Wrappin' up year 1

As I write this, I am on a plane, flying over the Atlantic Ocean. I don’t know where I will be when I post it, though. I think I had mentioned that for the last month, I hadn’t been doing much teaching with my 6th graders. Rehearsal for their end of the year show took priority, not just over my class, but over pretty much all of their classes. Well, they finally had that show. It was on Thursday night and was such a production! First they had each of the three classes walk across the stage, graduation style, shaking the hands of all the teachers they’d had for multiple years. The last one was their homeroom teacher who had moved with them from 1st grade all the way to 6th. As many problems as I can find with the Israeli school system, there is definitely something to be said the the connection that is made when a class stays together with one teacher for 6 years.
After that ceremony, the show started. It was literally a musical play. Though I didn’t understand everything, I knew it was a fictional story about their end of the year lock-in party and a girl who was faced with a moral dilemma about being nice to someone that no one in her group liked and inviting him to go (maybe even with her...I can’t be sure). I think most of it was part of her dream as she was thinking over her decision. That’s where the singing and dancing came in. The songs were definitely pre-recorded, but it was still the kids singing on the recordings. They were good! The acting was pretty convincing, too. I am so glad I went; my students were very happy to see me there. Now they’re on to 7th grade and I’ll miss them...most of them. :)
Friday I met a Scott Hertz (a camp friend who now works for the URJ in NY) for lunch. He was chaperoning a trip and they were in Tel Aviv for the day. As I was on the bus to meet him, I realized that he was with my camp kids my first year as Melachim unit head. It was very fun to see them again, though they were pretty confused at first as to what I was doing there!
Saturday, I got one more beach day in and while I was in the water, I got stung on my neck by a random floating jellyfish tentacle. The creature itself was not around, but apparently, even detached, the tentacles are dangerous. It felt like a fire ant bite that didn’t stop stinging...for hours. Now I have a mark on my neck that kind of looks like I burnt myself with a hair straightener or something. Nice.
Sunday, Jen and her friend Ashlie came back to Tel Aviv from Europe and we went to the market, where I only spoke Hebrew, even if the merchants spoke to me in English. They met up with Idan for dinner while I went to Ulpan. Afterwards, we all hung out at his place for a while before we left Idan to go to the movies at 10 pm. The cab (that I called and ordered for all in Hebrew, by myself, even though Idan was there) was picking us up to take us to the airport at 3:30 am, so we were doing what we could to stay up. :) It worked, and I was actually able to get a little sleep on the plane!
I’ll be at camp for most of July, but if you’re in Austin in August...give me a call!