Post- South Africa

to be honest, i kinda liked my speech. i thought it had good rhetoric and impact. until i arrived at the conference and everyone's sounded so professional. but i realised there was nothing i could do about it, so i got up there and delivered it.

it was okay i guess. not very helpful (i think) as input for the conference's final statement, but as a consolation, i think i really shone during the audience dialogue and, later, the Youth Caucus, where the 12 young reporters, ambassadors and athletes shared our YOG experience. i was kinda worried about my abilities to think on my feet, but lucky there's always Alan 'Barbados' Harris there to cover any dead air haha.

really appreciate the people who've come up to me and said i did well and was one of the youths who really stood out. the biggest accolade, no doubt, was from Essar Gabriel, an IOC bigwig who was the director of YOG. he said to me pointblank: "You're a thinker. I can see that."

wow.

among the young ambassadors and athletes i worked with, i met some really interesting people:

Devon. this guy blew me away, period. i dont know how to quantify him but if there's a young reporter in his league, it would be Alan. yes, Alan already being such a monster, has an equal. this local kid would be the Alan of the ambassadors. well Alan has his shortcomings; i couldnt find Devon's. he's extremely charismatic, has the ability to make people like him, and has an analytical mind of many levels. as with most people at YOG, he's from a sports background - he's a hockey coach.

Florian. this good-looking Austrian gave one of the best presentations out of ours. if not the best, then the most confident. he presented off-script and yet was on cue throughout. evident that he prepared and rehearsed hard. and he's extremely funny, not just during the presentation. got a humour as dry as asahi. and he's a handball player.

Felipe. this guy's a Brazilian shooter whose last name is, well, Wu. yes, Chinese. his grandparents (i think) were from somewhere Chinese. didnt talk much to him, but he won a silver at YOG.

Joseph. i remember watching this Kiwi boxer at YOG. he's a giant lah. all muscles. was really quiet in the beginning when rest of us mixed, but became the noisiest guy at the end haha.

Danka. this attractive Slovakian ambassador, i later found out, is one of the top female shooters in the world. she competed in Beijing 2008 and was the favourite for the gold, but loss of form dropped her out of the podium. a quick google also surprised me: apparently Danka stirred some controversy during YOG when she was misquoted as criticising Singapore's facilities. wow i didnt know that.

Samantha. "the girl with the lovely eyes" (they're big and when you look in you're just lost) is a South African equestrienne who won a medal at the YOG (unfortunately she was fourth in another event). even cooler: during the conference, when they gave out the latest copy of a sports magazine, on page 5 was a full-page photo of her in action. even cooler: i was looking for her on fb and instead found a fucking fanpage.