Raffaela Arezzo

2008-09 Inbound from Italy

Hometown: Ragusa, Italy

Sponsor: Ragusa Rotary Club, District 2120, Italy

Host: Ponte Vedra Beach Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida, USA

School: Ponte Vedra High School, Ponte Vedra, FL

Bio

Raffaela's Bio

Hello everybody!! My name is Raffaela and I'm from Italy, exactly from Ragusa a city in the south-east of Sicily. I was born on the 14 of November of (almost) seventeen years ago, in Catania a city near Ragusa.

My family is composed by me <obviously>, my mother Anna, my father Francesco, and my sister Elena who is 20 years old and lives in Rome where she attends the Catholic University to become a dentist like my parents. My father is concerned that I'm not becoming a dentist because I am completely frightened by needles, blood, and all this stuff! I am attending a scientific lyceum in Ragusa, and finished this, I'm wondering to go to the business and managing university in Milan.

I love having busy days, so I try to keep on a lot of hobbies. I practice volleyball (even here I'm in the volleyball team of Ponte Vedra High School), I love reading and listening to music, I attended an English course, and I am also a member of the scouts; and of course, as every normal girl in the world, I love having long-lasting phone-talk with my best friends, doing crazy shopping and hang out with my friends in the weekend. I also love going to the cinema, I go almost every Sunday with my 'movie-friend'. this is less or more my life. I am going to write more about my life in the states soon to keep you informed about how it is going!

October 15 Journal

I was at the computer and I realized that I didn't write anything about my beautiful life here in Florida! so.. let's start!

My host family is amazing, since the first weeks I have been feeling at home, a family member and now I cannot think about my life without them, and it will be really hard for me when in January I will change family.

School, mmm you know school is school, but living it as exchange student is definitely more exciting and easier, everybody is ready to help you and just going to this big American school is so much fun! I was always thinking in Italy about the school here and I'm not disappointed at all! Of course the first weeks were harder for me because I didn't know anybody so I felt like I hadn't any friends, but now it's so great that while I'm walking in the hall or at lunch I spend most of the time saying 'hi' 'how are you?' 'what's up?' and the weekends going out with my friends, it's fabulous!

Everyday I think about how good was the decision to come here and catch this opportunity because if I hadn't done it I would have lost all the beautiful things that are happening to me, and one of them, probably the most important is GROWING!