Saturday, August 23, 2008

On My Way To Denver!

Welcome to my very first blog.  So, I have tossed around the idea of starting a blog a few times but in light of my attendance at the 2008 Democratic National Convention I thought I would go ahead and do it.  As I type this I am sitting in the Lambert International Airport in St. Louis, MO anticipating my boarding time.  I should arrive in Denver around 3:00PM.

So, while I wait I will tell you a little about myself.  I am a student at the University of Illinois at Springfield.  I am majoring in Political Science and minoring in Economics and Women and Gender Studies.  I really enjoy applying aspects of all of these areas of study to interrogate the world’s injustices.   I hope to work on economic justice, gender or Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) issues as a professional upon completing my undergraduate degree.

While at UIS I spend a lot of my time engaging in campus life.  I work for the Department of Housing and Residential Life as a Resident Assistant (RA) in Clover Court and for the Women’s Center.  I really love both of my jobs.  I basically get paid to interact with really amazing people and build community every day.

I am also involved in student organizations.   Since it seems most appropriate at this time I will talk a little bit about the College Democrats at UIS.  The College Dems at UIS are lead by Mike Ziri, a graduate student who also works for Sen. Durbin.  Our location in the capital allows us to participate in municipal, county, state-wide and federal events and campaigns.  If you are hoping to become a public servant or are just a politico there are many opportunity for you, especially as we get closer to the November elections. 

In addition to my involvement with the UIS College Dems I serve at the national level with the College Democrats of America (CDA) as the Development Director for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Issues Caucus.  I am up for re-election while I am in Denver, wish me luck!

Some of my other favorite student organizations are the Women’s Issues Caucus (WIC), the Queer-Straight Aliance (QSA), Students Allied for a Greener Earth (SAGE), and Las Mujeres.  I have also spent a lot of my time at UIS serving on Student Government.  I will try to do a feature on each of these student organization sometime soon and share the meeting times and dates with you!

Anyway, my plane will be boarding soon so I am going to check out.  I will be updating daily while I am in Denver so check back!

P.S. This post was actually written around 12:00PM CST yesterday, it took me awhile to find wi-fi.

2 comments:

Stacey said...

You go girl! My mom is in Denver too, then heading to Minnesota. She does it all... but of course she supports the democrats! She's housing a lady working for the Obama campaign in Chicago. Hope all is well!

. . . said...

hey renee,
i thought of you today when i was in springfield seeing obama/biden. good luck in denver. It was just a coincidence when I saw your facebook status and came to this page. Had to say hi since I was here. Hope you remember me.

Valerie Pancrazio