My first day waking up in Israel was pretty good. I successfully navigated around the college to get to the offices I needed to get to (its a pretty small campus, but all the buildings look the same, and are not labeled well). I then went to the high school I will be teaching at - Ort Kramim. It is right next door to the college, so I can luckily walk there and back everyday. Our point of contact from the school showed us around, introduced us to the principal and many teachers, and gave us our schedules for the month. I am teaching with another MIT student named Mika, who thankfully can speak Russian and Hebrew. Together we will teach many different classes - Chemistry, Biology, Math, Physics, English, and Mechatronics. In some classes we are just doing enrichment activities, and in some we will actually be teaching the lesson.
After our day at the school, I came back to my room, relaxed and ate lunch. Then went for a run around campus - and got plenty of odd stares. Apparently its not very common for woman to work out here…even less common for people to be working out when its raining. I did end up getting poured on, but when I got back to my room and looked out the window, I saw a gorgeous rainbow in front of me. I LOVE rainbows, and haven't seen one in a few years! It led me to read Genesis 7-9, the story of Noah; for just as God established a covenant with Noah with the rainbow, I remembered how God has promised to provide for all of my needs and to protect me. And from that, all I wanted to do was praise God, for what He did in the DR, for getting me to Israel safely, for His beauty, and for all that He would do in the coming month. No matter what He will take care of me; He knows my needs before I do and will always provide.
For dinner on Monday, three of my suite mates made me some Israeli/Yemen food. It consisted of little bread things that you put sautéed veggies on, edamames, hash brown like things made out of corn, and they insisted on me having coke with it haha. It was quite good, and getting to talk to them and laugh with them was so great. We kept talking and saying that I was helping them study for their english test so in reality they didn't need to go study. Afterwards my MIT friends Bridget and Kathleen came over, which meant another late night…
On Tuesday, Mika and I had our first real day of teaching. I taught for the first few minutes, introducing ourselves, talking about MIT, what we studied etc. Then because it was a computer class and Mika is a computer science major, she took over the rest of the class. Overall it went pretty well. The rest of the day was filled with meeting with different teachers. The rest of the day was pretty relaxed, and I finally got to bed somewhat early.
Today (Wednesday), I was teaching on my own at 8:45 am, a 12th grade Chemistry class. But because I had barely slept in so long…my body slept through my 4 alarms and woke up at 8:30am…which meant I jumped out of bed, basically ran to the school, and got to the classroom only a few minutes late (and the normal teacher wasn't even there yet). I don't even think she noticed I was late. I of course felt awful about waking up so late, and prayed the entire time I was walking there. Prayed God would work through me despite things not happening as I wanted them to that morning. And He did. The lesson ended up going very well (thank you Mrs. Sherman, my high school chemistry teacher), the students were attentive and interested, the teacher was surprised at how much information I was able to teach, and graciously thanked me. That was the only class I was teaching that day, so I came back to my room, read, slept etc. I wanted to go for a run…but it hasn't stopped raining since I got here! Today it was even thunder storming and hailing, not something I thought I would ever see on palm trees. My roommate was shocked - it was the first time she had ever seen 'snow'. Lucky me, the first time I come to Israel is during the worst winter they have had since 1992.
I don't have to teach tomorrow because all of my classes got canceled due to assemblies. Which means I am going to Tel Aviv tonight with Kathleen, then to Jerusalem for the weekend. Ill be back Saturday night!
After our day at the school, I came back to my room, relaxed and ate lunch. Then went for a run around campus - and got plenty of odd stares. Apparently its not very common for woman to work out here…even less common for people to be working out when its raining. I did end up getting poured on, but when I got back to my room and looked out the window, I saw a gorgeous rainbow in front of me. I LOVE rainbows, and haven't seen one in a few years! It led me to read Genesis 7-9, the story of Noah; for just as God established a covenant with Noah with the rainbow, I remembered how God has promised to provide for all of my needs and to protect me. And from that, all I wanted to do was praise God, for what He did in the DR, for getting me to Israel safely, for His beauty, and for all that He would do in the coming month. No matter what He will take care of me; He knows my needs before I do and will always provide.
For dinner on Monday, three of my suite mates made me some Israeli/Yemen food. It consisted of little bread things that you put sautéed veggies on, edamames, hash brown like things made out of corn, and they insisted on me having coke with it haha. It was quite good, and getting to talk to them and laugh with them was so great. We kept talking and saying that I was helping them study for their english test so in reality they didn't need to go study. Afterwards my MIT friends Bridget and Kathleen came over, which meant another late night…
On Tuesday, Mika and I had our first real day of teaching. I taught for the first few minutes, introducing ourselves, talking about MIT, what we studied etc. Then because it was a computer class and Mika is a computer science major, she took over the rest of the class. Overall it went pretty well. The rest of the day was filled with meeting with different teachers. The rest of the day was pretty relaxed, and I finally got to bed somewhat early.
Today (Wednesday), I was teaching on my own at 8:45 am, a 12th grade Chemistry class. But because I had barely slept in so long…my body slept through my 4 alarms and woke up at 8:30am…which meant I jumped out of bed, basically ran to the school, and got to the classroom only a few minutes late (and the normal teacher wasn't even there yet). I don't even think she noticed I was late. I of course felt awful about waking up so late, and prayed the entire time I was walking there. Prayed God would work through me despite things not happening as I wanted them to that morning. And He did. The lesson ended up going very well (thank you Mrs. Sherman, my high school chemistry teacher), the students were attentive and interested, the teacher was surprised at how much information I was able to teach, and graciously thanked me. That was the only class I was teaching that day, so I came back to my room, read, slept etc. I wanted to go for a run…but it hasn't stopped raining since I got here! Today it was even thunder storming and hailing, not something I thought I would ever see on palm trees. My roommate was shocked - it was the first time she had ever seen 'snow'. Lucky me, the first time I come to Israel is during the worst winter they have had since 1992.
I don't have to teach tomorrow because all of my classes got canceled due to assemblies. Which means I am going to Tel Aviv tonight with Kathleen, then to Jerusalem for the weekend. Ill be back Saturday night!
The view from my dorm room, where I saw the rainbow!
The building I live in.
Late night snacking on Israeli chocolate :) 
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