Joanna L. May

[fillefidele]

GENERAL

NAME: Joanna Lorenza May
NICKNAMES: Jo, Jo-Jo
AGE/DOB: 15 / October 23rd 1997
BLOOD STATUS: Half-bood
GENDER/PRONOUNS: Female/she/her
SEXUALITY: Heterosexual, as far as she currently knows.
HOMETOWN: Queens, NYC, NY.

CONCEPT: Italian-American with a mind as sharp as a tack and serious life goals.

PHYSICAL

APPEARANCE: VERY petite standing at just under 5ft in stocking feet, Joanna is dark, slender and very clearly Italian in heritage. She wears her uniform in completely pristine, perfectly groomed manner and only removes the vest in the hottest summer weather. If it's part of the uniform, she wears it and wears it correctly. Having just about passed Outdoor Ed. last year, mostly through trying hard than any kind of care or enjoyment, she was very glad to be able to abandon the sportswear required by said class. When out of uniform, the scruffiest she goes is jeans and a t-shirt - but she wears carefully fitted clothes that flatter her shape, rather than going for a casual, relaxed look.

HEIGHT: 5'00 exactly - if she's wearing her uniform shoes.

PB: Cristine Prosperi

PERSONALITY

LIKES: Books, Calm, Breadth of Knowledge, Exceeding Expectations, Big and fluffy animals, Femininity

DISLIKES: Boorishness, Snobbishness, Not Fitting In, her own youth, inexperience, alcohol that isn't wine, failure. You'll notice that most of what bothers Joanna are concepts and ideas, rather than tangible objects.

PERSONALITY:

Joanna is not the sort of person who is coloured in shades of grey - she is either on 'all systems go' mode, or tired and withdrawn. Such is the intensity of the Ebonhide - she is focused and driven when it comes to her academic studies, but needs to have her passions away from school so that her spirit isn't completely overcome. This energy also gives her a competitive streak that being a Prefect will hopefully tame as she has to look out for others. Fascinated by rules as a concept, you can't just tell Joanna why something is the case, you have to explain why it is so and why she should respect it. She isn't a complete monster, though, and only becomes aggressive in questioning when the other part of the conversation is being an idiot.

As first impressions go, Joanna is oven underestimated as being tiny and cute. Also, as a new prefect, they assume that she will be eager to please - and she is, to a point. However, Joanna has a mean streak that means she holds a grudge to unnecessary levels. That slight you may think she has forgiven is filed away in her extensive mind, ready to take a chance to bring about your comeuppance. Joanna plays the long game, though, and despite her age she is fully prepared to wait for years for the right 'crime'.

Don't think that Joanna is a bitch, though. She simply has a slightly misplaced sense of her own ability to know what is best for others, and she became aware of this when having a discussion with Ms. Rhee shortly after returning to Gooseberry. Rhee's warning of what sorts of behaviour made Joanna wind her neck in a little, making her a more tolerable friend, classmate and schoolmate than she may have been previously. She has always been friendly and tried to make friends of everyone, and now she tries to really mean it.

HISTORY

FAMILY MEMBERS:

Mother: Alessandra Imelda May, née Romano, 44. Deli employee.
Father: Vincenzo Lorenzo May, 47. Deli and Restaurant owner.
Younger sister: Isabella Rafaella, 13. Queen's Middle School of Magic, New York, NY.
Younger brother: Leo Marciano, 12. Also a student at Queen's Middle.
Grandmother: Pia Giuliana May, née Rossi, 72. Homemaker.

HISTORY:

Joanna May grew up in an Italian-American half blood household, in an Italian mostly magical neighbourhood in Queens, with her paternal grandfather the only non-Italian in the family going back generations. The family is not pureblood, with a tendency towards Catholicism being the only preference indicated by parents towards children's spouses. Rossi's, a Tuscan restaurant with attached deli, has been the family's pride and joy for generations. Located in Little Italy, it has somehow clung on despite the economic downturn and the failure of similar businesses, though the deli was a recent addition suggested by Joanna's grandmother, Pia, who regretfully believed that diversifying would be the safest way to stay in business. To that end, the 'restaurant' is more of a glorified café, although it enjoys a positive set of reviews as well as a historical reputation.

It was at Rossi's as a customer that Alessandra first met Vincenzo, with Joanna growing up crawling and toddling around the place as her mother bounced one of the other children on her hip. Her childhood was full of noise and activity, with it only being her advancing age that made her realise this was just as much due to a need to be constantly working as the desire to make the children the centre of the family. As business owners, the Mays were not poor - but as she began her studies at Queen's Magical Elementary, she noticed that she had new clothes and toys on a much less frequent basis than her new friends. Pressure was on to keep the business afloat, employees were few to keep the margins high, and this meant that her Nonna was the one in charge of taking Joanna to school and who attended most of her events. As a result, Joanna is incredibly close to her grandmother, and misses her as much as her parents while away at Gooseberry, and significantly more than she misses her younger siblings. Her grandmother is her champion, and disappointing her is one of Joanna's biggest fears.

Joanna's first signs of magic came just days after starting kindergarten at Queens, a site with a magical elementary, middle and high school all next door to each other. Sitting in the reading corner of her classroom, she became frustrated with her teacher for taking too long repeating parts of a story for a less able classmate. Though she was later reprimanded for 'snatching' the book, the teacher couldn't help but be impressed by the little girl being able to recite the whole tale, word for word, having just summoned it to her awaiting fingertips. Joanna has loved books and knowledge and been frustrated by those who don't ever since.

She progressed to Queens Middle School after leaving Elementary, fully expecting to simply muddle on through to the attached high school and then return to the bosom of the family, just as everyone before had done. Joanna wanted more from life, but knew the pressure the family was under to succeed. She knew that her parents needed her, and her hard work at school was, to her, a necessary effort to ensure that they could keep the business for one more generation. The day she expressed this thought to Pia May, however, is one that she will never forget. Thinning her lips, the older woman half dragged and half carried her to her parents, demanding that things had to change - that their worries could not be allowed to affect their children's mental and emotional wellbeing, and that they were not drones to be commanded as their parents saw fit (not that Alessandra and Vincenzo would dream of such behaviour, Pia knew, but she felt it important to make her point). The next morning, Pia stormed into the office at Queens, demanded to see the Headteacher, and asked what could be done for her granddaughter's considerable academic abilities to be nurtured - and thus the story of Joanna May, Gooseberry student, began.

The guidance counsellor at Queens, a kindly, overly enthusiastic young witch, had managed to find a pamphlet that explained the various prep and private high schools that offered scholarships to 'the financially deserving'. Joanna called out the term in the safety of her home as being patronising, though she was smart enough to hold her tongue long enough for the counsellor to help her make her application. Thoroughly cowed by the family matriarch, her parents supported the decision to apply, and the day she got her acceptance letter is the second of the most-remembered days of Joanna's life. She boarded the bus for her Freshman year with a spring in her step, hoping that finally she could discover the opportunities there were for her, out there in the wider magical world.

Freshman year itself was a difficult adjustment for Joanna to get her head around. Challenging yet fascinating academics? Fantastic. Experiencing the snottiness of rich kids who made snide remarks about her accent? Infuriating. Seeing just how broad the scope of American magic was? Bewildering. The thought of figuring out exactly what she was going to do with her life? Intimidating. As bizarre as this mix of emotions was, Joanna was having the time of her life, and it showed. Breezing around not quite as if she owned the place, Joanna was a young woman finally coming into a sense of self. Her sorting, taking a little under a minute, had reflected that - and the reputation of her house for being intense had enough of an influence on her to make her declare that she wanted to get a job in MACUSA one day. What sort of job, she does not know, but more than one person made a remark that if anyone could manage it through she sheer force of will, Joanna May could.

Now that she has recently begun her sophomore year, Joanna is looking to the future even more. Deliberately electing to avoid an Advanced Study class until next year was a deliberately calculated move, as quite a few of her decisions are. Becoming prefect was one more thing checked off her long term plan, the next being the maintenance of grades good enough to get into Animagus Studies. A side-goal to that list is looking out for anyone who would bet against her...

SCHOOL

YEAR: Sophomore
HOUSE: Ebonhide
SORTING: Rare amongst Ebonhides, Joanna could ended up in Azurcrest, her zest for life and love of a good time meaning she would have fit in in that house. However, her passion for the things that interest her and the passion with which she goes for said interests meant that it took only a minute for her to be sorted into Ebonhide.
WAND: Alder with Dragon Heartstring.
FAMILIAR: A Maine Coon named Florenza.

CLASSES: Charms, Herbology, Hermeticism, Potions, Transfiguration, Astronomy, Wizard Literature. She isn't taking an Advanced Course, as she's holding out for Animagus Studies when she enters her Junior year.
SENIOR PROJECT: She has no idea quite yet, but as she wants to get into MACUSA, she knows it has to be something big.
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: Certainly a bright bunny, Joanna is mostly an A student. To her, a B is a sign of needing to slow down and take a break before she suffers burn out.

EXTRACURRICULARS: Choir, Drama, Duelling/Fencing, Events

OOC

NAME: Heather
EMAIL: heather_stanton@hotmail.com
CDJ: fandomfeministecdj @tumblr
OTHER PREFERRED CONTACT: shewhodares85 @aim
TIME ZONE: GMT/BST

	MONDAY	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY	THURSDAY	FRIDAY
8:00	B R E A K F A S T
8:30
9:00	Charms	Transfiguration	Herbology	Hermeticism	Potions
9:30
10:00		Astronomy
10:30
11:00	Wizard Literature
11:30
12:00	L U N C H
12:30
13:00	Potions	Hermeticism			Wizard Literature
13:30
14:00			Charms	Transfiguration
14:30
15:00				Herbology
15:30
16:00
16:30			Choir		MONTHLY BONDING ACTIVITY TIME SLOT #1
17:00
17:30
18:00	D I N N E R
18:30
19:00	Event Committee		Duelling & Fencing Club	Drama Club	MONTHLY BONDING ACTIVITY TIME SLOT #2
19:30
20:00
00:00			Astronomy
00:30