Thursday, November 3, 2011

Forgotten Goals

I quickly became busy with school assignments and responsibilities and my application to volunteer at the London Summer Olympics was soon forgotten. During the first few weeks of school I got a call from Milwaukee Ballet School, where I trained in classical ballet, and was offered a part-time receptionist job. Since I had no form of income and thought it would be good to have something I accepted and began working four days a week.
It was a good job while I was adapting back to school, I knew all my coworkers and bosses well as I had been a student in the school, and was also given the freedom to do my homework during the times I worked. I liked the job I had and liked being back in the “ballet world”. I also got some perks like free tickets to Milwaukee Ballet Company performances, which I always enjoyed.
The semester was going by quickly and I was ready to be finished with school for a bit. I was still working at Milwaukee Ballet and had negotiated working full time for the 2011-2012 year. I liked the environment, people, the job, and the interactions; so I wanted to keep the job at full time if the school would let me. And they did. As things were speeding up in the school semester and professors were rushing and adding assignments to fit everything in I received an email late March.
“Your Games-Maker Interview Invitation” read the subject of the email. If I hadn’t been in a public area waiting to go take a test I would have screamed. I started shaking, feeling the nerves already coming even though the interview was a month away. I couldn’t believe after almost 5 months of waiting from the time I submitted my application I was getting an interview. Statistics for the London Volunteer program say that 240,000 people apply for a volunteer position, the volunteer committee interviews many of those applicants and finally selects about 70,000 people to volunteer for the Olympic Games, and 10,000 people for specific test events. Of course I quickly confirmed, accepted, and set up a time for my phone interview. Due to being in a different country my interview would be over the telephone, which made me a little more nervous as I like to see the person interviewing me.
After this, March flew by and the day of the interview was here. I had checked numerous websites and talked with many people to find out the time difference and what time my interview would be here in WI if I signed up for this time in the UK time zone (I hadn’t taken into account the time difference when signing up), but after my research I was confident that my interview would take place an hour after my second class had finished. I was walking from my class to the UWM-Union building to look for a quiet place to sit and concentrate and look over my question I had prepared when I got an unavailable id phone call. Of course I knew right away it was my interviewer and my calculations had been off by an hour.
I answered the phone and quickly battled through students to the “quiet” level of the Union so I could concentrate on the interview. The interview lasted about 20 minutes and went very fast. I was nervous early on but the interviewer quickly put me at ease and the interview proceeded more as a conversation than a time of question and answer. At the end of the interview I was told that I had impressed my interviewer so much she was going to recommend me for a “Team Leader” as well as to volunteer for the Paralympic Games, which take place after the Olympic Games. I was also told that volunteer position offers begin being made in September, so again I had a long time to wait.
The hard part was over, although it was the only part the committee had to make a decision on how I would function as a volunteer for the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games.


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