Name:  Maria Lustri

Teaching: Italian

I worked at Mt Carmel Primary in Yass, St Matthew’s in Page then St Thomas Aquinas in Charnwood before starting at Sacred Heart.   

We have a daughter called Grace who is turning 20 in July. Wow, it seems like it was only yesterday that her father and I dropped her off at her Kindergarten classroom at Sacred Heart. Now she is my bestie and chai latte partner. Our pampered pooch is a chocolate toy poodle. Her name is Daliyah because she is as bright as the flower and as crazy as the artwork of Salvador Dali.

My favourite food is anything Italian, of course!!! Particularly food from my favourite Italian restaurant – my mother’s kitchen. If I have to choose one dish, it would be a plate of gnocchi con sugo rosso.

My favourite sports team is St George, the heartbreak team.

If I could travel back in time for 1 hour I would like to see my mother’s arrival in Melbourne on a ship from Italy in 1960. She was a 20 year old who was meeting my father, her husband to start a new life in Australia. What a brave woman to leave her small town and family in Sicily to travel to an unknown country with an unknown language.

If I could travel to a country in the world, I would love to go to Norway to see the aurora borealis or northern lights. I am sure it would be an awe-inspiring experience.

The last novel I read was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. It has been on my reading list for years and I finally made the time to read it. Very worthwhile reading if you enjoy an enduring love story.  

One of my favourite funny quotes from a student is, ‘Did your mother pack your fruit break for you?’

A fact that everyone may not know about me is that I enjoy growing vegetables in the summer months. I especially enjoy growing different varieties of chillies because one of my mottos is…  Everything tastes better with chilli, even chocolate!  (Well, almost everything.)