I went to a Reggae concert with a scarf on.

It's still August, but it's barely 60 degrees here today. After sweating constantly all last week, this is a bit of a shock, and makes me hope my boxes with warmer clothes will get here soon!

This week there is an international festival-type-thing in one of the Piazzas with booths and live music every night. So, tonight, this combined to result in a reggae concert with a scarf (and all of my warmest summer clothes).

Today was the first all staff day, and I was surprised to find that there are 50 staff members at the school. It doesn't seem like that big of a place, but I suppose once you add up all the grades and the Italian teachers, too, there's a lot of us. For those who didn't know, I am the associate teacher for grade 3, though I'm not really sure what that means yet. The lead teacher for grade 3 is new as well, and she just got in yesterday! Needless to say, she'd overwhelmed too, so we're still figuring out how everything is going to work. Right now, we have a mostly empty classroom, only a very basic idea of the curriculum, and lots more meetings to attend.

A little more about the school:

- It was founded in the late 1960s for international students, especially those affiliated with the physics research center.

- Now, upwards of 80% of the students are Italian. The other 20% are international.

- The building was designed by a semi-famous architect that no one can remember the name of as part of a design competition. It was originally intended to be built in Africa or a similar climate, making it very difficult to heat in the winter.

- The building was an orphanage/boys home before it became a school. Several near-by buildings are still part of the state foster system.

- School starts a week from today!

Looks like a school, huh?