My name is Kate Parker and I am a GRSP student here this year. I am going to school up in Brenau and am absolutely loving it. I am from New Zealand and come from the middle of the North Island in a town called Te Awamutu. I have lived near this town my whole life. I was brought up on a farm where I have always helped with farm work and milking the cows. The area in which Te Awamutu is consists of many dairy farms so as I got older and we moved off our big farm I have continued to milk cows for the neighbours as my pocket money. I have 2 younger brothers, we are a very active family often doing things as a family like going away for the weekend to go scuba diving or my dad and I rode our horses a lot. My mum is an occupational therapist and my dad has always been a farmer up until we sold our farm in 2005, he is currently doing artificial cow breeding in both New Zealand and Australia.

In 2009 I was on a rotary youth exchange it Austria where I spent the year going to high school. It was incredible! Met the most amazing people and did and saw the most amazing things. While in Georgia so far I have been really busy and have seen and done so much! I have 2 amazing host families they keep me busy and have been showing me as much as they can. In Georgia this year there are about 47 students from 25 different countries, they are such amazing people! We have had weekends in Savannah, Jekyll Island, Clayton County and in Atlanta. They have all been so much fun.

Thank you so much for this amazing opportunity and I hope you enjoy my talk today!