Olympic Torch in Nanaimo

I have just stumbled onto the fact that the Olympic Torch will come to Nanaimo on its way to the Vancouver-Whistler 2010 Winter Olympics. Woohoo!

Following tradition, the Olympic Flame will be lit in Olympia, Greece. It then will be flown to Victoria, British Columbia. After being carried on a 45,000 kilometre journey that will take it to every province and territory (including Canada's Far North), it will end up at BC Place for the lighting of the Olympic Cauldron on February 12, 2010.

Each volunteer gets to carry the Torch for 300 metres. The two most feasible dates for me are October 31st, 2009, when the Torch will travel from Victoria to Nanaimo, and November 1st, 2009, when it will travel from Nanaimo to Tofino.

There are two companies sponsoring the Torch Relay, namely, Coca-Cola and RBC Royal Bank. Each of them has a website on which you can apply to be a Torch Bearer. I started with Coca-Cola's registration process. I don't know if it was just me, but I found it difficult to make head or tail of it. I then tried RBC Royal Bank's registration form. Luckily RBC's registration process was very user-friendly (at least it seemed so to me).

Applicants will be informed in the summer of 2009 whether or not they have been selected to be Torch Bearers.

The registration process ended up being a bit humorous for me. I had to pledge to help to make Canada a better place. There were several buttons showing activities that would assist the community or the environment. I had to indicate my selection by clicking on one button. When I looked at the choices, I realized that, in buying into Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community, I was undertaking virtually all of the activites (to say nothing of Pacific Gardens' benefits that weren't even listed amongst the options!).

Filling in that form reminded me how a supportive infrastructure, such as a cohousing community provides, empowers a person to make heaps of healthy changes to his/her lifestyle in one fell swoop. It's actually taking some time for it to sink in for me that life really can be this good.