italian road trip!

it's been a crazy week but.....

we're off to SIENA this weekend!

i could not be more excited to be back in siena with marina! we've rented a car (V, dima, K, and I) and are leaving straight from school tomorrow.

wish us luck and i'll report back on sunday upon returning to trieste!

xx

il formagino!

i just had a revelation.

this is a picture of treiste at night. not the same view from my window, but a view in the same direction (toward the water).

you see that little lit-up thing on top of the mountain in the distance? 

that's il formagino (i think that's what it's called) ! it's a church and (allegedly) it looks like a cheese (?) so it's called il formagino! 

well. i can see it from my bedroom window! unfortunately, i don't have a picture from my bedroom window at night, but i will take one - promise! 

tonight as i was lying in bed, staring out my window/door to my fake-out porch, and just looking at il formagino, i was trying to think about why i thought it was so cool that i could see it from my room.  at times, we've been some random place in town and have seen it and i've gotten excited, "hey! you can see that from my window!" and everyone has responded with an unimpressed "eh, yeah..." you can see it from most places in the city, i suppose.  it's somewhat of a prominent visible landmark in trieste so i guess it's not that big of a deal? 

and then it hit me! it's like being able to see the roanoke star from your bedroom window!  if you were in roanoke and you saw the star and someone said, "hey! i can see that from my window!!" you would be very unimpressed, no? there's such a parallel. 

am i slow to have not made this connection yet? 

i have my own man-made, lit-up structure on a mountain in the near distance :) it really does feel like home.

lots of reading to do...

as we begin reading groups in the 5th grade, i have been reminded of all of my favorite books!  i think 5th grade must have been my favorite, because since i started teaching, i haven't been as excited about the kids' books as i was today. i scoured the school and picked out a bunch that i need to read before monday - on my list:

bridge to terabithia
mr. popper's penguins
hatchet

and a few quotes from my reading today of tuck everlasting:

"life's got to be lived, no matter how long or short, you got to take what comes."


"there's no use trying to figure why things fall the way they do.  things just are, and fussing don't bring changes."


"you can't have living without dying.  so you can't call it living, what we got.  we just are we just  be, like rocks beside the road."


"people got to do something useful if they're going to take up space in the world."


why have i not read this book before now?!

xx!

quote of the day

"knowledge is knowing that a tomato is fruit.  wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato into a fruit salad."

V shared this today. i liked it. we discussed it. interpret as you wish.

xo!

life is good, part 2.

we've been having some incredible early-fall weather the past few days! it's been so refreshing.

wednesday was a rough day at school, i was in a bad mood and the kids were obnoxious, only making my irritability worse.  on the way home from school as the tram began down the mountain into trieste and R was looking through some of his 2nd graders' artwork, i literally teared up.  the pictures done by the 2nd graders were priceless, and the weather was perfectly crisp and clear providing a magnificent view of the city running into the sea.  the combination of R's simple reminder of the happy and non-stressful parts of teaching with the breathtaking views brought the biggest smile to my face -- in that moment, all i could think about was how happy i am and how much i love where i am and what i'm doing here.  i'm so lucky to be working with such incredible students and teachers every day AND to be able to take in the most spectacular scenery while commuting.  the views during the entire tram ride (30 minutes) silenced my inner monologue, helped me unwind from the day, and reminded me how incredible fall weather is -- fall, you are my new favorite season.

below are some pictures lisa took during the sunset on wednesday (gorgeous)

yes, this is my commute home from work.

more pictures from gorgeous weather last week (at barcola after school on thursday): 

the sunset at barcola -- castello di mira mare is jutting out of the mountain on the right

view back toward trieste during the sunset

and today! saturday! it was the perfect relaxing saturday.  the weather forecast was for heavy rain all day but thankfully it cleared up around noon and turned into a beautiful fall afternoon!

i relaxed all morning at my apartment, did some reading on the balcony (which turned into a nap in the sunshine) and then late afternoon headed downtown with K for the food festival! i feel like there are food festivals every weekend here.... not that i'm complaining at all!  but the highlight of this one was finding cheddar cheese!!! K was beyond excited (she's from wisconsin) and together, she and i bought an obscene amount of cheese. 

we had coffees on the canal and the clear sky and beginning of the sunset created the most amazing reflection in the water

and the sky continued to look incredible as the sun set

we walked home via castello di san guisto to get a good view of the city at night and it was beautiful

i love my city. 

and then, as i was winding down for bed, i called my mom. she was post-game tailgating in cville after a uva win over vmi (wahoowah!) with so many of my friends.  she passed the phone around and i got to say hi to everyone! best saturday i could have asked for :)

xx! 

shout out!

to the following people for all my snail mail!

it's been arriving on a semi-daily basis and i could not be happier. everyone is jealous of my "pigeon hole" at work for having real mail in it :)

alro: being pen pals is the best idea ever
elbow: LOVED the stickers and have already used them!
mom: multiple letters (with newspaper articles, don't say i never warned you that you're turning into gma), an amazing package (including chevy chase christmas vacation!! and many other goodies)
nanpants/matt: (sort of) for the (quasi) enjoyable package including an old people magazine and a CD that i have yet to upload
gma: the roanoke postcards are hanging on my wall!


xo!

lots of random and quick updates

i realize i've been slacking on the legitimate updates about life over here and what i've been doing - so here are some brief, unorganized updates....

two weeks ago, we went to the zoefood opening.  one of the new teachers that i work with, R, has family here in trieste and they opened the CUTEST little bar/cafe/restaurant ("risto-bar" if you will) and we were all invited to their grand opening! pretty much everyone from school was there and we (or maybe just I?) drank too much prosecco, which is never a bad thing, even when you have school the next day. 

the zoe opening was the beginning to a pretty spectacular weekend -- convenient that it was the weekend after the first week of school; the bar for subsequent weekends has been set pretty high.  

after the zoe opening on thursday, friday we had out fantasy football draft gathering-turned-party with most of my coworkers.  this was our second failed attempt at successfully registering and drafting our teams (there are many females involved in our league....) so we just drank lots of wine (naturally) and went out as a super big group (which usually isn't my favorite thing) still in our school clothes with all of our bags.  i have been told that this can happen from time to time, going out straight from school and accidentally not getting home until 4am.

the weather was gorgeous all weekend so after a relaxing day on saturday (including lunch at zoe, our new favorite spot), we went hiking on sunday in val rosandra!  val rosandra is a big national park that's about 20 minutes outside of the city.  the park starts in italy but parts of it extend into slovenia (which is aewsome) and it was gorgeous (see below).  did i mention that it's a 20 minute bus ride to get there?   

and now, this past weekend. the weather last wednesday THROUGH sunday was absolutely horrific. insane wind (pre-bora?) and floods. i mean, so much rain. terrible.  thank goodness i got friends seasons 3 and 8 in the mail on wednesday from my mom (!) so we had something to occupy us for most of the day saturday. 

then saturday evening, we headed up to udine (a town who's name, all of my automatic spell-checkers want to change into "urine") which is about an hour north of trieste for the fruili-doc festival! the fruili-doc is a festival of "all things this region" including, but not limited to, food, drink, and handmade things.  

below are pictures! 

still a little dreary, but the center of udine is adorable!

crepes!

ver and her crepe (and bunny ears)!

gnocchi di zucca (pumpkin) - delicious! 

sunday: the weather cleared and was gorgeous! went to zoe for brunch (i told you it was our favorite place) and came home to find our own sasha-homemaker doing this: 

homemade pasta?! yes, please!!

and now it's (almost) friday again. plans are being made for drinks at zoe and more heavy rain -- instead of friends marathons this weekend i'm planning to read, A LOT. 

cheers! xx

advancement on the pimento cheese front

found fresh jalepenos and peperoncinos!

YAY!

best batch ever. it has officially become my comfort food over here, mainly because it's the only thing i can make that is really good. but based on the popular response i have received, i'm thinking about learning to cook some real things....

xx

life is good.

despite the lice infestation at school that is rapidly spreading.... this has been a great week, so far! especially when you (or one of your friends) encounters something like this to brighten their morning.

happy wednesday!

x

just to get week 3 off to a good start

we've got lice! grade 4 was infested last week and now it's moved to grade 2.  i won't be touching any children and my hair will be pinned back as much as possible for the next few weeks. 

also, grade 1 has two pet mice and one escaped! we have no idea where it is. so that should be fun to discover. 

happy tuesday! 

xx

october is shaping up to look quite nice.

after deciding to "lay low" in terms of travel during september and focus on getting used to life here in trieste, i have realized that i am for sure overbooking myself for the month of october.

oops. but i can just sleep when i'm dead, right?

here's the line-up so far:

october 1-3: SIENA to see my ladybird and fall in love with the city all over again
october 8/9ish: nancypants comes to visit! AND marina!
october 10: barcolana!
october 13: kristin turns one quarter of a century old
october 15-17: cortona!
october 22-24: back to the states for morgan's wedding!
october 29: november break begins which means gallivanting! until november 7th!

phew.

letters to juliet

i just watched this movie. i was motivated mainly because when the previews aired, i could tell that part of it took place in siena and i mean, any movie, good or bad, that takes place anywhere near my beloved siena, will be viewed by me.

so, i rented it.

and yes, amanda seyfreid is annoying. [this just in: check out my friend andy's rant on amanda seyfried. i totally LOLed] yes, the acting was far below-par. and yes, it was an all-around not-that-great-movie. (i say that because that's what everyone else says. i cried multiple times, at the happy and sad parts, i loved all the italian language that occasionally wasn't subtitled, and oh.my.god the scenery? no matter how real or fake it was....) but what's important is that it reminded me that italy is just the most magical place ever.

and i think i would have died a little bit on the inside if i had seen it without already living here.  and now i want to go to verona. and never leave.

just a tiny hit of cool weather and i'm ready for christmas!

so tonight i am beginning my continuous viewing of my favorite movie, love actually.

which means, i am officially ready for christmas!! friends who are nearby, let me know if you ever want to watch it, i have been known to watch it back-to-back for hours upon end. 

seriously. 

i love christmas.

so so so much.

ok, real talk for a minute....

so, these past few days i've been doing a lot of thinking and a lot of useless stressing -- depending on how well you know me, you may or may not know that i stress about silly things.  i've been stressing lots here because i'm struggling to find a balance between taking advantage of "life in italy" and productively making a place for myself in "the real world."  the latter is ironic because we all know i'm not trying to be a part of the sterotypical real world -- but still, i'm trying to be a productive member of society.  i also feel that while i do have a legitimate job here in italy, i should (and want to) do the best i can so that it can advance my career (ugh grown-up word) in the ways that i want it to and the ways that i think it can.

i'm trying to be as involved at school as i can, picking up after-school activities, taking italian lessons, tutoring students for extra money, and being as active in the planning/organizing process of grade 5 as lisa will let me (i may be hovering too much, currently...).  THEN on top of all of this, i have a long list of restaurants where i would like to eat, bars where i would like to drink, new friends i would like to get to know, mountains i would like to climb, cities i would like to visit, and many many other things that i would like to do with the free time i am quickly running out of.  thus, the stress.  which do i choose?

sometimes i think that i made a mistake coming here to teach in italy and that trying to combine some of my favorite things (teaching, traveling, and italy) was too ambitious and it would have been wiser to focus on them individually -- for example, teaching somewhere in the states and using my summers and breaks to travel internationally (to italy..?).  but then i realize that those thoughts are absolutely stupid and why would i ever think that moving to italy for my essential dream job (right now) would be a mistake? nonsense, liz, nonsense.  i know that i need to take advantage of the wonderful place in which i am living and while doing the best i can at my job, not overdo it.  italians are not workaholics, and living here makes it very easy to see why.

while he is having a somewhat different life adventure right now, my friend seth and i share a similar outlook on life as recent college grads not quite ready to be "real grown ups."  his thoughts (much more eloquently stated than mine) are below:


"My mind often wanders back to certain memories my brain has flagged. Like a time in class when a specific professor said, "Be good at your job, always strive to learn more and improve your performance, all while giving back to the community." My mind wanders to graduation speeches where multiple speakers said, "Go out in the world and make it a better place with the knowledge you've obtained over the past 4 years." And I think to myself, I've done none of those things. I've lived in New York and worked at a restaurant and then I moved to Alaska where, as of now, I'm not even employed. Am I wasting the gifts I've been given?

And then I witness sights like these, snap a photo, and hours or days later browse through the photos again and it hits me. It hits me at how lucky and privileged I am to end up where I ended up. (I graduated as a qualified engineer a year and a half ago and now I'm living in Alaska.) I can't think of where I'd be or what I'd be looking at if I had job hunted and landed an aero job down in Houston or if I didn't meet the people I met or had the parents I had... . Tonight while picking these pictures, I came to a slow understanding that a time will come where a serious job is needed and I will want to settle in and make my mark on the world. But in the mean time, I'll be adventurous (maybe not Into-the-Wild adventurous) and soak up my surroundings whether it be the people or the sights and to  acknowledge and realize the fact that I'm able to do so because of the education I've had and the people that influenced me. ...I'm preparing for when the time comes where I'll work at my cube-farm for hours and hours to pay off this gigantic debt of being able to see sights like this everyday."

now, while i already am teaching (what i graduated to do), and i don't quite plan to work in a cube-farm later in life -- seth made it so clear to me that sometimes, a lot of the times, it really is the here and now that is important.  i'm 23, i have so much time to grow up - i shouldn't waste my time worrying about it now.  what i need to do right now is to take advantage of my surroundings.  i have been granted an amazing opportunity to be where i want to be, doing what i want to do and working with some amazing people -- i can't waste time and energy stressing on the rest of my life!

[insert cliche quote "don't waste the present by planning for the future"].


and to lighten the tone....

now i'm going to do my best to recall the "week marina and i reformed our lives" in siena, spring 2008 and do more things like stay up until 330am to watch a meteor shower in piazza del campo.

xxx

i like to avoid the upper school hallways when the students are changing classes...

working at IST has included many changes that i had not anticipated.

first of all, and the most major, is working in a school with students beginning at Kinder 2 - 2 year-olds - and going all the way through Grade 13 - 19 year-olds.  so we have babies (with "nappies") and we have 19 year olds. who are bigger than me. and make out with their girlfriends in the parking lot. and then there are my 5th graders, just right in the middle.

during the day, we're pretty isolated in our elementary school wing (read: hallway), but the big kids are seen when they're at lunch and out for recess (yes, high school has recess) and of course at the end of the day.  often, when i'm on break and upstairs in the staff room, i am walking around while they're changing classes and i feel myself hurrying and darting my eyes around so as not to make eye contact with any of the kids.  for small portions of a minute i feel like i'm the new kid in school and everyone is looking at me with judging eyes. but then i remember that no, i'm a teacher and really, i could yell at them if they did something wrong....(probably won't ever happen)

another major difference here in italy and at IST are the components of classroom and behavior management.  many of the things that i learned and would typically work during a curry placement, won't work here.  you may know that during my student teaching in cambridge, i had a less-than-ideal behavior management situation (read: the students didn't exactly listen to me very often, it was chatoic), so behavior and general classroom management are two areas that i really want to focus on this year.  well, thankfully (sort of) for me, my lead teacher, lisa, and i are both new to the school and to teaching in italy so we are sorting out this process together.

the standard/typical/most effective process for keeping a classroom under control here is greatly different from keeping a US classroom under control for many reasons.  these kids are (i would imagine) like your (somewhat) stereotypically spoiled and babied private/international/elitist school kids.  they're all doted on by mom and dad -- dad is probably some sort of insane scientist, the family owns the fanciest hotel in piazza unita, or has the last name illy (yes, like the coffee. the most delicious italian coffee, that is made here in trieste). the kids are not quite used to hearing "no."  and as backwards as it may sound, threats of interrogation have been known to be a more powerful behavior management tool than any sort of creative reward-system chart or class-wide points system for good behavior.

you see, in italian school systems, the grading is done based on a student's performance during their "interrogations."  an interrogation (yes, this is the literal translation of the italian word) is completed by the classroom teacher (these are done at all grade-levels) and is essentially an oral exam where the teacher asks the student a series of questions and grades them based on their responses.  for the most part, they aren't given anything specific to study other than "what we've learned so far."  as you can probably imagine, having an interrogation waiting for you at the end of the unit/semester/year is motivation to keep up with your work.

now, because this is an international school and we don't follow the italian curriculum, we do not have to assess using interrogations.  i think that maybe they do in some of the high school classes, but we're not going to use this method in the 5th grade.  many of the students, however, have older siblings or have been in the italian system before and are quite familiar with this style of assessment.  i believe that they also are tested this way in their italian classes.

so as lisa and i sort out the finer logistics of our classroom systems, i will keep you updated!

the pimento cheese experience.

so i'm not usually one to really pine away for foods back home when i'm abroad -- when i was in siena, i was pretty happy with the food that was available to me and this time around in italy, not much has changed. i can't really complain when produce is dirt cheap and scrumptious pizza is a pretty regular occurrence.  oh, and have i mentioned that wine is legitimately cheaper than water? yeah. so what can i complain about, right? 

well at the beginning of the summer, i realized that pimento cheese was maybe the most delicious cracker spread EVER.  as the summer went on, i decided i wanted to make it myself, so this became my OIB kitchen project.  while i am usually kicked out of the kitchen during regular meal time, as there are almost always people around that are much more competent around the stove than myself, in the past i have been granted the role of "hors devours preparer."  this summer, in addition to my infamous guacamole, i was determined to create amazing pimento cheese. 

and then i did. just ask matt simons. and my mom. and my sister. and everyone else that ever tried it. it was amazing. 

and then i left for italy.

i haven't been doing much cooking because i've been so busy and i also have susie-homemaker for a roommate (thanks lizzy!) which means fresh-made bread all.the.time but when drunk plans were made for a party this weekend at the boss man's pad, it was time to begin the experiments! 

without cheddar cheese (and not being sure how easy it would be to find the remainder of the ingredients), i realized i would need at least one taste test. and this lovely monday afternoon was the time. 

i went to the store and spent more money than i have yet in one stop. bought four types of cheeses and all the other pertinent ingredients. 

from left to right we have: provolne piccante (spicy provolone), gouda tedesco (gouda), latteria friuli (a soft, local, mild cheese), and graziola - pecorino sardo dolce (a piu' gustoso -- more flavorful? -- cheese from toscano). 

step 1: all of the grating. this was time-consuming. i was very careful to keep everything about all of the cheeses separate. i did not want to contaminate the results -- washing the cheese grater after each cheese was the most annoying task. 

step 2: add mayo

step 3: pimentos! 

step 4: add the spices! the only thing that was different from how i make it in the states is that i was unable to find dried mustard, so i used regular mustard spread

and the resulting consumption chaos. (wine was used as our palate cleanser, naturally, and kristin made "italian" deviled eggs at the same time -- they were also incredible, involving tabasco, garlic, rosmary, and other amazing ingredients.)

the results: 

well, i had many volunteers for taste judge.  however, none of my judges had ever had pimento cheese in the states, so this became less of a test for "which was the most accurate recipe?" and more of "which was the most delicious?"

what we found: the provolone piccante was the most similar to cheddar. the same texture cheese and it also had the best "kick" to it (i was unable to find jalepenos to add to it, so it was lacking in "kick").  the gouda was the second favorite but it wasn't as spicy (these were also first and second in order of similarity to pimento cheese in the states).  the latteria tasted too much like the mayo and spices, the cheese was too mild. and then the pecorino was too strong, tasted too much like delicious stinky cheese. 

but the REAL results came when we all got crazy and started mixing them all together.  all of them were even better when mixed with another one of the mixtures. but the final favorite was the mixture of the gouda and provolone piccante!! 

so that was dinner tonight. multiple variations of pimento cheese and italian-style deviled eggs and just the right amount of red wine. not too bad, not too bad. 

now, if i could only get a recipe for house dressing..... oh take it away, i really do miss you. 

xo

oh thanks seester...

thanks for the care package! 

except, not really. 

osmiza

google it.

look at these pictures:

my recap coming soon.

_______________________________________________

my recap!!! 

sorry for the delay in the osmiza explanation... but the existence of the osmiza is such an amazing addition to my (and everyone's) life that i didn't want to short-change you, i wanted to be able to put my full effort into retelling how incredible it is. 

osmiza comes from the slovenian word meaning "8 days" and back when.... a long time ago?... the government wouldn't allow people to open restaurants, or there were huge taxes on them, or something along those lines (the history of an osmiza was explained to me in italian, so bear with me) and so people opened the essential equivalent of a restaurant in their home.  the government/people in charge were fine with this as long as they only served and sold products that were made in their home or on their property. so EVERYTHING that people consumed at an osmiza had to be produced there.  and they would only stay open for about 8 days, essentially until they ran out of everything.  also, the way to find an open osmiza was to follow hanging branches that the owners would put on signs at the forks of roads and create a "hansel-and-gretel-like" trail to their osmiza.  you could tell how long the osmiza had been open based on how dead the leaves looked! 

so, today, they've only changed a little bit.  they're open for a bit longer now, a few weeks at a time, and i think they change the hanging branches when they begin to wilt and die.  however, the rest is the same -- everything that you eat and drink at an osmiza is produced on the premises and it is all insanely fresh. it was all the most delicious of everything i think i've ever consumed. 

and yes, i ate all of the meat. 

i think my favorite was the first meat (in the first picture), it's cooked ham with shaved horseradish on top. i say "favorite," but really, it's hard to choose, all of the meats in the next round were also mouth-watering. 

view of the water (and the sunset) from the countryside where we found the osmiza

the osmiza with the branches hanging, indicating that we found what we were looking for!

xo! 

back to school, back to school....

!!!

the first two days have been great!

we haven't been doing a whole lot of hardcore things yet, just getting to know the students but it has been really great.  we have 24 5th graders, 14 boys and 10 girls (i think) and the boys are going to be bunches of fun. lots of energy (the girls, too) - but all of the best kind of energy - they'll be so fun.

ms lisa and miss liz have gotten off to a good start - we are working together awesomely, we have very similar personalities and so teaching together is going to be awesome throughout the year. i'm also pretty sure that all the kids love us already (how could they not).

as far as our class/the school goes:

1. most of our students are italian but even the ones who aren't (we have 4 non-italians) speak italian so they are all essentially english language learners.  now, i hadn't really thought about what this would mean, in terms of instruction, but it is awesome.  hearing them spit out italian to each other (which isn't allowed) just before answering a question in perfect english blows my mind.  and THEN the students who aren't italian ALSO speak another language at home, even MORE mindblowing!  i don't have a ton of experience working with ESL students so i'm super excited to get some experience this year in instructing them -- lisa and i also have a word wall set up for them to teach us some italian words (!) so that should be fun.

2. being in the same school as high schoolers is crazy. at the end of the day we'll see them outside just like making out and being all italian and high schoolers and they're bigger than me. today i had to walk in the high school hallway while they were changing classes and i did not love it -- i forgot for a minute that i was actually a teacher in their school.

3. our schedule is pretty good.  we have a break each day when they have italian class so that's a good chunk of planning time.  it also switches around every day so our planning time is at a different time each day, which i like. sometimes it's at the very beginning or end of the day which is great!

4. school lunch is awesome. they feed us every day which is great because a) don't have to pack a lunch! and b) it's italian food that is delicious and c) less grocery buying! i'm not quite sure we have any food in our apartment, actually....

more things unrelated to school:

it's cold here already. like blisteringly cold. like yesterday i wished that i had worn tights to school. and i wore a heavy sweater all day. :( and then today there was a monsoon. just as school got out. so that was fun.

oh, and all of my kids have facebook. they're 10.

tomorrow is back to school night! it should be interesting and very different than a back to school night in the states since we'll have translators all over the place and all of that -- most of our parents don't speak english. wish me luck!

xx

alison, you win.

for sending me my first letter! woooo snail mail!

fake update

today was the first day of school!

it was amazing. my 5th graders are so hilarious. they are all already my favorites. lisa, my cooperating teacher and i, are going to have a fantastic year. and you are going to hear all about it!

also. last saturday, we went to an osmiza in the carso around trieste. do some googling to find out what and where that is OR wait until tomorrow (or maybe the next day) and i'll tell you! with pictures! it was pretty much the most incredible eating experience i have ever had.

the first two weeks we were here went by incredibly slowly. but now that school has started, i can tell the time is going to fly -- i'll be home for christmas in no time!!?? (sad/excitement)

a thorough update is soon to come, promise!

xx

meanwhile: check out veronica's new addition from her weekend in venice/croatia

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