Thrill-Seeking for Nerds (who want to change the world)

I used to have a mild stutter. I started going to speech therapy for it in 5th grade, in fact, and my speech pathologist told me to make phone calls to family members to practice the techniques she called "EZ speech". This involved stuff like taking more pauses and breaths, pacing myself through the syllables of a word, and stretching the first syllable like "Hellllllo" so I didn't get stuck repeating the same sounds like "w-w-w-w-why?" In my tween-age opinion, it sucked (even though in the long term it totally helped and I'm grateful for that).      I couldn't even tell you why it made me so uncomfortable. All I knew was, I did not like phone calls one bit-- not even with aunts or grandparents. Yet somehow, I got to the point where I can call 5 Congressional offices in one sitting with little to no stress. It took time. It was scary, then it was novel, and now it's routine (an empowering habit). Eleven years old      It’s morning. The sun...

It's strange to think about coming back to school, after all that's happened this summer. But when my textbooks arrived in the mail, it hit me that a rhythm of Zoom classes is about to settle in, whether I'm ready or not.  If you felt at all called to action as I did over the summer, then that should absolutely continue, grow, and evolve throughout your life. It starts with the transition to the school year.  School clubs are a great way to plug into advocacy as a student. These groups are based in your school and run by fellow students, so they're more accessible than a lot of national advocacy organizations. Additionally, with a direct link to the school community you have a built-in network of people you can include in your advocacy, and show policymakers that you represent a subset of constituents with shared experiences (if you choose to lobby, that is-- there are so many potential advocacy activities besides that, too!) Today, I'm giving an overview of the clu...