Every morning this week after I walked into class, Ken greeted me by telling me how many more gold medals China has in the Olympics than the US does. However, he had to change his tune today, and somewhat regretfully informed me that China and America have the same amount of golds. I haven’t been able to really keep up with the Olympics here (a combination of not being able to figure out our Chinese remote and not being able to stay awake past 11:30 on weekdays…) but I always enjoy his updates. I also like that some of my students are excited enough about the Olympics to talk about them with me using some pretty enthusiastic English, which I find fantastic.

Anyway, even if I don’t exactly know what is going on in the 2012 London Olympics, it’s okay, because I am in change of the 2012 PIJ Olympics along with Nick and Miryam! When Cameron told me I was one of the organizers for our summer Olympics, I was so excited. Earlier this week, the Olympic committee sat down and decided the events for this summer’s Olympics. I now present to you the line up for this summer:

– tug of war
– basketball
– ping pong
– Strong Man (including planks, push ups, limbo, 100 m race, and wall sits)
– badminton
– relay race (containing a hot dog eating contest, ball on spoon race, sack race, and water pitcher relay)

I’m most excited for the relay race, because it includes 12 people from each level and I think it will be extremely fun to watch. I got the idea for the water pitcher relay from the summer camp I worked at last year, and I wasn’t sure how popular the idea was going to be with our Chinese students. Luckily, after I explained it today, the kids seemed really pumped to try it out. The concept for the water pitcher relay race is fairly simple. The teams sit on the ground in lines, with a large basin of water at the front of each line and an empty bucket at the end of each line. The first person in the line needs to fill up a pitcher with water and (carefully) pass it overhead to the person behind her/him. The last person in line dumps the water into the bucket at the end of the line, and the first team to fill up their bucket wins. I’m expecting this to be ridiculous when the kids try it out later.

Dragons, Lions, and Unicorns better watch out, because the Phoenixes are getting ready to bring their A games to next Wednesday’s Olympics. Go big or go home. If you’re not first, you’re last. (That one’s for you, Dad.)

– Kelsey