Did you miss me?

Yeah, sure you did.  Sorry for the long break in blogging.  I can explain why with just two words:

200 hours!

Thanks to some awesome hours racked up last week, I am well on my way to my goal and I am pumped.  I've been really busy, last week I spent most of my waking moments writing, editing, and memorizing a speech for the Rotary club, and then about 20 minutes giving it, of course.

Then on Friday Rayne and I had an all day study jam.  It was awesome, we talked about a lot of stuff, watched and critiqued the video of my speech, and then spent about four hours exploring and learning about Spring Creek Farm, which is this huge hog operation only a few miles down the road from my house!  And they had steers, bison, yak, and even an elk.  It was great.  Rayne took like 300 pictures (literally) so I'll get a few up here soon.  I had a great time.  Who knew preparation could be so fun?

The fun is good, it balances the feeling of being overwhelmed.  Like the feeling I have about filling out my American Degree application- it's so huge and confusing!  I have to keep reminding myself that it's worth it though, because my American Degree is separate from running for National Office- it's something that I'm going to achieve for sure!  So no matter what happens running for National Office, I'll leave this convention with a key on my chain, and that's an awesome accomplishment in and of itself.

For some reason, I thought the hot topics for my speech, writing assignment, and facilitation round weren't going to be released until August 1st- but I just found that they're up already!  How awesome is that?  Seriously awesome, I'd say.

So, today's the first day of June, and I need a new goal.  I'm sure that there are a million things I need to work on, but I can't think of anything right now...suggestions?  Rayne reminded me the other day that I shouldn't be preparing to run but preparing to be.  So what's a good quality for a National Officer to have that I can focus on developing for a month?  Let me know if you have any spectacular ideas.

One more thing- check out what came in the mail the other day....

I'm stoked. :)