August 2nd in China, An exam and training at the finish point!

We all loaded on the buses to head to training at the finish point. Blair and I had to prepare ourselves the night before for an exam that we were going to take. So when we got to the venue that was the first thing we did. Let's just say we didn't prepare enough! haha! The exam was all over trivia of Olympic History, and it was rather hard. It was kind of funny though because Blair and I were sitting next to each other when we turned over the exam and we both started laughing at the first question. We looked up from the paper, looked at each other and knew that we were going to be in trouble! But oh well, we weren't really worried because we knew they wouldn't fire us or anything. I mean we speak english and we are needed! HAHA! After that we grabbed lunch, it was airline food, and not just that but chinese airline food. So yeah the food we get during training is not very good. After the lunch we were able to take another tour around the venue which was the exact same tour I had taken a week ago, but oh well. We walked around, looked around the road course and all the buildings and were told after training we could climb the wall. Most of us decided against it because this particular section of the wall is the steepest part and we were just wanting to get home. Before we could leave, however, we sat through a lecture from an Australian photographer who is in charge of photo services. I had to pretend to be a photographer for one of his demonstrations! HAHA Yes it was exciting. Not really. After that training was pretty much over and we were able to get on the bus and head back to Renmin. I was still kind of down on myself a bit and a little tired so I didn't do much that night except eat some papa john's pizza with Allie and Whitney.

August 1st in China, sick day, sorting things out and some visitors!

Today was suppose to be my first day of training at the cycling venue with it all complete and up and running. But in the morning I was so sick still, because I hadn't slept really, that I missed the first day. My managers were ok with it so it was fine. I got up and gathered my composure in order to start trying to work something out to get my money back from the scam artist. I spent most of the morning on the phone with no luck. This woman, or person, whoever they were, they were professionals at this. It was somebody's job to try and get money out of people and they were very thorough with making sure they were untraceable and that I couldn't get the money back. After all my hope was lost again, I couldn't do anything but cry and be upset. I was so upset and felt so dumb for being caught in a scam like this. I made sure to send an e-mail out to the group to warn them against the false adds and the false seller. That is how I found out that she had already got money out of 4 others in our MU group. I went to lunch at the little restaurant next to the hotel again and I had a little bit of a peace come from God. I was sitting in the restaurant and all of a sudden I heard the "Heart of Worship" song. I sat and realized every song playing was a christian song, then I realize that on the wall there was a poster with a bible verse on it. I found a place that was a christian restaurant. So that helped me to relax. After lunch I went back to the room and talked to my mother to let her know what calls I had made and the news I had. My parents weren't mad at me so that was good.

My roomie Blair got back from the first day of training and filled me in on what I had missed, she also informed me that two of the volunteers were going to come by and visit us later. Sophie and April visited our room and were so excited to meet me. They even brought us 4 peaches, half a watermelon and some noodles! how nice of them! They stayed and talked for about an hour. While they were here I also got a visit from a few people in our group. Ted, Beth, Laura, and Elle all brought me some oreos, some chocolate and a jar of orange juice and a jar of apple juice plus some other snacks. It was really nice of them to do that for me and I heard also that a few others had pitched in to buy this food for me. It was nice to know that people cared and were thinking of me. Ted stayed and talked for a while with me, while Blair entertained our two chinese guests. He and the others all were thinking about me and praying for my situation and for my family's loss. This act alone really helped me to recover from the sadness of the previous day.
After everyone left Blair and I were pretty pooped, we watched a little bit of the office and decided to hit the hay.

July 31st in China, sick, sad and scammed!

Today was by far the worst day of my entire trip. I was still sick from the day before, I was able to eat some eggs at breakfast but that turned out to be a bad idea. I tried again for supper to eat some soup and it was ok. I also heard terrible news about one of my second cousins and her family today from my mom. My cousin and her husband were in a car accident with their 2 young daughters 6 and 7. The 6 year old was the only one who survived. It was awful and it happened in Mississippi where they lived. So my mom said her and her sisters were going to drive down to the funeral. This was terrible news that ended up being followed by other awful news. I had been trying to purchase swimming tickets through a site like ebay online and I ended up being scammed by a professional con artist. She had duplicated a site and made it where even though the transaction looked as if I were using paypal, the money actually went right to her account. So I lost quite a bit of money through that. Later I found out that four other people from MU that are on this trip, were scammed by the same lady (well if she is even really a lady) her alias was Beatrice Sanchez so be warned.

This day was just chock full of upset and I really couldn't handle it. I called Micah and my mom upset and just so angry at myself for the ticket scam, and sad about my family and yeah it was bad.
I think I ended up finally calming myself down and trying to prepare my self for things I had to do the next day. I had the number and the way to reach my credit card company as well as the police. I also was going to contact the real website that the lady had duplicated and tell them what happened to let them know someone was pretending to be their site.
After that I was able to kind of get to sleep even though I didn't really sleep, more like just laid there and thought about stuff. Which also in turn did nothing to help my health situation.

July 30th in China, SICK!

So today I woke up in the morning throwing up. Yeah sounds terrific right? Well I pretty much just laid around all day because I didn't feel well. The only time I left the room was to go to the restaurant next to our hotel to get some soup. I was able to get lots of sleep and just relax and recover. I am pretty sure it was the shrimp dumplings from the night before that made me ill.
So yeah not an interesting day.

July 29th in China, Yashow Market with Allie!

Today Allie and I decided to head out to the Yashow Market. We left in the afternoon after Allie got off work. I ate at the Steak Pizza Cafe while I waited for her to get ready and then we headed out. We took the subway down to Yashow which I had to direct us to. It was my first adventure where I was the one leading. Allie had never been to Yashow and I was able to guide us there just by memory!! After we got to the Yashow Market and the area around it we went into the HUGE Adidas store and shopped around a bit, it was 4 floors high so there was a bunch of neat stuff to see. We also shopped around an Olympic store there. When we got into the Yashow Market we looked through clothes, purses, and jewelry...not really buying anything but just having fun and looking around. While we were there we also were able to buy some dvds for cheap. That is one good thing about China, everything is CHEAP! I think dvds are around 1.40 USD each. We ran into a couple guys from Canada and Allie talked to them a bit because she is also from Canada. Then Allie and I looked at the webcams because I have been wanting to buy one for awhile now. After that we headed to the 5th floor of the huge Yashow Market and ate at the canteen on that floor. I had some shrimp dumplings. It was a fun day just shopping around. looking around and being with a friend. After leaving to go home, we took the subway to the hotel and then I watched a few movies and just stuck around the room until I went to bed.

URGENT UPDATE

TOday I am working at the Finish point for the road cycling course and I have just found out that an American was murdered today at the Drum Tower in Beijing. It happened about an hour or so ago. I first learned from one of the journalists whom I am working with. 2 Americans were attacked, 1 died and then the killer committed suicide.

He was a chinese man around the age of 47. I am writing this quick post so that everyone knows I am safe and nowhere near that area! I am also in a very very secure place with guards everywhere.

I will post again about my full day later!
Please send prayers to the family of the murdered American.

July 28th in China, Hair cut and a video!

First thing was first today, I needed to take my laundry to be done. So I got around and gathered all my clothes and headed off to the laundromat. I left there around 11 and decided to go ahead and take a walk to KFC for lunch. I frequently go to KFC, it is cheap, good and really close. Plus I like the walk there. I got my usual too, haha, I get the same meal because it is easy to communicate, I just point to the picture. LOL After getting my food I walked back to the hotel and started a couple projects because I was bored. First I decided to cut my bangs and trim my hair because it was desperately needed! I do this back home though so I wasn't too worried and I also was able to buy a pair of scissors at the market near the laundromat so I was set. Then after my self-haircut, I made a slideshow sort of video for Micah. It wasn't much but it kept me busy for about 2 hours, because I had to go through my pictures and edit it all together. It was fun, I actually enjoy editing video, and audio and all that jazz. I guess I am in the right major for that huh?? Broadcast allows me to do ALL the editing I want. HAHA The only thing that was kind of bad was that while looking through pictures I found one of my friend Kendall. It made me sad because just a couple weeks before I left the US, he was killed in a car accident. :( I miss that kid. So after I found his picture I was glad I had the video to distract me. I finished the video and e-mailed it to Micah and then got a phone call from Allie asking if I wanted to go eat, she was on her way back from work and said she would call when she was ready to leave. After about an hour I called back and Allie had forgot to call me, she felt so bad, but it was no big deal. I walked over to the little restaurant that is located under the business school right across from our hotel and because I had never ate supper there I stuck with something simple. I got a BBQ chicken sandwich and it was actually really good, I will definitely have to go back to that place! After getting back to the hotel I was able to write my mom a big ol' e-mail as well as answer a few that I was behind on, one to my grandma and my little cousin Jessica. I just relaxed and loaded pictures onto facebook and watched a movie after that.