I was walking to work today when a cabbie stopped dead in the middle of the road, leaned out of his window, and cried out to me, "We just got the Olympics!"

(Before you chastise me for not leaving my flat before 12:45pm on a Wednesday, I will explain that after yesterday's symposium there was a BBQ with free beer, and after that a bunch of postgrads insisted on heading to a pub to pour more alcohol down my throat in honor of my date of birth, so I was massively hungover. Plus I'm in grad school, so timeliness is not of the utmost importance. I hope....)

I don't know what to think, I do see people's arguments of both the pros and the cons of hosting the 2012 Games here. But it is exciting that we won, and surprising too, as the media made it seem Paris had it locked up. I'm not looking forwards to the endless waves of construction that are going to surely intensify over the next seven years, but I do like the kind of event that makes a stranger so excited that he has to tell the first person he sees!