Thoughts from Places

So there's this whole world of Youtube video bloggers (aptly shortened to vloggers), and because I am a Giant Nerd, I partake in the watching of (nice) several of these vloggers.  Hank and John Green are brothers (recognize John Green as the author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, and others??) who video blog back and forth.  One of the series of vlogs they do is something they call "Thoughts From Places", in which they basically capture clips of them in different places around the world and record their thoughts.  And I thought it'd be really cool to make my own Thoughts from Places video, except that I have zero video making skills and zero video making camera.  But...this blog is basically a written forum for Thoughts from Places, right??  I mean, isn't that what I've been DOING?

Today I woke up in my friend Shaked's bed, groaned and bemoaned the fact that I was awake before ten thirty, and got dressed.  Shaked, her friend Ofir, and I had been out the night before like dumb people, especially since I had been out the night before that and got a total of four hours of sleep.  All three of us had school (in a manner of speaking) the next day, and so when I collapsed at one thirty in the morning on Shaked's bed, I realized that Israelis Don't Sleep and while that works for them, I, the eighty-five year old lady, need me some of that sleep.


I took the bus from Shaked's house to Brener Elementary School, which is a local elementary school in Kfar Saba.  Brener Elementary School is located in one long strip of schools, and so one of my very greatest moments this past trip was waltzing into the principle's office of the wrong school.  Win.  She kindly redirected me to the right place, in which I spoke with the right principle this time.  One of my connections had made a connection who had made a connection for me to aid the English teachers around Brener.  Once everyone knew who I was and why I was there, they were very kind to me.  The sat me down in the teacher's lounge while my distant connection was on her way to the school to meet the principle to speak about not only my volunteer work, but a program they're setting up with the Columbus Jewish Day School in New Albany.  I spoke with Enat, who is a special education student aid, and shortly after, the teacher who I am going to be working with came in.

Idit is Australian, and when I was observing her classes, she is one of those hard-ass teachers who everyone loves but doesn't want to cross because she will yell at them.  The students totally respected her, and even when she was glowering, there was a general atmosphere of amity.

One of the things I realized while watching the classes, helping a bit with the students, and basically observing the way elementary schools work in Israel was how much I want to be a teacher.  It's such an annoying compulsion, especially since I made that bet with Amy last year that I wouldn't be a teacher in a school district by the time I was twenty-nine.  Oh well.  Looks like I've ruined that bet.

I don't know why - maybe the fact that both my grandmothers and my parents are/were teachers engrains teaching in my blood.  I fantasized about having my own theater program at a school (we'd do a Shakespeare show every year) and teaching Social Studies or English.  By the time the day was over, I would zone in and out of dreaming about what classes I would teach.  How immensely nerdy is that?!?!?!

I had the same feeling when I was interviewing Ibsitam last week.  I don't know why - I think maybe I felt obligated to pass on knowledge of current events and history to people who aren't aware of it, so that Ibsitam's voice could be heard, something romantic like that.  Maybe my need to teach is really driven out of dumb romance - oh well.  It doesn't matter - even if I am going to end up a teacher, I'm not going to college in the fall for a teaching degree (which is good, because I'm pretty sure that the school I think I'm going to doesn't actually have a teaching degree).

It looks like I'll be teaching at Brener on Sundays and Mondays, when they have school.  In two weeks, the schools are out for basically three weeks for Passover break, but as soon as they resume, I'll be teaching again (I think I'll be leaving shortly after that).  Then, I'll go back to Ramat Gan on Monday afternoons so that Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday can be devoted to Sadaka-Reut.  I've been thinking about the newsletter Hana, my mentor, wants me to put together, and I'm not quite sure what I want to write yet.  She had mentioned that maybe it would make sense to finish the newsletter when I get back from Israel, so I have more time to digest everything that I experienced.  I don't know if that's necessarily good or bad, but it looks like what might happen, as I really have no idea what to write about.  I thought about writing about the universalism of friendship, but that was back when I thought that the majority of Sadaka-Reut's workshops integrate Palestinians and Israelis.  They actually don't - most of the workshops separate the two.  I guess I could write about the universalism of friendship within the organization, but this is a group of very like-minded people all sharing a philosophy (wow, the definition of friendship), not a group of younger kids who come from very different places politically.

Oh well.  I have time to think about that.  I also want to wait to start writing until after I've visited checkpoints around Jerusalem, and if I AM going to Nazareth, after I've gotten back and digested everything I saw there.

Here are two of my favorite Thoughts from Places videos, both made my John Green:

Lust and Folly in London and Scotland,  I'm Not Going Down: Thoughts from Amsterdam