Student Profile: Cecilia Fay
1. What makes your family unique to other families you know?
One thing that makes my family unique, is that we love to travel.
With one pair of my grandparents living in Texas, ten hours away, and my other grandparents living in Albany, New York, which is 17 hours away, we find ourselves in the car a lot! In addition, I have brothers who live in Florida, Wyoming, California, and Pennsylvania. I also have a sister who attends Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia.
In addition to traveling to visit family, however, I have had the opportunity to visit Ireland and Mexico with my entire family for vacation, and I have also traveled to Spain with an exchange student, and this summer I was able to spend five weeks in Italy! Two of those weeks were spent with another exchange family, and the remaining three were spent with ProRome’s Bella Vita Summer Program, an all-girl, Catholic pilgrimage.
2. What is an average homeschooling day with Seton like for you?
An average homeschooling day starts with daily mass at 8:30 a.m. Afterwards, I come home and start school, usually with math. After lunch, I like to join my neighbors for a run, which counts as our recess. I finish my school at about 3:00, and then I either go to my neighbor’s house, or to a sports practice.
3. What’s something you have done that you really enjoyed doing?
As I mentioned before, traveling to Italy was one of the greatest experiences of my life! I was with eleven other girls, mostly homeschooled, and over three weeks we traveled to Assisi, Orvieto, Florence, Siena, and, of course, Rome. In fact, the place we stayed in was only a three minute walk to St. Peter’s Square!
A few of the amazing things we saw included the pillar Christ was scourged on, a relic of the True Cross, and two eucharistic miracles! In addition to sightseeing, we also learned to speak Italian, and we learned about the architecture and art history of the buildings we saw. We even had a two day cooking class where we learned how to make handmade pasta, as well as other authentic Italian dishes.
However, the part that made this trip life-changing, was the girls who attended with me. I made lasting friendships with all of these girls, and we bonded over our beliefs, our similarities with the stages of life we are going through, and most of all in the pure awe we were all in, to be able to experience Italy in such a way! The Bella Vita Summer Program is more than just a tourist’s program.
It enabled me to see Rome through the eyes of a pilgrim, but also through the eyes of a true Italian!
4. What are your hobbies and interests?
I love running, hiking, and swimming! I also love playing the piano, and just spending time with my family.
5. What are some things you do as a family and on your own that you particularly enjoy?
One thing I love to do with my family is to go hiking at our property. We all go out and spend the day hiking or just relaxing in the hammock!
When I’m by myself, I like to either read, or take our dogs on a walk around the neighborhood.
6. What do you hope to do in the future?
Because I’m only a sophomore, I am not sure what I want to do, but one of the things that interest me is going to the University of Dallas and pursuing a career in math, but anything could happen!!
