Where did the time go?

February and March completely flew by. I have no idea where the time went and how it is already April. February had a few noteworthy events:

 I visited my adoptive family in Ashkelon for the weekend, getting away from the desert and spending some time in the beach was just want I needed. I missed this city. I lived there for only 2 months in the beginning of the program but I love it, as I have blogged about it in previous notes. I rested, laid on the beach, and just relaxed. Most of my weekdays are filled with teaching, coaching, tutoring, and learning, so this free time just for myself felt fantastic. 

Ashkelon beach :)

OTZMA also had a Shabbat Mifgash, where our program meets with a group of Israelis who work in the summer camps in the states. Shabbat Mifgash means a meeting over the Shabbas weekend. We participated in ice breakers and discussions, went into the woods for some team bonding activities, brought in Shabbat together, continued some more discussions and just got to know each other. One of my favorite activities was the “Speed dating” where our madrichim sat us in two circles: and inner circle facing the outer circle, all mixed in with each other (Israelis/OZTMAnikim). We were paired up and given a question to discuss. The questions ranged from “If you could invent something, what would it be?” to “the most romantic thing you’ve done/had done for you.” After each question one of the circles would move a few seats so we got to talk to almost everyone. Another activity I really enjoyed was called “Beseder/ Lo Beseder” which means “Okay/Not okay.” The way this worked was our madrichim would bring up a topic or an issue and each one of us would say if it was beseder or lo beseder for them. It was really interesting to see all of the different perspectives from everyone, especially among the Israelis. The topics ranged from Justin Bieber to the settlements in the West Bank to Gilad Shalit. 

March brought many good things. My birthday being one of them!

So Nili, our sweet, sweet program coordinator of a mom took Shauna and me out to lunch for my birthday in Beer Sheva. We went to this really nice Chinese restaurant and wined and dined for a good two hours. The next day I received two cakes for my birthday! One from Shauna and one from the teacher I work with Karen. She is such a sweet and amazing woman!

 That night I ventured to Ashkelon to meet up with my friends Arielle and Rachel also from OTZMA, because the next morning, we were headed up North to go……SKY DIVING!!! Yes I finally went sky diving! It was a gift to myself for my birthday. We trekked by train to the North, up close to Haifa. The place was in Habonim beach and the landscape was absolutely beautiful. We couldn’t have asked for better weather that day. Max, another OTZMAnik met up with us and decided to sky dive last minute too. How spontaneous! We were all freaking out, but we were determined to go through with it. I don’t think it really hit me until I was loaded into the plane. I was the first one in, which meant last one out! I had to sit through and watch all of my friends fall out of the plane before me! That was torture. I can’t even begin to describe the feeling I felt when I first fell out of the plane. A gist of it is like when you dream that you are falling and then you jerk yourself awake, it is that feeling before you jerk awake. And it also lasted more than a second! The experience just falling and flying through the sky was beyond amazing, especially getting to see the beautiful Israel landscape below me. My sky diver was so tall that I could stand on his feet while we were in the air!

After falling from the sky, all of us traveled to Haifa to visit some more OTZMAnikim living there. This was my first time to Haifa and it was beautiful! There were quite a few others that traveled up to Haifa for the weekend as well so we all went out to a nice dinner! The plans were to go out to this local bar for the night, but I felt sick (due to my ongoing stomach problems) so I stayed in and others went out. Bummer. But the next night I got to go out!

reenacting skydiving

After dealing with some health issues- and a special thanks to my host family who helped me out with it all, I got to attend the Building Future Leaders Conference hosted by MASA. So I was two days late but I was caught up to speed and enjoyed the rest of my time there. Along with several other OTZMAnikim, hundreds of other MASA participants were there. It was nice to meet other people from different programs in Israel. For the rest of the week there were workshops and seminars and discussions that were helpful and insightful for us. We also had another outdoorsy team bonding day with our groups. For one of the teamwork obstacles, I offered to NOT be the leader of the group because I thought someone else could do a better job at the task (which was to direct the team in opening a well and getting a bucket in the well without some of them seeing, and being directed by a partner whom I was directing without speaking!) I wish I was able to explain that better, but that is how complicated the task was. To add on to that, we were timed! So since I volunteered myself to be anything other than the leader, the rest of my group volunteered me to be the leader! So… I stepped up and became the leader. My group for the whole conference included some amazing people and I was really lucky to end up in this group. I love MASA events because I am meeting people just like me from all over the world in different programs all living in Israel. It’s unfortunate that I only have 3 more months left on the program…

some of the amazing people in my group!