Vancouver Olympic Medalists!

One of the perks of interning somewhere with such name recognition is that I get lots of cool opportunities to meet people!  In January, I met Dikembe Mutombo, Bob Lanier, and Pat LaFontaine at the Sports Philanthopy Forum, which was awesome.

The most exciting event for me so far was definitely yesterday--- I got to meet 10 Olympic medalists from the 2010 Vancouver Games!  If you know me at all, you know that I LOVE winter sports (especially skiing), so I was beyond excited for this opportunity.

Here's who I met:

• Steve Cash, Paralympian, Sled Hockey, 2010 Gold Medalist
• J.R. Celski, Short Track Speedskating, 2010 Bronze Medalist
• Billy Demong, Nordic Combined, 2010 Gold Medalist
• Steve Holcomb, Bobsled, 2010 Gold Medalist
• Alana Nichols, Paralympian, Adaptive Skiing – Sitting, 2010 Gold Medalist                                                                                          
• Jeret “Speedy” Peterson, Freestyle Skiing, Aerials, 2010 Silver Medalist
• Noelle Pikus-Pace, Skeleton, 4th overall in 2010 Olympic Winter Games
• Katherine Reutter, Short Track Speedskating, 2010 Silver Medalist
• Seth Wescott, Snowboardcross, 2010 Gold Medalist

Highlight-- I got to wear Seth Wescott's gold medal!  His home mountain is Sugarloaf, Maine and we talked a little bit about Maine-- he likes going to Bethel in the summertime to golf at Sunday River.  He knew about SnowSports Industries America (where I interned last summer) but didn't know that they are just right around the corner from USA TODAY! 

I also got to hold a bronze and silver medal-- they are HEAVY!

Back to blogging!

Today I had the pleasure of attending the 2009 New Media Women Entrepreneurs Summit at the Kaiser Family Foundation Public Affairs Center in downtown D.C.  It reminded me of how much I like blogging and also of the importance of it, so here I am!  I'm super busy with school, interning, and life in general, but that gives me plenty to blog about too.

One of my professors was presenting research at the summit, and she invited us all to attend.  It was very interesting to see how women are harnessing new media to become news creators and fill in news gaps.  The focus was on both hyperlocal and niche sites which serve communities [both geographical and cultural] somehow lacking in news options.  

Since I'm pretty well versed in new media it was interesting to see how citizen journalism can effectively create a public discourse among a community via the internet.  I was definitely sitting there asking myself why I wasn't getting more involved!