Purim and Robert Frost

I have lived in Israel now for almost 7 months. This past weekend was Purim which is celebrated by wearing costumes and partaking in mammash debauchery. 

Celebrating the holidays and experiencing day to day life in Israel has in many ways renewed my sense of spirituality. I'd like to share a story in order to illustrate what I mean.

When I was 10, I lost my music folder right before I had a very important chorus rehearsal. I remember hearing the door bell ring notifying me that my carpool had arrived and I began to panic.  I started throwing everything out of my closet, messing up all my drawers, and scattering papers off my sister and my desk (which would definitely get me into trouble with her later, but in the current frame of mind I wasn't thinking about these consequences). I needed that music folder. Today, we were rehearing our performance music for an upcoming tour to New York where we would be singing at Carnegie Hall. Our artistic director was going to check to see if we had all our music with us today and since the intensity was high with only a few weeks until the departure date, I was scared to show up without my music. It didn't help too that at the time, I was slightly terrified of my artistic director and felt the deep urge to continually impress her with my diligence and practice. The doorbell rang again, and I was losing myself. I was going to have to answer the door but how could I?  I ran outside into the backyard to escape the pressure of searching and I looked up into the clouds and asked God to help me. “Hello God” I said naively as if there was actually some old man with a beard up in the clouds looking down at me. “I never talk to you but today I really need your help. If you can show me, direct me, lead me somehow to my music folder, I will be eternally grateful”. I closed my eyes and listened for a moment. I could hear the wind ruffling the leaves on trees but no one responded. Turning back to the house, I ran straight to our front door and opened it to see the mother of my friend waiting patiently on the opposite side smiling at me warmly. She waved her hand in a gesture that we ought to get going. "Ok" and I turned to the closet to grab my coat. My thoughts were racing as I lifted my mom, sister, and brother’s jackets and finally found my grey fleece. I took it off the shelf and as I brought it near me, there…glimmering like ruby buried deep under the earth…was my red music folder. I couldn’t believe it. I stared at it wide eyed for a moment and then grabbed it and put it under my arm. Right before running out to the car, I paused for a second feeling the whole world come to stand still and facing the closet I whispered a little thank you.

As I reflect on my decision to come to Israel and my decisions about what I will do next I can't help but think of a famous poem my Robert Frost. I have come to points in my life when I've had to make decisions about what path to take. Should I take the path less traveled or take the road ahead. My Oma once told me to always be thankful and always come back to my mediation. Trust the universe that things will happen the way they were meant to and to have a little faith. My sense of spirituality has grown and become a bigger part of who I am as a person and I couldn't be more thankful.

And just because...

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverded in a yellow wood,
Amd sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent to the undergrowth

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kepy the first for another day!
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

Robert Frost

Matt and Alex

After being in Israel for 5 months, I think my expectations for what this journey would be like have been superseded and I am happy to have had the opportunities thus far to travel and teach English in a foreign country. However, this blog isn’t going to be about my travels or teaching. I would like to tell you about two pretty fantastic people. I have been lucky enough to get to know.

Not long ago, I met my apartment mates who I would be living with for 10 glorious months. They were two young attractive men by the names of Matt and Alex.  Living with a girl provided an interesting experience for Matt and Alex for they would have to get used to surplus amounts of hair being found in every facet of the apartment imaginable. Now Matt and Alex got along right away due to their Reddit fetish and obsession with… Reddit, as all three of us started getting to know each other, it truly was magic and I can say now with 99% certainty, I have the best apartment mates in all of the world.

Let me start with Matt Hunt. He is both attractive, charming, and totally not weird. He likes to draw pictures of dinosaurs sometimes. He also is terrific at drawing sunsets. I was amazed at the mere stamina and endurance Matt has for playing particle accelerator, a game that shoots particles into a maze and uses magnets to push the particles across the screen. He will be auditioning for one of the two lead role in Bound 3, filmed in the months to come. Something special about Matt is his love for talking about feelings. He will sit for hours on a cold floor as long as there is a discussion about anything relating to the human experience.

Now for Alex. Alex enjoys yelling whatever is on his mind. He creates sacrifice towers outside our window out of candy that is not tasty and vegetables that are deemed unworthy. He can sound remarkably like a baby and an old man. He will be auditioning for the other lead role in Bound 3, filmed in the months to come. Something special about Alex is he took a career assessment test once that said he would make an excellent farmer.

In short, go Seahawks and look out for Bound 3 coming out in the months to come.

Italy in Hanukkah

Hanukkah is a major holiday in Israel. So I will be flying to Italy over Hanukkah to spend 8 glorious days traveling from Northern to Southern Italy with the amazing Anna Tzizik! We will be eating the best food there is, drinking the best wine there is, and not to mention seeing the birthplace of the Renaissance. As our friend, Matt, likes to say, "Huzzah!". Two days until departure, break hasn't even started and I am already there.

OUR ITINERARY... Abridged:

Depart Tel Aviv Friday at 1am and arrive in Belgium at 5 in the morning for an 8 hour layover. This is when Anna and I train to Brussels and get Chocolate Belgium Waffles and Beer.

Depart Belgium (au revoir); arrive in Venice just before sunset (taking in city from the sky, there will be lots of photos so don't worry!)

Meet ANNA'S EXTENDED FAMILY! Yes, we will be staying with her legit Italian family (So, YES there will be wine and awesome home cooked meals) Vicenza! is the name of the city and will be our departure point for the beginning escapades.

Next few days, totally and completely unplanned and I couldn't be happier to spontaneously adventure through Northern Italy with Anna and perhaps see few other countries as well nearby!

Head south and meet Anna's other family who just happens to live in ROME!!

AND...as the saying goes...WHEN IN ROME :-)

Off to Florence! Our amazing friend Sarah (who lived in Florence) provided us the golden list of what to see and what to do. We will hopefully complete all of these things before time runs out.

Then we take the day train back to Venice and laugh from the tremendous memories made in our 8 days of Hanukkah trip to Italy

Arrive in B'eer Sheva at 4am. Just enough time to change clothes, pop an aleve, and head to our 7am teacher training class.YESH!

So, that's the plan. Will write again after to let everyone know the results :-)


Ciao!

Miss Lowen? Who is that?

Teaching is the best and worst job.Some days I exit the school grounds and I can't stop smiling. Other days I am trying as fast as I can to return to my bed so I can crawl under the covers and fall asleep. I teach 1st through 6th grade.Typically I work with 4-6 students per period. I now know all my kids names, and they call me Becca and sometimes Miss Lowen which always makes me slightly uncomfortable. Because I mean who likes to see themselves as a grown up. One day, I entered the first grade class to drop off a key, and all the 1st graders stood up and I literally stopped and looked around to make sure nothing had happened. But all the little kiddos stood there staring at me waiting for me to do something. So I just broke into a smile and walked back out of the class. .. while they giggled. Bemet.
The most challenging aspect of teaching for me has been 1. never feeling good enough 2. disciplining. If the kids don't absorb the material or the lesson plan isn't as interesting as the lesson the previous week and I can't keep their attention, I feel like a total failure as a teacher. I have learned that certain methods of teaching work better than others and certain methods definitely do not work. For example:
1. Station learning works very well: They can work on an activity for the duration of a song and then when the song ends, time to switch!
2. Scavenger hunts for clues around the school so everyone is up and moving, and who doesn't like a little competition
3. Skits!!
4. Lecturing definitely does NOT work
5. Using songs can help
I try to remember on the bad days when a student might have been particularly disruptive or not interested in learning English that I will have a larger impact on that student if I can be patient and calm and remember that teaching is about figuring out what it is the pupil is interested in learning and using whatever that is to propel the student into an engaged and motivated mindset. One of my favorite students (is it bad to say I have favorites) was very challenging in the beginning because he didn't enjoy sitting. Every day he would climb on the table while we were doing an activity and it would be very difficult to get him to stay put. So one day he came up to me during hafsaka (recess) and asked me if I know how to break dance? I told him no, but could he show me? So he began a little minny break dance series right there completely improvised. So the next day I decided to teach the names of body parts and had him teach us a few break dance moves in English at the end. I think he loved it and so did everyone else. Mostly because it was fun! That day I left smiling.

The Pursuit of Happiness

In the Times News article “The Happiness of the Pursuit”, Jeffrey Kluger examines the nature of the search for happiness in a country built on the fundamental idea that we the people of the United States are gifted the riches of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The author speculates that it is up to the individual to find the joy in life and even though “you might have to work hard, you’ll have a grand time doing it.”Although the article is compelling and draws a number of excellent conclusions on why the happiness impulse, biological and political in its origin, has its advantages; I am compelled to argue that in fact we have become paralyzed by having to make choices and we need not pursue happiness as the ultimate goal but instead find individual purpose for a life of fulfillment and happiness.
I am 23 years old and was raised on the saying “do what makes you happy”. The question of course then became what makes me happy? And the pursuit began, a search manifesting itself in my life like a repeat song on a long and winding run. The song would play and I would get excited and then after hearing the song again and again, I began to feel sick from the frustration I felt. Pursuing happiness might have been a knee jerk response my parents said to me to be fatherly or motherly in the moment. Nevertheless, the re-surging mantra persisted and I struggled as I pressed forward always imagining what could be my own unique little fishbowl world of happiness. What I learned after reflecting on how silly it all seemed to be worrying about happiness, paradoxical even, was that happiness was not meant to be pursued but lived and if instead I worked hard towards a goal, any goal, I would be happy.
The first question that comes to mind is what makes someone happy? Malcolm Gladwell discusses in his TED Talk on “Happiness and the invention of Tomato Sauce” how happiness is not as intuitive as it sounds. Food companies had been relentless in trying to create an ideal tomato sauce when in fact none existed and if they were to instead create the ideal tomato sauces, there would be something almost everyone would want. Previously the accepted belief was that tomato sauce should taste like the traditional Italian tomato sauce which was a thin basil blend. Yet in a blind taste test, 1/3 of people actually preferred their sauce chunky. Now imagine that you are the tomato sauce company and you get to choose which tomato sauce you want to make. You could choose a tomato sauce that you enjoy or one you think other people will enjoy or find out what people subconsciously enjoy and make a tomato sauce for them and probably be hugely successful. The truth of the matter is that if you were to figure out the groupings of what kinds of tomato sauces make you happy then, any and all of them would do. The choice of course would be difficult to make, but there would be no need to worry about making the wrong decision because there would be no better tomato sauces, only different flavors. When given more choices, we start having higher expectations and become more disappointed when things are not as good as we think they ought to be. What I learned from the re-invention of the tomato sauce and the pursuit of happiness is that there is no tomato sauce that is better. Believing there is can lead to a life of searching and dissatisfaction. Therefore it is critical not to compare but rather pick something good for you and dedicate hard work to pursuing whatever is good.
I grew up and around a host of inspirational people. My mother was a family doctor who started her own family practice of all women doctors assisting people more than as a medical professional but as a caring individual who would lend a listening ear. My father was a magician; he made childhood the most wonderful experience for me and my two siblings without letting his work interfere with our happiness. And then there was my grandmother who survived the Holocaust after being pushed out of France and has lived to tell the tale. The stories I heard from her growing up made me particularly critical of the pursuit of individual happiness because to me life was always going to be unpredictable and dedicating a life to myself when so many people around the world suffered would be difficult for reasons I later concluded had to do with empathy. Being conflicted on whether or not to pursue happiness is what led me to ultimately writing about it and what I have decided is that happiness was never meant to be pursued but lived and through happiness I would find my purpose.
Take a moment and think about people in your life who you would consider to be successful. Now take a moment and think about the people in your life that are happy. Is it their outlook, is it their smile? Is it their passion or love for what they do? Consumptive happiness or as my mom and I like to call it “retail therapy” as mentioned by Jeffrey Kluger has become a national past time. Kluger points out that even though we have the happy feeling when searching for something at the store, after impulsively purchasing an item, we feel terrible inside. Going back to the relentless search and dissatisfaction at the end, perhaps if we had more purpose entering a store, we would feel better afterwards. What if we entered the grocery store pretending we it was a museum filled with beautiful items. Each item carefully crafted and you have the opportunity to pick which item you will take home with you.We all need to buy things, and we might not have time to spend every day at the grocery store walking up and down the produce aisle admiring how beautiful each eggplant and cucumber truly is perfectly on display. But, choosing to spend time thinking about what to buy or spending time creating your life instead of mindlessly walking through life seems to me makes everything seem slightly more illuminated. 
There are toys to stimulate our minds and distractions to keep us having fun. But how do we stop people from being bored and dissatisfied? I don’t believe there is such a thing as chronic happiness. I think that happiness comes in waves and typically when we least expect it. We spend less time with family and more time working than ever before. What about working on reflecting on what it is you are trying to accomplish. When you complete a goal, it might not seem exciting at the time. But years down the road, all the accomplishments will build up and you will be remembered for the great accomplishments in your life time. True happiness is not the immediate pleasures but all the little successes along the way. It may not be obvious until you look back but one day you will begin to see what was good about your life and all the happy moments that you shared with the ones you loved.

References

Jeffrey Kluger, "Happiness of the Pursuit". July 8th, 2013.

 http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2146449,00.html

Malcolm Gladwell, TED Talk, “Happiness and the invention of Tomato Sauce”

 http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html

Blurred Lines

There are no lines here. I walked into the pharmacy and picked up shampoo and conditioner before heading to the cash registers. All were occupied so I waited patiently until the next cashier looked available. I saw that one lady was getting her receipt and began inching my way closer, when all of a sudden an Israeli walks right past me and sets her stuff down to pay. I couldn't believe it, I have to admit I was slightly offended. I looked at the cashier to see a look, or anything that she noticed this woman had cut me in line. But there was no such look. Being "rude" is more or less how one gets stuff done in Israel. If you are waiting for the bus and decide to be patient until it is "your turn", you will never get on the bus. People cut each other frequently and it's no big deal. You are just supposed to stick out your elbows and fight your way to the front.
I tried fasting for Yom Kippur to experience what it is like to not eat for 24 hours. I was grumpy and tired and might have reflected a little bit, but I felt so good breaking the fast with a big hearty meal of Shukshuka and garlic bread.

I have been taking Hebrew classes and going to various teacher training workshops to get ready for my first big day teaching. My routine of teaching 5-6 days a week will begin October 1st after Sukkot (the next and final Jewish holiday during the month of September), and I couldn't be more pumped! Putting together lesson plans has been by biggest challenge. I am working with 1st through 6th graders at my Elementary School. So far, I have activities surrounding food and body parts. I still have a lot of work to do before October 1st obviously :-). When I visited the school, the principal introduced me to all the teachers and showed me the room where I will be teaching. The school is quaint and very beautiful. There are pots of flowers everywhere and the actual school is located near the edge of the desert so there is a view of the Negev from the playground.

The school is semi-religious and the principal informed me that they practice something called horizontal student to student mediation where the kids will help each other solve conflicts that arise out in the court yard or in the hallways before involving a teacher or an adult to help students gain problem solving skills. Additionally, the students are educated about the state of Israel and how to keep Israel green a midst all the development that is happening right now in the country. I brought 2 fellows with me to visit the school on my second visit and we worked with a group of 3 students. I was amazed at the English the three of them knew. We worked on their practice vocabulary lesson surrounding food by taking turns pretending to be on a cooking show using the names of ingredients to explain to "the audience" what he/she was cooking. It was a bit of a mess, but I think we all had fun and learned a few English words in the process.

We also met the teachers and I found out that all the female teachers wear long skirts and cardigans covering their elbows. It is amazing to me that they don't have heat stroke when it is so hot here!

Women's Fashion...sexy can I?

I bought a soccer ball after visiting my cousins a few weeks back so I could play soccer with other fellows and hopefully the students at the elementary school. Every time an Israeli sees me with a soccer ball, I get a look of confusion. I went to a Hookah bar last night and met three Israeli guys who are in their first year in the army. I told them about how I get funny looks for playing with my soccer ball and they explained to me that girls don't  really play soccer because it isn't "girly"... then they helped teach me a few curse words. I must be the weirdest girl in Israel. I play soccer and I curse.

The next week, I am on break and will be visiting Tel Aviv for a few days and then camping in the desert for some hippie festival :-) Thinking of all my friends and family back at home. Love&Peace

Be Flexible

A lot has happened in the last week. Rosh Hashana happened and I spent 4 days in central Israel with super distant cousins but I feel as though they are just family because we get along in that way. I ate really great food and drank and even napped in the afternoons. It was amazing!

Celebrating birthdays with family on RH

Family photos

PITA and HUMMUS

 I learned a lot about Israelis and a lot about myself as an American by hanging out with Israelis. First interesting difference is that it is not uncommon for family to get together for Shabbat dinners and the high holidays and when I say family gets together, it means 20-30 people and sometimes more. I also learned that with family there is no need to be politically correct, you just need to tell the truth and that is all and Israelis listen to everything you say. I learned something about myself as an American, that we like to do things by the book and we tend to be very polite. For example, I bought my train ticket and the machine didn't read my ticket so I went to ask the guard about it and some Israeli stopped me and showed me that I can just walk around through the disability gate. Of course! I bought the ticket so there is no problem.

Tomorrow I am visiting the school where I will be for the next 10 months and I couldn't be more nervous and excited. Today, we reunited with fellows in the other cities to meet the Ministry of Education representatives and our pedagogical mentors to learn about the Israeli public education school system and to get stoked on teaching.

Earlier today I was placed in a secular elementary school with my dear friend/another fellow Anna at a secular school. However, my director, Maor, came to me an hour ago and told me that he would like me to teach at a semi-religious elementary school by myself. I told him, "But I speak in broken Hebrew!" And in the most reassuring and comforting way that only Maor can respond in a situation when I am on the verge of a panic attack, he told me he believes and trusts that I will be great. Anna, my former teaching partner in crime/ confidante, reassured me and said awesomely "You become alive at the end of your comfort zone". The most cheesy, but I laughed and I'm getting more and more excited for the opportunity to be by myself at a school to have the chance to grow as a teacher and as a student of Hebrew.

The school is walking distance from my apartment. I will know more information after tomorrow but for now all I can say is that I have learned that being flexible is a gift to yourself and cheesy quotes help sometimes.