英语教程1的第6-8单元的课文译2010.8.29.doc

UNITE6 Passage A Be a Volunteer——Experience of a Volunteer at the Sydney Olympics 　　 The Sydney Olympics offered me an opportunity to learn more about staging a major multi-sport event and this knowledge, I felt, would stand me in good stead as I developed the media services that would be needed for our Salt Lake CityWinter Games in 2002. 　　 I also decided that working as a volunteer would give me a greater understanding of a whole range of issues which is why I joined the ranks of those working in the front line. 　　 But little did I suspect just how much the experience would offer me such powerful feelings and a strong sense of pride - emotions which influence the many memories that I took away with me when I left Sydney.　　 As a woman volunteer, I am not usually keen on uniforms, but from the moment I put on my Sydney volunteers uniform I felt I was part of something important, something big that could well be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I immediately bonded with others in the same uniform and as we passed each other in the street dressed in our colorful outfits, we smiled and said Gday to each other and those greetings continued throughout the two weeks of the Olympics. 　　 My job was as a supervisor in the Main Press Center where I managed 800 journalists desks, the telephones, the banks of televisions and other volunteers, many of whom were media students. Our shifts were eight hours long and often overnight as the Center was open 24 hours, but we generally stayed longer out of choice as the work was important and exciting. Without us the journalists would not get their articles back to their home news desks and the stories of the emotional highs and lows of the competitors would never reach the outside world. 　　 As volunteers, we all felt our work was a valuable contribution to the success of the Olympics and we reveled in the compliments we received. We worked hard and we had fun. We made new contacts and friends from all over the world and we lea