Children's Congress Update #2!

Hi everyone!  Happy summer!

I had my last day of finals yesterday (yay!) and I'm so happy to be on summer vacation.  Of course, you all know what that means... we're on a countdown to Children's Congress!  A lot has happened since I last posted, so let me fill y'all in. (I was planning to post about some other stuff, but we'll save that for later.  I'll hopefully be posting more often now that it's summer.)

Last month, I completed my Delegate Scrapbook, which was actually 3 separate books--one for each politician I'll be meeting with.  If you know me, you know I measure like a -10 on the scale of artistic talent and creativity, so this one was a real struggle for me.  Like, no joke, I had to google "scrapbooking for dummies" on more than one occasion, often at ungodly hours of the night.

But after several late nights, missed homework assignments, and trips to Michael's for craft supplies, I was able to finish and mail all 3 books (a total of 16 pages)!  I learned a lot about art stuff--namely, that I have no capacity for it whatsoever, and that whoever said scrapbooking is "relaxing" has clearly never worked under a deadline.

My most recent assignment was to write 3 identical letters--one for each member of Congress who I'll be meeting--to formally request an appointment to meet with them while I'm in DC.  That one was much easier, and I'm pretty proud of the fact that I finished a full 2 weeks before the deadline.  The letters are more of a formality than anything, but I was still pretty nervous about writing something that'll be read by the people who literally decide my future.  I ended up rewriting like 50 drafts because, ya know, I'm a perfectionist. (Or an incompetent writer.  Or both.  You decide.)

The next step is my favorite, but also the scariest: PRESS!  We're sending out press releases within the next week, working with our local JDRF chapter to coordinate interviews on radio, tv, etc.  Chicago's a bigger news market than the ones most other delegates are working with, so it's a bit of a challenge to set everything up, but I'm so super excited to share my story with a bigger audience!

Next time I post about CC, it'll probably be when we're getting ready to leave for the airport!  In the meantime, don't forget to keep an eye on #JDRFCC19.  I'll try to post later this week--there's some other stuff going on and I can't wait to share my thoughts about everything!

Love y'all!