I'm Ba-ack!

October 15, 2014

Well...that was a long break! It's been a whopping 7 months since my last post, I can't believe it.

After such a long break, I'm not really sure I can get all caught up- not even going to try. I thought I could post a few pics from the various events this past ½ year and then I hope to be better about posting again.

My last post announced the arrival of my pup, Klaudy. And I have a feeling she is the reason why I haven't posted much!! She's adorable, funny, sweet, and completely energetic! My life consists of walks, sock playing, fetch (or her version of it) and cuddles on the couch. I feel really lucky to have her in my life and feel like it was a match made in heaven. She gets me out of the house and I get complete joy when I walk in the door after a long day at school.

At the Castle in Ostrava- still with her puppy collar

I have a battery operated dog apparently

Too cool

Shaggy dog at ISO Summer Camp

Loving the mountains

We have FINALLY gotten past the destructive stage

Looking lovely after her haircut

Ready for Halloween

What else has kept me from posting?

Probably my job! School's back in the swing of things and I'm busier than ever. At the end of last year, I was given a promotion and became the MYP Coordinator at our school. I'm very excited and think this is a great progression within my career as an educator. But it is a lot of work! So much so that I only teach 3 classes this year, and I am no longer the MUN advisor, which makes me sad, but I'll always be involved in one way or another. A few other exciting changes at school...we finally have rooms dedicated to subjects: Math, English, Geography, etc. My homeroom is the English room and I finally got to do bulletin board decorations! YAY!!

Common grammar mistakes

I was very happy to be able to decorate my classroom with English related materials and make it a bit more homey. PLUS, we moved from the awful room I've been in the last 2 years with a column in the middle of the room.

Reading contest

Text prompts

my beautiful white board

Idioms done by students

Great drawings done by the students

There is some serious talent here

Something else that has kept me busy, at least for the past week, is the International Day of the Girl. Today, I gave a presentation to the entire school in our first assembly of the year. As you loyal readers know, I'm quite passionate about women's and girls' rights, specifically with regard to education. And so every year in October I celebrate the International Day of the Girl (on the 11th). This year I made a T-shirt to wear on the day

and made the following presentation for school.

International Day of the Girl Prezi

I also made some bookmarks to sell to the students in order to raise money for Room to Read and CARE. Both the presentation and the bookmarks were, I'm pleased to report, a success!! I'm hoping to do more activities for the remainder of the month.

How about travel??

Let's see...in the last 7 months I've been to:

Berlin (twice)
Czech wine country
Beskydy Mountains (twice)
Colorado (Durango, Denver, Boulder)
Wisconsin (Waukesha, Milwaukee)
Munich

I guess it was a German type of year! Once again, I've had the great opportunity to travel around and spend some quality time with great family and friends. Here are a few pics: