best day EVER!

for so many reasons!

first of all, happy happy birthday to my lovely roommate, miss lizzy dimattia! (along with her birthday comes celebrations in many forms, so yay for those, too!)

second of all, the weather has warmed up again! so while i was enjoying the cool fall breeze, it was a tiny bit premature and my tan has already started to fade. glad the warm weather is back in time for the weekend!

third of all, we had a really great/interesting workshop this morning on third culture kids (kids who have spent a significant part of his or her developmental life outside of the parents' culture) and how many kids (and staff members, actually) who are a part of international school communities can relate to this and the fact that they are often foreigners in some regard.  we talked about how "where are you from?" is a loaded question and i vowed to myself to never again ask anyone where they were "from." we also talked about a ton of things that as a class and a school we can get involved in to open the dialogue about identity with our students (and ourselves) and so i'm SUPER excited to be involved in all of that.

and NOW for the best news of the day:

i got switched into 5th grade!!!!!!!

no more nappy changing for me in the kinder 2 year-old classroom!  nothing bad happened in school, just some logistical things that hadn't totally been sorted out and they asked if i would mind switching and i said hell no, i don't mind! (in not so many words) and so i switched!

so now! i get to do so many fun things with the 9 year olds -- it's going to be a lot more work than i was mentally prepared for (mainly because school starts on monday and i have a ton to catch up on) but i'm so excited because i am (obviously) much much more prepared than i was to work with i bambini.

also, the teacher i'm working with now, lisa, is amazing. she's taught the 5th grade a ton before and we have totally similar personalities and have already begun turning into one person. SO EXCITED!

our class is going to have pen pals from ALL OVER!

ok - wine time now. ci parliamo presto!

xo liz