33/365: Susanne

My first contact with her was when I decided to sign up for the Italy field trip. She was wearing a bright blue vinyl skirt and a pair of navy stockings with white statues and the names of major European cities written on them. She pointed out the cities on her calves: Rome, Florence, Paris, Marseilles, Cologne, Vienna, saying "I've been there, there, there... Next year I go there..."

She had a heavy French accent. France French, not Quebecois. Both her parents were ballet dancers in France and they could never fathom why she went to Paris to study art instead. But she knew. She wanted to be an art teacher and by the time I met her she was living her dream. Her energy, enthusiasm and love of life is nothing short of inspiring.