Endings and New Beginnings

Hello everyone!

A lot of things have been going on the past few weeks! It seems as though everything is changing. It was just about a month ago that I blogged about Cheerleading, Debate, and Showchoir. Now everything has pretty much wrapped up for the year.

On Tuesday my school held their annual Winter Sports Banquet. There we received awards for our individual sports and remembered all the good times we had during the season. I received my Varsity letter and finally realized the season was over. It was a bitter sweet moment. I am sad that cheering is no longer a part of my schedule, but thankful that I will finally get some free time.

Debate is another thing that is wrapping up, but taking a whole new stride at the same time. This past weekend I went to my final speech tournament of the year. Breaking to Semi-Finals was a great way to end the year. However, there is a tournament coming up where I will have the chance to qualify for a national tournament held in Dallas, Texas! Not only that, but we are beginning to work with the Middle school. Tomorrow a few of us will be going to talk to students about joining. It will be exciting to see some fresh faces and really show them what debate is all about.

Finally we have showchoir. This too has ended for the year. On Saturday Bettendorf's Surround Sound preformed their final show. It was a great experience and I am so glad to have been a part of it. As everyone got teary eyed as the show came to a close it was good to know that we had given it our all.

With all of these activities finished for the year, it leaves me with a lot of free time. Free time that I can now devote to Miss Iowa's OT. June is fast approaching and preparations are continually being made.

Sunday I made my way up to Chicago, Illinois to go shopping with Ashley Brown and Michelle Hunt. It was great to be able to spend the day with these two ladies. Overall it was a very successful trip. Although we aren't done shopping yet, we still gathered a pretty good idea of what we still need, and we are determined to find it! :)

Through all of this I have been working a lot on my platform. Trying to come up with new ideas and figuring out how I can apply them to my community. Right now most of them are still in the developmental stage, but I assure you they will be up and running soon. Once they are I will write all about them in a later post.

As for now, I've come across a really great program. It's called "The Presidential Challenge". This challenge is to encourage people to become more active. In order to participate you must register and track your physical activity. The goal is to have an hour of exercise five days a week for kids, and an half hour of activity for adults. Continuing this for six weeks earns you points. The more points you get, the closer you are to earning the Presidential Active Lifestyle award! To help encourage people, I've created a group. In this group people will be able to discuss all types of different ways to stay active and healthy. You will also be able to compare your progress to the others in the group, creating a competition.

To join go to: http://www.presidentschallenge.org/
---The click "Register Now" in the top right hand corner.
---Click "Create an Individual account".
---Fill out your information and click register.
---When on your home page find the tab that says "Groups"
---You can search for my group using the following information.
------------------Group Number: 98556
------------------Group Name: Miss Pearl City's Outstanding Teen
---Click "Join Group" and you are ready to go!

I can't wait to begin this challenge with all of you. Will write again soon!

~Jessica :)