Fundraising

As of recent, I've found out that I, along with three other 4-H girls from Polk County are able to travel to Louisville, Kentucky for the National Poultry Judging contest this November. We have been assigned with the task of fundraising for our trip, so I decided to ask all of my friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter, as well as the people who are following my blog-which I'm imagining is very few now that my exchange is over-to help me by donating whatever they can at my indiegogo page here ---> http://igg.me/p/540166/x/4871727 so I will be able to represent Oregon in this national 4-H contest.

I've been working towards being able to go to this competition for quite a few years now, competing at both the Polk County Fair and the Oregon State Fair, and this year we finally have enough qualifying members to go!

A lot of people ask, "What is 4-H?" and "What is this contest, and why is it important to you?" And I'll tell you right here!

4-H is a non-profit youth organization founded under the USDA with the goal of "engaging youth to reach their fullest potential while advancing the field of youth development." There are hundreds of different project areas that youth from 4th to 12th grade can participate id from learning to sew, learning how to raise and show different animals, practicing impromptu and public speaking, and learning proper  safety and technique in shooting sports. The choices are endless, and there is something for everyone. Projects that I focus on are photography, showing both rabbits and guinea pigs, camp counseling and leadership, and poultry judging.

The poultry judging contest gives 4-H members the chance to judge the quality of egg dozens, cracked open eggs, candling the insides of eggs, judging the quality of meat carcasses, as well as live laying hens, and naming the different 'cuts' of meat carcasses according to the USDA standard. This is a very important contest for me because I believe that only the best quality of food should be sold and fed to our nation, especially the youth.

After graduating high school, one goal of mine is to study agricultural science and keep healthy food on the plates of young Americans and reducing the percentage of obese children, and I believe that this will be a wonderful opportunity and learning experience for me.

I would like to thank every and all donors in advance for helping me with this amazing opportunity!

First week of school, done. (finally)

Today marks me being in school exactly one week, and I've got to say it's been interesting so far. I have a couple cool teachers that I know I'm really going to enjoy being in class with this year. And sometimes I wonder if anyone else gets the same thoughts as me in the classes, and the same feeling of awe over certain things that the teachers say.

And of course, there are other teachers who I'm not really sure if being in their class is going to be enjoyable or not, but I guess that's what I get for being an exchange student for a year; playing catch up in classes that I rather wouldn't want to be in with people who I wish I weren't in class with. The biggest challenge for me in these classes will be keeping my comments to myself and remembering that the people in these classes either are taking the class again because they didn't care about it enough the first year, or they're young. Either way, if I'm not careful I could  lose my temper very fast.

As far as things not school related, ballet started up again last week and it's been going very well. The past couple classes have been wonderful and I'm so happy that I'm getting back into shape again.

I hope people are still enjoying reading my blog, and I'll try to update it whenever something interesting happens.