DC to St. Louis: Switching Gears

(Originally written 6/30)

Well, in the past 2 weeks, I have finished my first internship and am currently traveling around half the country. I can’t believe I’ve already lived in DC for almost 7 weeks. While I feel like I know a lot about the area I live in, I still have so much to learn about other areas of the city.

Right now, I’m sitting on a plane to Boston somewhere between Indiana or Ohio, after spending the past 36 hours in St. Louis.  So, I’ll recap that portion first, since it was most recent. I attended my 11^th, although not consecutive Alopecia Areata convention. I didn’t get in until about midnight on Friday night because of weather delays in DC and was up at 6am for the Tortoise and Hair in St. Louis. If you know me, than you know that the tortoise and hair has been a big part of my life. Although my family no longer holds a race in Baton Rouge, we planned the race for five years and raised over $125,000. Now, we’ve lost track of the cities it’s been held in, at least 15. It’s always neat to see another race pop up somewhere. The Tortoise and Hair events at conferences work a little differently, because we usually raised most of our money from sponsors and runners but at conferences it’s not as much about raising money as it is about awareness and inspiring other people to plan their own races. But, we were surprised to learn that it raised $42,000! So that was exciting. It’s a powerful thing to see something you started impact a lot of people.

Here are some pictures from tortoise and hair over the years.

Also at the NAAF conference, I was able to speak about lobbying on the hill and the tortoise and hair, which was neat, I will also be helping with a lobbying day in DC in September. I also got to tour the Missouri Botanical Gardens with my dad, and they were beautiful! 

Moving on to my DC Life: During my last two weeks of my internship, I was definitely stretched. My congressman called me last week and asked me to make a movie.  I honestly didn’t even know where to start. I don’t think I’ve ever made a video before, maybe back in middle school. So, over the next 3 days I spent many hours filming, cutting clips, editing audio and learning that was a program called Imovie (literally…), and being thankful I have a mac. But, it turned out okay! Once I figure everything out I’ll post it. On Thursday, our congressman took us to breakfast. It was really neat for the 4 of us interns to get to talk to him for about an hour and a half. Well, for the next week I’ll be traveling through the Northeast, including stays in Boston and Maine. Although, I’m pretty bummed I won’t be witnessing DC’s 4^th of July celebrations from the Speaker’s Balcony, hopefully there will be some fun events in Maine. Then, back to DC to begin my stint in the Senate!