The Blazer Hunt

Many Rotarians are probably familiar with the navy blue, Rotary Blazer that exchange students wear. For those of you who aren't, here's a brief description: One Rotary tradition - popular worldwide - is that students cover their blazers in pins and patches they have traded with other students or bought in places they have visited as evidence of their exchange. It is popular for the students to bring a large collection of national- or regional-themed pins and trade them with students from other areas. And apparently, your blazer and the Rotary patch on it can really help you out at airports and stuff, because when people see that Blazer, they can know that they're dealing with a responsible Rotarian. Cool beans!

And students are serious about this stuff! They COVER their blazers. I mean, some have even put license plates on the back. To give you an idea of what they end up looking like by the end of exchange, here's a few pics I found on Google:







Anyways, I must have a navy blue blazer by Outbound Orientation which is at the end of March. Rotary doesn't order particular blazers; you're just supposed to find one at JCPenny's or Sears - you get the idea. "Doesn't sound like much of problem," you may think. My mom and I thought the same thing, until we realized that the even the smallest blazers at any department stores were far to big!

Which brings me to the title of this entry: The Blazer Hunt. My mom and I were going to to just pick one up after my interview last week, but realized it was going to take some much deeper digging to find one that didn't completely swallow me up. So today, my mom, Carolyn, Reece (brother), and I went to the mall in search of my blazer, since we didn't have any luck online.

We spent hours searching at the mall in nearly every store. I want to say right now, I love you so much Mom!! :) She has helped me so much so far, and been so supportive of everything. You're amazing! Anyways, the best we found was an XL at Tommy Hilfiger. The arms fit fine, and although it was far better than anything we had yet found, the body was still pretty big. We saw it was on clearance for $17 and thought, for that price, we may as well buy it and use it if all else fails. So that's what we did! We're hoping that a friend of ours can bring in the sides a little - it shouldn't be a problem. Even if I have to wear it as it is now, I'd be fine with it, because honestly, I'm pretty pleased with it!

I'm so excited to fill it with different pins and souvenirs and such! I'm also excited to GIVE pins to the people I meet. Students are supposed to come up with their own pins to exchange, so I'm in the process of figuring that out. I think I'm going to make some, and my mom said she'd get some from the Iowa capital, and I'm going to try to collect some from around town. This should be fun! If you have any ideas, let me know!