
We did the Olympics well, London. And so, with my Olympic-fix sorted for the time being and with renewed pride to be British (welcome to the world, George the Royal Baby- I would be lying If I said that I wasn't one of the super-keen-enthusiasts who kept the Tatler live-stream from the Lindo Wing on for two days), I feel fairly well prepared to head off to be an English Language Assistant in Germany for a while. But not until I've had my interview for the Commonwealth Games in 2014. This volunteering malarkey has to be done properly, after all.
