On Friday, July 3, 2015...

It's a pretty exciting weekend here in Miami - I'm going to try to catch some fireworks on the beach tomorrow.

My big IAPA news of these past two weeks is that we finally had our big Hemispheric Conference last week! It went very well for being the first incarnation of what they're hoping will become an annual event. We got a lot of positive feedback and had about 200 participants, which was way more than we were expecting if you had asked us three weeks ago.

I had two 12-hour days in a row, which was a little rough, but it was nice to get a glimpse of the kind of events the IAPA holds, what the speaker panels are like, and help everything run smoothly backstage. I was mostly responsible for managing social media, taking photos, making sure the speakers' Powerpoints got to the right people, and other little organizational tasks. It was great to see all the hard work the IAPA team and I put in pay off in such a positive event.

This week has been much quieter - mostly just tying up loose ends after the conference wind-down, and drafting and emailing thank-you notes to speakers and attendees. I know the IAPA has their eye on the Pope's visit to South America this coming week, and has written an open letter (English version edited by me) to him regarding freedom of expression issues in Ecuador. Other than that, looking forward to seeing what they have for me in my last two weeks here!