The event was held in Gaines Theater on February 19, 2020. The event was hosted by The Center For Honor Enrichment & Community Standards. This event is a Honor and PLP event for those in Leadership Studies, but the CNU community is welcome to attend.

The guest speaker is Jessica Long, a Paralmpic gold medalist swimmer. She grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, but originally from Russia. She was adopted when she was 13 months old. She was born with fibular hemimelia, a genetic disorder where she did not have fibula, ankles, heel, and majority of her bones in her feet, and this affected both her feet. At 18 months old, they amputated both her legs below the knee and got her prosthetic legs. Even with this disability, she was able to play several sports, including: basketball, cheer leading, rocking climbing, etc. She develop her swimming abilities when she with her grandparents.

Over the course of her Paralympic career, she has gain 23-medals .

Update: 6:44pm. Question: How to keep positive on a day-to-day bases? Her respond is to take it on straight forward with and know that this is her life.

Update: 6:41pm. Personal Note. Trying to blog during Q&A, but hard to document/live-blog with hearing the question and answers.

Update: 6:36pm. Jessica finishes off her speech that to follow your goals and starts of Q&A. This is going to fun to blog.

Update: 6:31pm. She learn that her value is not in the medals, but her value is to teach others, to encourage young children to play sports and to show adopted children that they belong. She told us to accept failure and learn from them. Really sounds like a motivated speaker.

Update: 6:27pm. Jessica learn that if she let her adoption and her legs defines her, then it will not lead to a positive life. Now she leads an optimistic life, thinking positively about life. She tells us that we should have a goal to reach towards.

Update: 6:23pm. When starting to train for the London 2012 Paralympic, when a news reporter found her biological family. She was conflicted about it, but because of sport training, she had the disciple and courage to face her biological family. She was at peace with it all.

Update: 6:20pm. Talked about her experience at first Paralympic, where she was about get her first gold medal. She changed after that experience, started to wear shorts and exposing her legs more.

Update: 6:16pm. During one of her swim meets, a referrer told her about the Paralympic, and she made it her goal. She was at 12 at the time, but her parents grounded her in reality, keeping a bit of doubt; however, she got in.

Update: 6:12pm. She talks about her sport activities. She was into gymnastic and loved to do back-flips and leaps. Whenever she would take off her legs, she felt free. Jessica would later change to swim because her parents were worried that if she continue gymnastics, they believed she would damage her knees.

Update: 6:08pm. Jessica Long began talking. Start with her talk about being embarrassed about her situation. She then later talks about how she was born to a 16 year Russian and her birth mother discussion to put up her adoption.

Update: 6:05pm. Start of the Talk. Did not know that she is started swimming at 10.

Update: 5:56pm, In the Gaines Theater. Decent amount of people here. Some for PLP credit, some for assignments, and some maybe fans of hers. Or all the above. Nervous because of this assignment! Quick look around, majority of people in the back rooms, mostly on the sides.