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This holiday season I am thankful for many things. In particular, I am incredibly thankful to have been chosen to participate in another IPDS program. In June I participated in the IPDS Chile program and I haven’t stopped talking about it since. Every day something reminds me of Chile whether I hear someone speaking Spanish, I look at the Chile flag I have on my bedroom wall, or I scroll through the photos on my phone. The greatest gift IPDS Chile gave me was an increased understanding of the world we live in and I am a better person and teacher because of it. I still can’t believe I went from being someone who never had a passport before to traveling to two different continents within six months of each other. To top it off, I just got accepted to go to Rwanda with the Anne Frank Project this summer! Thank you to Buffalo State and everyone on my college journey who has helped to enrich my life through experiences such as these.
With that being said, I feel like a bit of an IPDS pro now in that I know what to expect and I’ve been able to help my classmates, many of whom have never traveled internationally before, by sharing different tips such as how to make 1 GB of cellular data last three weeks (a daunting feat you can assume). Once again, I’ve taken on the travel role of planner. I really enjoyed working with Dr. del Prado to plan our schedule in Chile. She is the most organized person I have ever met in my entire life. While abroad, she knew where everyone was going to be on any given day, down to what line on the subway they were going to take and who was going to meet them there. Dr. Renzoni said that plans can change on a dime in Italy and it’s important to be flexible. It sounds like both trips will be very different in that regard. Another difference between IPDS Italy and Chile is that we will be staying in a bed and breakfast rather than with a host family. I am excited to share this experience with my friends as there are 14 students going to Italy this year. That is more than double the amount of students who went to Chile! I enjoyed having such a tight-knit group, but I also think it will be fun to have a lot of students on the trip. We have a mix of people from elementary, exceptional, and music education and we co-wrote bilingual books with the music education students. My partner, Katie, and I wrote our book about the Fourth of July. I’m excited to co-teach with her because we have a mix of literacy and music activities. I hope to learn more ways to integrate music into the general education classroom! I am hoping to write a blog post every 1-2 days while we are in Italy. I found it a challenge to keep up with posting in Chile because of our busy schedule, but now that I am home I am very happy to have my blog to look back on. My posts help to remind me of all the incredible things that happened and how I felt in those specific moments. One thing my sister, Karly, and I said very often on the trip was, “Every day is the best day of my life.” I plan to go into this experience with the same attitude. I am very grateful for the opportunity to go to Italy and will not take a single day for granted. Thank you in advance for reading my blog posts and following me on another incredible journey. Here is the link to my Chile blog if you would like to read my old posts... https://buffalostateipdschile.weebly.com/kelly1
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AuthorCiao! My name is Kelly and I am a junior studying elementary education at Buffalo State. ArchivesCategories |