So you may recall that back in October I went on a 4 day trip in Egypt. You may also recall my two part post entitled “Max’s Egyptian Tour Guide”, where I laid out 11 “essential” tips to traveling in Egypt. Well… I left one out.
Tip #12: DON’T LEAVE YOUR VALUABLES OUT IN A HOTEL ROOM IN EILAT!!!
In re-reading the posts, I realized that I didn’t mention our one night stays in Eilat both before and after Egypt. It was a nice enough time – we walked around the beach, went snorkeling, had a great meal, and I certainly had enough of a taste to want to go back before the end of the year. That being said, there was a definite downside that I chose to leave off of this blog at that time. Namely, I was a moron and left my iPod touch out in the hotel room, where it promptly disappeared. I realized it when we were packing up to head home, and after tearing through all of my stuff (and the entire room), I headed down to inform hotel security that it was missing. I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions of foul play, but it was certainly a possibility in my mind. After filing a full report with hotel security (Sidebar: Remember this. Important part of the story.), we loaded up the cab, headed to the bus station, and returned to Ashkelon. Being fairly certain I would never see that iPod again, I went to the mall and bought a new one, poured out a 40 for the dearly departed, and moved on with my life.
This was in October of 2009.
Flash forward to Thursday, January 21st, 2010.
After returning home from a successful morning volunteering at Daliyot (and much less eventful than the day from my last post), I was excited to start my weekend. I grabbed my newish iPod (ironically) to check my mail, and to my surprise, found a Facebook message waiting for me from a name I didn’t recognize. It read as follows:
“Hello Max. I'm investigator in Eilat police. Your stolen ipod was found in Eilat. Please contact with me about how to return it to you.”
Um… WHAT???
It takes a lot to leave me speechless, but that one did it. I hadn’t even given the lost iPod a thought in months, let alone wondering if I’d ever seen it again! Stunned, I quickly logged onto Facebook to look at the guy’s profile, just to make sure he was legit. As soon as I logged on, a good friend of mine from Sabra called me since we were trying to find a time to meet up. After catching up for a few minutes, he says, “Oh, I meant to ask you something. Did you lose an iPod or something in Eilat?”
Um… WHAT???
I didn’t know what was stranger – that he would somehow know about this or that he would bring it up literally FIVE MINUTES after I got that message. I asked him how he would possibly know about that, and he told me a police officer in Eilat called him that morning, told him that they had his friend Max’s iPod, and could he please pass on a phone number for him to call. At this point, the story was rapidly approaching the top of the list of “Most bizarre things to ever happen to Max”. I mean, I was completely flabbergasted. And honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever in my life described myself as flabbergasted. Let’s be real, if this happened to you, would you have ever expected to see the iPod again? I was just considering myself lucky that I didn’t have any important personal information on there. But now it had been found? And not only that, but somehow my friend had gotten involved? Are you kidding me?
I tried to guess how they had tracked down the iPod – best I came up with was that it had been stolen after all by someone who worked at the hotel and had a habit of relieving guests of small electronics, and they had just caught them. So, I called the number to find out what had happened. The detective who had contacted me filled me in – they had found my iPod on a homeless guy, who I presume he was doing something illegal, and when he was caught, they found it suspicious that he had an iPod Touch on him. After receiving permission from a judge, they opened up the iPod and found that it was registered to me, and they also found my friend’s name in the contacts list. Interestingly, I didn’t have my friend’s Israeli cell phone, only an American number he had used during camp. So, through the magic of Facebook, they tracked me down. Now then, remember when I said I went to file a report with hotel security? Well, this is where that comes back into play. Turns out that because I never filed a report for the actual POLICE, I needed to go to the Yokne’am police station and file an official complaint under the case file that they opened. Once I did that, they could figure out how to get it back to me.
So, with my coordinator coming along to provide emotional and linguistic support, I headed to the police station to meet with the local detective. (Sidebar: To give you a sense of Yokne’am’s size, I had to wait a few days to go because the only detective was on his day off.) Now, this guy was pretty much what you would expect an Israeli policeman to be: Loud, abrupt, forceful, bald. Slightly intimidating, to say the least. Luckily, he also spoke English, so I was able to give my statement without much trouble. Afterwards, when we asked him what the next step was, he told us that the man would have to confess the iPod was not his, so that the judge could give permission to go into the iPod to confirm that it was mine. So… the next step was something that already happened that set this whole crazy story into motion… awesome!
And that’s where we are now. Will I actually see the iPod again? No idea. What will I do with a second iPod touch? Don’t know. Is this all a massive practical joke? Quite possible. Is there a moral to this story? Outside of the fact that stupidity is sometimes rewarded, not really. But rest assured, you can watch this space for more updates.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The Perfect Storm
(Note: This entry was originally written for the St. Louis OTZMA blog co-written by Andi and I. Check it out at http://stlotzma.blogspot.com!)
A “perfect storm” is defined by Wikipedia as “an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically.” Besides the fact that Israel is currently experiencing its third straight day of countrywide rainstorms, I think it’s safe to say that today’s events at Daliyot School would fit that description.
So Andi, Tali, and I have been working at Dalyiot for about 2 weeks now, and have had nothing but positive experiences. For the most part, we have been working in various English classes and helping where we can. Also, I have been working with a 1st grader named – you know, let’s just call him Jed, a boy who has had some behavioral issues and has for whatever reason quickly connected with me. The school has been fantastic, the staff has been incredibly supportive, and the kids are a pleasure to teach. That being said, if you’ve ever taught, you know that sometimes you just have one of those days.
Upon arrival to Dalyiot, I headed down to Jed’s class to work with him. Apparently today was immunization day, and his class and many other students were lining up to receive their shots. I got there right before Jed headed in, and he was, as always, very excited to see me. Once we got in, however, Jed was told that they did not have his immunization card and would not be treated. Most kids might take this as a plus – hey, no shot today! Jed, however, was extremely upset to have been left out of something the rest of his class was taking part in. It became impossible to get him to work, and for a while he just sulked in the corner and took out his anger on me. Finally, his teacher and I got to the root of the issue and he pretty much spent the last 10 minutes of class hugging me as hard as he could, until recess came and he forgot all about his troubles.
That was the easy part of my day.
So after that, Andi and I were supposed to go with one of the English teachers to her class. Normally Tali would be with us, but she had been feeling pretty sick and we told her to go home and get some rest. Before reaching the class, a school counselor grabbed me in a rush and started babbling about some kind of major disaster, she desperately needs our help, she can’t teach English, and on and on. Honestly, for a minute I thought I was going to walk into a room with a fire burning and kids playing catch with other kids! Turns out there were about 5 teachers out sick that day, and they needed help covering one of the rooms. So, Andi and I moved to a 4th grade class that we all spend a lot of time in anyway. Now, I walked in expecting to take over English class, but we were then told that it was currently science class. So why was the counselor so concerned about teaching English? No clue, but if someone could explain that I’d be thrilled. So, being unable to teach science in the first place (let alone in Hebrew), the class was introduced to what would end up being 3 hours of English class.
At first (and this wouldn’t be the only time) the class was extremely difficult to get under control. This was one of those times where my classroom experience helped me survive, as I knew some basic ways to get the class under control… that sort of worked. While we were trying to come up with a lesson plan in 10 seconds in front of the class, we thankfully noticed many of the kids asking where Tali was. Not that I’m happy she’s sick, but that saved our butts. For the first hour, we had the kids make get-well cards for her, letting them learn some English while getting to draw and color, a favorite pastime of the class. Unfortunately, the counselor left (I’m sure to deal with another crisis) and we were left alone with our very limited Hebrew skills to control a class of 9-10 year olds. Admittedly, the cards idea worked out great and kept them busy for an hour – but we still had another hour to fill.
For the second hour, Andi and I decided to split the class in half and each take one group for half the time. The class had a test later that day in their actual English class, and I wanted to help them prepare. In my half, we played a game where everyone stands in a circle and tosses a ball around, and when you catch the ball you have to say a word in a certain category, such as “words that start with B”. Since the test was over hobbies, that was the category. The game went well for a little bit, but not surprisingly, it wound up devolving into kids throwing the ball at each other and running around, refusing to pay attention to the guy speaking English at the front of the room. Thankfully the 2nd half of the class went better, as I made sure to better demonstrate how the game worked and how not to toss the ball to each other.
As was par for the course today though, we wound up with another crisis. One particular student in the class is exceptionally good at English, to the point where she almost sounds like a native speaker. Unfortunately, during elementary school it isn’t uncommon for someone to get made fun of for being smart, which was exactly what happened. There’s nothing – NOTHING – more heartbreaking for a teacher than to hear a student talk about how she wishes she was stupid or that she wants to go back in time so she never learned something. Just awful stuff. Sadly, that was the end of our day – the main English teacher came to administer their test, we managed to get the student back into the class, and returned home, where I started writing this.
Now, this was a pretty rough day, and you might think that I have a lower opinion of Daliyot than when I started. To the contrary, my thoughts on Daliyot haven’t changed one bit. It’s still a fantastic school, with remarkable and incredibly supportive staff, and the kids are (normally) great to teach. But, as any teacher knows, sometimes these days just happen. Sometimes, the weather is bad and kids are restless. Sometimes, a kid is upset about something and takes it out on everyone else around him. Sometimes, teachers get sick and have to go home. Sometimes, teachers panic and overreact (Like you’ve never done that?). Sometimes, lesson plans fall apart. Sometimes, kids get bullied. And sometimes, it all happens at once in a perfect storm. But tomorrow morning, I’m going to wake up, get dressed, and head back in for another day. Hopefully, it’ll go better. But if it doesn’t? I’m still gonna do it again every day for the next 2 ½ months. And these days will happen again, and they will be offset by the great days that are much more frequent. That’s just the life we lead – wouldn’t have it any other way.
A “perfect storm” is defined by Wikipedia as “an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically.” Besides the fact that Israel is currently experiencing its third straight day of countrywide rainstorms, I think it’s safe to say that today’s events at Daliyot School would fit that description.
So Andi, Tali, and I have been working at Dalyiot for about 2 weeks now, and have had nothing but positive experiences. For the most part, we have been working in various English classes and helping where we can. Also, I have been working with a 1st grader named – you know, let’s just call him Jed, a boy who has had some behavioral issues and has for whatever reason quickly connected with me. The school has been fantastic, the staff has been incredibly supportive, and the kids are a pleasure to teach. That being said, if you’ve ever taught, you know that sometimes you just have one of those days.
Upon arrival to Dalyiot, I headed down to Jed’s class to work with him. Apparently today was immunization day, and his class and many other students were lining up to receive their shots. I got there right before Jed headed in, and he was, as always, very excited to see me. Once we got in, however, Jed was told that they did not have his immunization card and would not be treated. Most kids might take this as a plus – hey, no shot today! Jed, however, was extremely upset to have been left out of something the rest of his class was taking part in. It became impossible to get him to work, and for a while he just sulked in the corner and took out his anger on me. Finally, his teacher and I got to the root of the issue and he pretty much spent the last 10 minutes of class hugging me as hard as he could, until recess came and he forgot all about his troubles.
That was the easy part of my day.
So after that, Andi and I were supposed to go with one of the English teachers to her class. Normally Tali would be with us, but she had been feeling pretty sick and we told her to go home and get some rest. Before reaching the class, a school counselor grabbed me in a rush and started babbling about some kind of major disaster, she desperately needs our help, she can’t teach English, and on and on. Honestly, for a minute I thought I was going to walk into a room with a fire burning and kids playing catch with other kids! Turns out there were about 5 teachers out sick that day, and they needed help covering one of the rooms. So, Andi and I moved to a 4th grade class that we all spend a lot of time in anyway. Now, I walked in expecting to take over English class, but we were then told that it was currently science class. So why was the counselor so concerned about teaching English? No clue, but if someone could explain that I’d be thrilled. So, being unable to teach science in the first place (let alone in Hebrew), the class was introduced to what would end up being 3 hours of English class.
At first (and this wouldn’t be the only time) the class was extremely difficult to get under control. This was one of those times where my classroom experience helped me survive, as I knew some basic ways to get the class under control… that sort of worked. While we were trying to come up with a lesson plan in 10 seconds in front of the class, we thankfully noticed many of the kids asking where Tali was. Not that I’m happy she’s sick, but that saved our butts. For the first hour, we had the kids make get-well cards for her, letting them learn some English while getting to draw and color, a favorite pastime of the class. Unfortunately, the counselor left (I’m sure to deal with another crisis) and we were left alone with our very limited Hebrew skills to control a class of 9-10 year olds. Admittedly, the cards idea worked out great and kept them busy for an hour – but we still had another hour to fill.
For the second hour, Andi and I decided to split the class in half and each take one group for half the time. The class had a test later that day in their actual English class, and I wanted to help them prepare. In my half, we played a game where everyone stands in a circle and tosses a ball around, and when you catch the ball you have to say a word in a certain category, such as “words that start with B”. Since the test was over hobbies, that was the category. The game went well for a little bit, but not surprisingly, it wound up devolving into kids throwing the ball at each other and running around, refusing to pay attention to the guy speaking English at the front of the room. Thankfully the 2nd half of the class went better, as I made sure to better demonstrate how the game worked and how not to toss the ball to each other.
As was par for the course today though, we wound up with another crisis. One particular student in the class is exceptionally good at English, to the point where she almost sounds like a native speaker. Unfortunately, during elementary school it isn’t uncommon for someone to get made fun of for being smart, which was exactly what happened. There’s nothing – NOTHING – more heartbreaking for a teacher than to hear a student talk about how she wishes she was stupid or that she wants to go back in time so she never learned something. Just awful stuff. Sadly, that was the end of our day – the main English teacher came to administer their test, we managed to get the student back into the class, and returned home, where I started writing this.
Now, this was a pretty rough day, and you might think that I have a lower opinion of Daliyot than when I started. To the contrary, my thoughts on Daliyot haven’t changed one bit. It’s still a fantastic school, with remarkable and incredibly supportive staff, and the kids are (normally) great to teach. But, as any teacher knows, sometimes these days just happen. Sometimes, the weather is bad and kids are restless. Sometimes, a kid is upset about something and takes it out on everyone else around him. Sometimes, teachers get sick and have to go home. Sometimes, teachers panic and overreact (Like you’ve never done that?). Sometimes, lesson plans fall apart. Sometimes, kids get bullied. And sometimes, it all happens at once in a perfect storm. But tomorrow morning, I’m going to wake up, get dressed, and head back in for another day. Hopefully, it’ll go better. But if it doesn’t? I’m still gonna do it again every day for the next 2 ½ months. And these days will happen again, and they will be offset by the great days that are much more frequent. That’s just the life we lead – wouldn’t have it any other way.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
OTZMA Take 2!
Alright, now that I’ve watched Episode 100 of “How I Met Your Mother”… time to BLOG UP!!!
(Sorry. That was dumb.)
(Not sorry enough to delete it though. Anyway…)
First off, a sincere apology. Not for disappearing the past month, because I didn’t have Internet during Sar-El, and I really just wasn’t going to take the time to write anything while on vacation with my family. No, my apology is actually for even earlier. I took a look back this week at what I’ve written the past few months, and noticed that I wrote a whopping total of two posts during November. TWO!!! And neither one was really all that good! When I started this, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to be one of those bloggers that started hot, then never posted after a few months. And damn it, I’m keeping that promise. Also, cause, you know, there’s really not much else to do in Yokne’am. But I’m keeping that promise nonetheless! I will say though, thank you to everyone for repeatedly checking for more posts while I was gone – as of the time I am writing this, Show Me the Shawarma is at 907 hits! I remain unconvinced that it’s more than my parents checking this site 50 times a day (each), but thanks, Mom and Dad! Let’s see how long it takes to hit 1000…
Before getting into the good stuff, I’ll just let you know that I’m not planning on spending any time writing about Sar-El or vacation. Let me sum it up. I didn’t like Sar-El. Most others in the group did, but it wasn’t for me. Honestly, anything I have to say is going to come off sounding negative even if it wasn’t, and I don’t care to spend more time focusing on it. As for my vacation, it was great spending time with my family and being with my parents for their first time in Israel, but there’s nothing to really write about. We saw a lot of ancient Roman-era cities. I got sick for a few days. We spent a lot of time in Jerusalem. Israelis don’t believe in New Years Eve. And everyone went home. The end. Moving on.
So as previously implied, I am now living in the wonderful city town of Yokne’am! Unfortunately, I have yet to take any pictures of the apartment, so for now you’ll have to take me at my word that for what we need, it’s pretty nice. We arrived to find a fully stocked kitchen (Sidebar: A running theme of the past few weeks has been that our staff in Yokne’am is awesome.), with a real stove, oven, and even a microwave! Much better than the propane stove we had in Ashkelon. Next, our living room, complete with couch, table, artwork on the walls, and a TV with 7 stations. The one time we’ve watched it, it was on “Russian TV”, which is news about the former USSR countries in English. Come to think of it, it might also be the last time we turn it on. Moving on, we have the bathroom, complete with really old washing machine and clothesline! I can’t remember if I’ve brought this up here before, but Israelis just don’t believe in dryers. They would much rather use a method made popular by the Puritans. I kid, I kid! (Sidebar: Not really.) Anyway, we then have Andi and Tali’s room, and if you climb through the massive open space at the top of the wall where a window should be, you finally reach my room! Or you can use the door. Whatever works. Here you have my couch/bed, which can pull out into a king-size bed if you don’t want any space to walk around in the room. Across from there you have my wall of drawers and cabinets, which is actually affording me the chance to unpack and spread out for the only time this year. Ah, having my own room again. An underrated commodity.
(Yokne'am. The whole thing.)
So with the written tour being out of the way, let’s talk about what I’ve been doing the past few weeks. Upon arrival last Monday, we were given the day to move in, relax, and had a brief discussion over dinner with Arkady, our main contact and volunteering coordinator. The next day, Arkady took us around town (Sidebar: That took like 10 minutes) and then to Haifa to tour the Bahai Gardens. Google it – they are absolutely gorgeous. The rest of the week was pretty much spent getting acclimated and checking out some volunteering options. Over the weekend, I made the 30 minute bus ride to Haifa for Jeremy’s birthday, where a small group of us went to a concert by the Israeli hip-hop group Hadag Nahash. You’ve actually probably heard them before – if you saw “Don’t Mess With the Zohan” or any of it’s trailers, one of their songs is pretty prominently featured at the beginning. Sure enough, that was their closing song, and I was very surprised and impressed. The rest of the weekend was spent in Yokne’am, as Allie came up to visit for the first time and we had Shabbat dinner with the Hirshes. Hey, if I can’t introduce her to my real family, might as well take her to the adoptive family!
This week started the real volunteering. We’ve been spending every morning at a local elementary school called Daliyot, where my and Andi’s adoptive moms are on the administrative team. I’ve been bouncing around from class to class getting used to the school, but it’s been great so far. The older kids are a lot of fun, and while we’re mainly helping teach English, they’ve been enthusiastic about helping us with our Hebrew as well! It’s also amazing how impressed they are that we’re from America, and how well they remember us after just one meeting. After just 3 days, I can’t walk through the halls without at least 7 kids saying hi to me with a huge smile on their face!
Today was by far the most interesting day. I started off in a 4th grade class, where they were studying math. Not much help there, but they all asked me to stay for their 2nd class, which was English. It was a lot of fun, as I really got to help some of them and the rest had a good time just talking to me – even when they weren’t supposed to! Even though they wanted me to stay longer, I left to go sit in on Ofra’s class before being moved again. Turns out there was a kid named David down in 1st grade with some behavior problems, and they wanted me to bring him up to Ofra. For some reason, the kid connected with me, so they asked me to shadow him for the rest of the day. He actually was pretty good, and interestingly enough, he would only work when I was there with him! Who knows what I did to connect with him, but I think the plan is for me to spend one class a day with him from now on. The real show was at the end of the day. David’s teacher was in a meeting during art, so the art teacher was running the class. With a few minutes before the bell… she disappeared. The main teacher was still in the meeting, so that left me alone in the classroom with a bunch of 1st graders at the end of the day. Ever seen a 1st grade class with no teacher? Now add on that none of them spoke English, and you might have a sense of the chaos I was facing. Furthermore, the rest of the hallway left, so I was alone down there with no idea what was going on. Finally, I called Ofra, and through all the madness and screaming I think she made out my cries for help. The teacher apparently was told what was going on and came to save me – turns out that some classes, including this one, stay later! Doesn’t explain why the art teacher left though… Anyway, this freed me up to go join Andi in a cool little program where some kids play with animals as part of a type of therapy. I was given two little turtles to play with (Sidebar: How do you play with a turtle anyway?), and well… a turtle pooped on me. So I’ve got that going for me.
There’s more to volunteering than just Daliyot, but it’s 1AM and I’m tired, so it’s time to wrap this up. I’ll try to get the pictures up soon, and remember, expect more posts from now on! After all, to sort of quote the poet Stinson, “Nothing suits me like a blog!”
(OK, no more ridiculously bad HIMYM 100th episodes references. Promise.)
(Sorry. That was dumb.)
(Not sorry enough to delete it though. Anyway…)
First off, a sincere apology. Not for disappearing the past month, because I didn’t have Internet during Sar-El, and I really just wasn’t going to take the time to write anything while on vacation with my family. No, my apology is actually for even earlier. I took a look back this week at what I’ve written the past few months, and noticed that I wrote a whopping total of two posts during November. TWO!!! And neither one was really all that good! When I started this, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to be one of those bloggers that started hot, then never posted after a few months. And damn it, I’m keeping that promise. Also, cause, you know, there’s really not much else to do in Yokne’am. But I’m keeping that promise nonetheless! I will say though, thank you to everyone for repeatedly checking for more posts while I was gone – as of the time I am writing this, Show Me the Shawarma is at 907 hits! I remain unconvinced that it’s more than my parents checking this site 50 times a day (each), but thanks, Mom and Dad! Let’s see how long it takes to hit 1000…
Before getting into the good stuff, I’ll just let you know that I’m not planning on spending any time writing about Sar-El or vacation. Let me sum it up. I didn’t like Sar-El. Most others in the group did, but it wasn’t for me. Honestly, anything I have to say is going to come off sounding negative even if it wasn’t, and I don’t care to spend more time focusing on it. As for my vacation, it was great spending time with my family and being with my parents for their first time in Israel, but there’s nothing to really write about. We saw a lot of ancient Roman-era cities. I got sick for a few days. We spent a lot of time in Jerusalem. Israelis don’t believe in New Years Eve. And everyone went home. The end. Moving on.
So as previously implied, I am now living in the wonderful city town of Yokne’am! Unfortunately, I have yet to take any pictures of the apartment, so for now you’ll have to take me at my word that for what we need, it’s pretty nice. We arrived to find a fully stocked kitchen (Sidebar: A running theme of the past few weeks has been that our staff in Yokne’am is awesome.), with a real stove, oven, and even a microwave! Much better than the propane stove we had in Ashkelon. Next, our living room, complete with couch, table, artwork on the walls, and a TV with 7 stations. The one time we’ve watched it, it was on “Russian TV”, which is news about the former USSR countries in English. Come to think of it, it might also be the last time we turn it on. Moving on, we have the bathroom, complete with really old washing machine and clothesline! I can’t remember if I’ve brought this up here before, but Israelis just don’t believe in dryers. They would much rather use a method made popular by the Puritans. I kid, I kid! (Sidebar: Not really.) Anyway, we then have Andi and Tali’s room, and if you climb through the massive open space at the top of the wall where a window should be, you finally reach my room! Or you can use the door. Whatever works. Here you have my couch/bed, which can pull out into a king-size bed if you don’t want any space to walk around in the room. Across from there you have my wall of drawers and cabinets, which is actually affording me the chance to unpack and spread out for the only time this year. Ah, having my own room again. An underrated commodity.
(Yokne'am. The whole thing.)This week started the real volunteering. We’ve been spending every morning at a local elementary school called Daliyot, where my and Andi’s adoptive moms are on the administrative team. I’ve been bouncing around from class to class getting used to the school, but it’s been great so far. The older kids are a lot of fun, and while we’re mainly helping teach English, they’ve been enthusiastic about helping us with our Hebrew as well! It’s also amazing how impressed they are that we’re from America, and how well they remember us after just one meeting. After just 3 days, I can’t walk through the halls without at least 7 kids saying hi to me with a huge smile on their face!
Today was by far the most interesting day. I started off in a 4th grade class, where they were studying math. Not much help there, but they all asked me to stay for their 2nd class, which was English. It was a lot of fun, as I really got to help some of them and the rest had a good time just talking to me – even when they weren’t supposed to! Even though they wanted me to stay longer, I left to go sit in on Ofra’s class before being moved again. Turns out there was a kid named David down in 1st grade with some behavior problems, and they wanted me to bring him up to Ofra. For some reason, the kid connected with me, so they asked me to shadow him for the rest of the day. He actually was pretty good, and interestingly enough, he would only work when I was there with him! Who knows what I did to connect with him, but I think the plan is for me to spend one class a day with him from now on. The real show was at the end of the day. David’s teacher was in a meeting during art, so the art teacher was running the class. With a few minutes before the bell… she disappeared. The main teacher was still in the meeting, so that left me alone in the classroom with a bunch of 1st graders at the end of the day. Ever seen a 1st grade class with no teacher? Now add on that none of them spoke English, and you might have a sense of the chaos I was facing. Furthermore, the rest of the hallway left, so I was alone down there with no idea what was going on. Finally, I called Ofra, and through all the madness and screaming I think she made out my cries for help. The teacher apparently was told what was going on and came to save me – turns out that some classes, including this one, stay later! Doesn’t explain why the art teacher left though… Anyway, this freed me up to go join Andi in a cool little program where some kids play with animals as part of a type of therapy. I was given two little turtles to play with (Sidebar: How do you play with a turtle anyway?), and well… a turtle pooped on me. So I’ve got that going for me.
There’s more to volunteering than just Daliyot, but it’s 1AM and I’m tired, so it’s time to wrap this up. I’ll try to get the pictures up soon, and remember, expect more posts from now on! After all, to sort of quote the poet Stinson, “Nothing suits me like a blog!”
(OK, no more ridiculously bad HIMYM 100th episodes references. Promise.)
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