Heres ai bei tempi. Here's to the good times.

       Ciao! I hope y'all are doing well. Things are moving fast here. Last weekend I attended the RYLA leadership camp in New Braunfels. RYLA is the rotary clubs youth leadership program for juniors in high school and a couple people (2-4) from each school are asked to attend. It was crazy! The team leaders were seniors that had attended the previous year. They were a lot of fun and liked to sing/ yell crazy songs at random and punish people for weird offenses, like talking to someone from your school, by making you do embarrassing things.The first night I was sure I'd wandered into a mental institution.
      We played a lot of fun games and had several guest speakers. One guest speaker was a motivational speaker that taught us about traits that make up the best leader (such as wisdom) and how we could apply these in our life. It was educational and she had us pick one trait we would all work on. Another speaker was a Wounded Warrior that came to tell us about how the program helped his family, especially his brother who's also a wounded warrior, and about his tour. This lead to us doing a service project where we wrote letters to the soldiers and made bracelets. For most of the weekend we played different leadership games that had a message behind each one. All were a blast to participate in and gave me something to think about afterwards. Then we had an 80's dance and the next day it was time to drive home with my friends. I'm so thankful for the rotary club for inviting me and allowing me to have this wonderful experience!

Stopping at the Pit Stop on the way there with Sam.

Clearly we're in a magical place.

Is it still a war wound if it's self inflicted?

Road trip back!

      Big announcement! My application is almost finished! Eeep! I went to the doctor the other day so they could check that I'm neither dying nor overly psychotic. As soon as I get that form back from the doctor,on Monday, I can turn in my application. Are you ready for more exciting news?! I GOT A JOB! Woohoo!! I now work the front counter at Chick Fil' A. I've been going through training all week and start on Monday. I'm both excited and nervous to start. Finally, I'd like to thank all my recent donations, thanks y'all I couldn't do it without you! ARRIVEDERCI!

To sponsor my AFS program, please click the Donate Now button to make a non tax-deductible contribution directly to my AFS program account 

Otto giorni alla settimana. Eight days a week.

           Hey everyone, I hope y'all had a fantastic week! Mine was filled with preparation for the dreaded finals week, AFS stuff, and job searching.  This week, I got back into the swing of things with school after having spent 3 of the last 5 weeks on vacation. Let me tell you it was tough! Monday, it seemed like everything that could go wrong did. Finally at the end of the day with only 10 minutes left I was called into the counselors office. Dum dum dum... When I got to the office I found out my friend Sam had also been called in and of course we're both thing, "crap, what they caught us doing?!" Turns out both of us were nominated to go to a leadership camp on January 17-20. Whew... much better than being in trouble. Four people in our class were nominated by a teacher and selected to go to New Braunfels for the four day leadership camp which is hosted by the Rotary club. Yay! I can't wait to spend the weekend with my friends and all the other student leaders from Texas schools.
        On Wednesday I interviewed for a job at Bill Millers, a local Texas fast food chain. I think the interview went well and I'm supposed to hear back from them this weekend. The only reason I can think of that I wouldn't get the job is that I have no previous work experience. Hopefully I hear back and I get the job. Fingers crossed!
        Then on Saturday the day started off with my senior portraits. Taking them wasn't too bad but anyone that knows me knows that i HATE having my picture taken. It's boring and takes way too much time. Thankfully it only lasted an hour and a half and then we were out of there. That afternoon I had my AFS interview! A local AFS volunteer Marc came over to interview my mom and me. We talked about what I expected from going abroad, the type of host family I want, and varying other things. I got to ask some of my questions like, "could I visit other countries in Europe while I'm there?" (Yes!). Overall it made the whole thing seem much more real and made me even more excited.
      I'd like to give shout outs to my first three donators (not including my mom..); David a good friend of my moms from work, thanks for donating despite having never met me, you made my day, Angelica a close family friend, thanks I promise not to pull an Amanda Knox ;), and Ray one of our oldest family friend, thanks and I hope you're doing well! Arrivederci!
To sponsor my AFS program, please click the Donate Now button to make a non tax-deductible contribution directly to my AFS program account 

One of my many senior portraits.
The good news is they actually let me read the book in between photos!

Buon Natale e un felice anno nuovo! Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Things have been crazy here. At school my counselor and I have been talking about what to do for graduation. I have 24 credits from freshmen and sophomore year and I need 26 to graduate. So I'll have enough credits to graduate this year but I would be missing one required class, english 4. It was decided I would drop my newspaper class and take english 4 online during that period. That way I'll graduate this June! I'm nervous to get it all done and graduate at sixteen but I'm soo excited to go to Italy. Please donate in lieu of graduation money. Grazie!

Fundraising has been going well so far. I've applied for three jobs at Pizza hut, IHOP, and Chick Fil' A. I'm pet sitting for a family friend and have sold a few things on craigslist. I'm also working on setting up a Kickstarter, so make sure to check back for that.

Christmas was wonderful. We went to Christmas eve mass with our friend Grace and then ate IHOP at 2 am. On Christmas day mom dragged us out of bed at 9am (the horror!) and had us open presents. Then we went to see The Book Theif, which is one of my favorite books. It was amazing!! I sincerely suggest everyone go and see it but definitely bring the kleenex, it's a tear jerker. Merry Christmas and I hope everyone has a happy new year!Arrivederci!
To sponsor my AFS program, please click the Donate Now button to make a non tax-deductible contribution directly to my AFS program account

My christmas loot. Thanks everyone!

Benvenuto! Welcome!

My name is Catherine Joy and I will be leaving the great state of Texas to study abroad my senior year of high school in Italy. I'm so ecstatic to learn italian, live with an italian host family, and learn about the incredible culture in Italy. I can't wait to share American culture with my new family and friends in Italy.

I've always wanted to travel around the world. My interest in Italy came from the Lizzie McGuire movie (totally possible to meet your pop star doppelganger right?) and when we hosted my godfather Marco who was from Belluno, Italy. We were introduced to Marco by Olof, our foreign exchange student from Sweden. I'm excited to go and meet even more wonderful people and eat incredible food.

I want to come home after my year in Italy fluent in italian. I want this year to teach me about being a global citizen and help me understand the world around me. I plan to always volunteer with the AFS program because it has done wonderful things for my family and introduced us to so many amazing people.

After high school I will be attending Ole Miss (Hotty Toddy!) and majoring in international relations with a minor in business administration. All to be followed by law school.

The cost of tuition is something I'm working to cover everyday. I've just started my fundraising and am planning on hosting an italian dinner to raise funds. I'm also getting a part time job and all the money will go straight to my trip.

I have joined the AFS Sponsor and AFSer program, which is an online fundraising tool provided by AFS to allow potential sponsors make an easy, secure, and non tax-deductible contributions to my AFS program fee. No amount is too small -- I know that times are tough, but every little bit will help me get a little bit closer to my goal.

Thank you so much for reading this, and I would greatly appreciate it if you could forward it to anyone else you think might be interested in helping me with my AFS experience. Keep checking back here to read more about me and keep up with my adventures once I get to Italy. Arrivederci!
To sponsor my AFS program, please click the Donate Now button to make a non tax-deductible contribution directly to my AFS program account