I began my Road to Rio in November 2014 when I applied to volunteer at the Olympics, and then on November 30, 2015, I was approved! YAY!!! I couldn’t believe it!

Here’s what happened before I was chosen as a volunteer:

To apply, I filled out an application on their volunteer portal. It was short but also difficult because only a small amount of characters were allowed for each answer. For example, I had to say why I wanted to volunteer for Rio 2016 in only 200 characters including spaces. That’s hard!

Submitted my application!

After applying, I did two language tests and an online dynamic (that tested how I would act in situations I might experience while volunteering at the Games). The online dynamic made me extremely excited because they did a really good job of simulating the Games! It’s crazy to me that in under 190 days, I will actually be there!

Until October of 2015, I didn’t hear anything about volunteering, but I was determined to go to the Olympics anyway. The United States sells Olympic tickets through CoSport, and since last spring, they have been selling them in a variety of ways. At first, it was a lottery system. People chose what events they wanted to go see and entered the lottery for those events. At this point, all of the events were available. I managed to get a ticket to the final of the Men’s 10 Meter Platform Diving! This event is always really exciting because I used to dive, and also because it’s really hard to predict who will win! David Boudia from the U.S. won it at the last Olympics.

Sports of the Rio Olympics and Paralympics

Since the huge lottery, CoSport has been releasing tickets sporadically, and I’ve been buying them. So far, I have tickets to nine different events (although I may try to sell some of these based on times). They are for Diving, Football (AKA soccer), Archery (two different events), Handball, Table Tennis, Badminton, Fencing, and Athletics (AKA Track and Field).

Surprisingly, my most expensive ticket was $123, and my least expensive was $20. That’s not bad for the Olympics!

In October, I had an online group interview with someone from the Rio 2016 Organizing Committee, which only built the excitement. I was so nervous during it, and then on November 30, I was picked!

Now, I’m waiting for my actual assignment, but I’m happy that I’m going! I bought my plane tickets this past week, and I’ll be renting a place to stay very soon.

Only 186 more days!