Traedogg Down Under

Today was my last day at Basketball Australia and although I will miss my co-workers I will NOT miss waking up at 5:30am every morning and the 9 hour work day and 3 hour commute! Today was a particularly good day at work because the Melbourne Cup (the huge horse races like the kentucky derby) was taking place in Melbourne, and at 3:00pm right before the big race, my co-workers stopped working, pulled out the booze (wine, champaign and beer) and a whole spread of food (meets, cheeses, chips, crackers, candy etc) and sat and watched the race and proceeded to socialize for the rest of the day! They also took that time when everyone in the office was gathered to thank me and give me an awesome “Basketball Australia” trucker hat and Austalian Boomers (Australian National Team) beenie! SWEET!!!

And in case any of you were ever curious as to what my co-workers/office or what a “day in the life” at Basketball Australia was like, I took 23 pictures today to paint that picture for you! They are posted in the usual place… www.snapfish.com username: tlswartz@wisc.edu password: missyou Make sure go to the “photo’s” tab! my albums are in blue!

Last day of class tomorrow.. then, fretting all weekend about an english paper due next wed that I am dreading writing. There is the Traci you all know and love!!! I just need to get it over with.. but starting is the WORST part!!!

Hey everyone! I somehow came down with another sinus infection over the last day, so this entry wont be long (because I can barely keep my eyes open at this point and I hear my bed calling from behiend me), but I wanted to update those of you that are still following along about the first day of my internship. I had to leave the house at 700 (so 5:55 wake up call) in order to get to my office by 8:30. (due to the whole bus, train, train system that I need to do to get there). So, when I finally do get there, my boss isn’t even there yet, but the rest of the 18 person staff (seems like SUCH a small number of people to me, consitering they are responsible for coordinating and marketing and financing every single thing having to do with basketball in the entire country!) was, and they were ready to start a by-monthly staff meeting and invited me to join in. They are actually moving offices at the begining of november (to another building in another city) so the meeting was about the floor plan and logistics.

After the meeting, I was given the tour of the office (really small) and introduced briefly to most of the staff (although I walked away not remembering 1/3 of them or their roles) and then was shown by the receptionist how to make media passes to send out to the media so they can get into basketball events. After that, they actually had me doing something pretty awesome, especially consitering it was my first day. I was assigned a player, Lindsay Tait, who is the starting point guard on one of the National Basketball League teams (equivilant to USA’s NBA.. only on a much smaller scale) , The New Zealand Breakers (the only New Zealand team in Australias NBL) . I spent the morning researching him and his team and then had to formulate 12-15 good questions for him for a “question and answers” feature on the NBL website. (It sounds easy to formulate questions for a player… but when you know NOTHING about not only this player, but about any of his teammates, or his team, or any of the other teams, or the LEAGUE its quite challenging!)

So after I came up with my questions I had to show them to my boss (who was quite impressed if I do say so myself) and then was given the number to the New Zealand Breakers office to try and hunt down where I could get a hold of Lindsay Tait. The Breakers (his team) are actually in the Sydney area (they actually play tomorrow night back over at olympic park against one of two sydney NBL teams), so I needed to get either his cell phone or the number of the hotel they were at. So after a few more calls, I was speaking directly with him, asking him my little list of questions;) It was really pretty cool. He also plays for the New Zealand national team that plays at the international level (againts the dream team for example). Also during the afternoon, my boss ditched out early to go to the AFL (aussie rules football league) finals in downtown sydney, so i took it upon myself to ask other co-workers if they needed help and ended up talking with two of them (that appeared to be in their late 20’s.. Jared and Lisa) for about an hour while we folded hundreds of womens bball posters for mailers. Lisa was telling me her and her boyfriend traveled “around the world” (LITERALY). After college they spent a year and 1/2 together traveling around the world… she went to four countires in south america.. in the states she went to DC, las vegas, LA, san fran, san diego, alaska, virginia.. she went to canada, cancun, a TON of countries in europe (france, italy, etc. etc.), and finished in southeast asia with singapore, thiland and the whole bit. UNBELIEVABLE! she said it cost them 40000 (20000 a piece) when it was all said and done. But I thought that was INCREDIBLE! if you take the time to ask about someone elses life, you usually end up finding out SO many unbelievable things!

When it was all said and done, the day was fine. Good, normal job. Nice people. etc. and after an hour and 1/2 commute home, I was WIPED OUT. But I’m just SO bored with the idea of working a 9-5 job like that. I’m sure it would be different not to be an intern and constantly needing to ask..”what do you have for me to do now?” But nothing about that kind of life appeals to me. I really want to be in a job where most of my day is directly interacting with/helping other people as opposed to spending the majority of the day with a computer or stack of papers. So.. the revelation of the day is: I really think I could be a college professor. I know for some of you, the thought of being trapped in academia forever sounds like HELL! But to me, it sounds WONDERFUL, I LOVE to read (and with reading comes LOTS of learning), and write and dont mind speaking in front of large groups of people. Most of the job entails interacting directly with other people, and the hours are not the boring 9-5 block. There is more flexibility. I also dont mind the thought of having to do research and writing text books;) yup.. NERD! Anyways, this entry was much longer then I intended it to be, and horrendeously boring (I appoligize) but I just am not feeling like myself tonight! My sinuses have got the best of me! Hope all is well at home!

Finally--after seven weeks of waiting, I am finally officially interning somewhere. The place: Basketball Australia. The situation actually couldn't have turned out better (at least from the outset). Today I met with my boss, ... [Continue reading this entry]