In Which We Choose a Roommate for the Dog

Life is very cyclical.

Think back to my arrival in Israel... those of you who are more memory-inclined will remember the circumstances under which I chose my residence. For those who are not, I will remind you of the beginnings of a fast friendship forged between myself and the Lady Bamba, whose lack of involvement with the actual lease does not deter her from exerting her full authority and dominance over the apartment itself.

Now, just a few weeks before the year and a half mark since my move, Bamba is once again faced with a new roommate. You may be asking yourselves, "if Shani spent so long raving about the apartment, and how easy it is to get to work, why has she decided to leave it?" Well, settle down everyone -- I am not going anywhere. We have added a fourth member into our little household.

Meet Cola.

Cola, five months old (and currently curled up at my feet), joined us two weeks ago. The First Lady was miffed upon his arrival -- she was not so easily inclined to share her dominion with the newcomer, but slowly and surely he has begun to make himself at home, and his predecessor has begun to adapt.

That being said, we had an incident earlier this week in which Cola decided that adventure called... for those of you who don't follow my facebook updates, he managed to get out and we couldn't find him for hours. We put posters up around the area, called every vet in town leaving our numbers, updated on facebook (between the two of us, I think that Einat and I have close to 4,000 facebook friends -- and unlike myself, many of hers actually live in the area). Thanks to the decency of our friends and the wonders of modern technology, word was spread all over the city, and later that night we got a phone call telling us there was a very anxious and frightened puppy waiting to be taken home. He had been found by a little girl who called her mom, crying, and said "MOM! I found a puppy and he's crying and I don't know what to do!!"

While Einat and I are thoroughly relieved that things ended the way they did, we can't help but be convinced that Bamba engineered the whole thing. That dog would make a great gangster.

Cola and I, in the recent weeks, have had a great deal of time to bond... this is a bittersweet affair, however. While I am thrilled at the opportunity to stay at home all day long and play with the new puppy, it is unfortunately due to an incident that took place a few weeks ago, the likes of which I have not experienced since I was sixteen.

Friends who intend to chase after buses in the rain, be warned: sometimes you're better off just being late.

After attempting this myself, I managed a spectacular bodily crumple in the street -- legs protruding in unusual directions from underneath my torso, I stayed stationary in the rain for about a half hour until, with the help of three strangers, I was able to hoist myself onto a nearby bench and call for help. The evening, instead of being spent in a relaxed and enjoyable Pacapella rehearsal and then in busy preparations for one of my most important and most stressful days at work (which was to include a cautionary hearing about one of my students -- who, as of this week, is no longer at the school, a drastic measure that I was admittedly not expecting!), resulted instead in five hours at the emergency room (accompanied by my dear and patient cousin, Shmulik), a pair of crutches (fetched willingly by my dear friend Salit), a small bottle of optalgin (not strong enough), a swollen, bandaged, purple foot, and now close to three weeks at home, completely detached from my job and my students. My only contact with them was last Friday, when, armed with their end-of-semester report cards, I hobbled into the classroom to distribute them, smiling through hugs and good wishes, before I then hobbled back home again for more nourishing -- albeit slightly boring -- rest.

I still maintain my streak of no broken bones -- but it is beyond me how a simple sprain can lead to such sensations, over two weeks later, as that of a foot that has been freshly forged out of liquid steel at the local smithy. Were it not for the distinct lack of smithies in Tel Aviv, I would consider that as a very feasible explanation for the pain. As it is, however, I am sticking with the Sprain Theory. Further hypotheses welcome.

Now, I feel that in recent posts, my blog has been dominated by stories about my job -- due to a desire to discuss other aspects of my life, as well as my involuntary hiatus, I am working quite diligently to provide details about Life, the Universe, and Everything Unrelated to My School. I will, therefore, continue on that track and describe another event that took place this week that you may find of interest.

Saturday afternoon, we celebrated Ilan's bar mitzvah. ("Who is Ilan?" I hear you ask... well, Ilan is Alon's younger brother. "And who is Alon??" is the predictable subsequent question... well, if you don't know that, it's time you logged onto skype and gave me a call. I'm not THAT far away. And clearly we have plenty to talk about.)

For those of you who have been to my family affairs, you know what a production they always are -- especially those of you who are NOT of Israeli descent and are not used to the bells and whistles that many families attach lovingly to their events. In my family, however, those bells have always been a bit shinier and the whistles a bit noisier than in those of most families that I've had the pleasure to meet.

For the first time in my life, I have found a family that rivals my own. Rivals? Equals. Complements. Inspires.

Let us begin with the ceremony itself. I realize that it is counter-intuitive to begin with the end, but bear with me. You will enjoy the ride.

Maybe it is due to the fact that I myself did NOT have a bat-mitzvah ceremony, but I have never seen such painstaking preparations for an event -- let alone an event that celebrates the coming of age thirteen. I am, however, fairly convinced that it is not my lack of experience in this area, but actually an extraordinary set of family traditions that set this event apart.

The ceremony itself included a beautiful dvar torah written by the man of the hour (for that day he became a man). For those of you who don't know, a dvar torah is a talk, or short lecture, relating to that week's torah portion. It often contains a pearl of wisdom, a moral or a life lesson, and is customarily written by the bar mitzvah boy or bat mitzvah girl on the day of his or her confirmation. Besides the dvar torah, there was a charismatic rabbi, a shower of colorful toffees, a service with a lot of family involvement (including family members from very far away, who flew in -- from the USA and from New Zealand -- for the event), and a special performance by Alon's barbershop quartet -- with a surprise appearance by Yours Truly as the tenor in dear Boaz's absence (yes, TENOR. :D). That was inside the sanctuary.

Part one was then followed by a spectacular meal, good friends, an extraordinary number of redheads from the maternal side of the family... and then the real show began.

Step aside, Von Trapp Family Singers -- there is a new family band in town.

After gathering the attention of the guests, after all our tummies were full of the delicious food, the Aviv family scattered across the "stage" in the reception hall -- Ilan on guitar, Oran (mother) on keyboard, Ella (middle sister) on the bongo drum, Alon on recorder, and Uri, the Aviv pater, at the microphone. Together, they performed a rendition of a song, "Nad Ilan," last performed as a family at Ilan's birth thirteen years ago.

This touching performance was followed by an impressive powerpoint about Ilan's bar mitzvah missions (information to follow, stay tuned -- working backwards, remember), speeches made by family members, both immediate and extended, more singing (in which I was asked to participate, which was a great honor for me, especially as I was joined by Alon and his aunt Anna, and accompanied by Ilan on the guitar), a song written and performed for Ilan by three of his school friends, a fully choreographed and costumed vaudeville/tap dance number performed by the entire family yet again, and a movie about his life written, directed and edited by Ilan in honor of the big event. The Reception Show culminated in a surprise for Ilan (though no less of one for every other person in the room as well): an announcement that "someone else" who couldn't make it to the event wanted to send best wishes as well.

The lights then dimmed, and the video turned on. And we found ourselves on the set of How I Met Your Mother. After a private tour of each of the main sets of the show, the camera then spanned, one by one, to each of the actors... and each one individually wished Ilan mazal tov, and happy birthday, and best of luck in the future.

Wow.

Apparently it pays to have family friends in the biz! I have never seen a kid so excited. And I have never seen a group of adults so dumbfounded. And in many cases, jealous. :)

Now, just a word about the missions, and I will leave the subject of the bar mitzvah to rest.

In the last year, Ilan (following the example of his two older siblings who did this as well as a part of their coming-of-age rituals) completed thirteen different missions in preparation for the big day. Among them were family-related missions (i.e. learning to cook, like his grandmother; building a table, like his grandfather), as well as a "roots project" (something that is customary to write at this age anyway, and something that my students, for example, have been working on and will be turning in to me by the end of the year) in which he explores his heritage. There were other various coming-of-age missions, like traveling unaccompanied to a far away city, but the jewel of the entire collection is something that is referred to as a "Robinson Day." On this day, Ilan was released into an unfamiliar territory in the desert, with nothing but a phone (that didn't call out, but to which he received text messages with instructions) and a GPS, and had to "survive" an entire day on his own, reading clues from text messages and discovering answers. At the end of the day, he received an instruction to pack up within ten minutes, and was then picked up by a helicopter and transported to his celebratory end-of-survival party.

Now, think back on all the bar mitzvahs you've been to and tell me if you've ever seen anything like that before. :)

It was truly an amazing event all around!

My last non-school-related news item is that in between bouts of hopping and painkiller-induced delirium, I somehow managed to audition for a production of Guys and Dolls in Jerusalem, and I am pleased to announce that being drug-ridden apparently has its benefits: you are now reading a post by Sgt. Sarah Brown of the Save-A-Soul Mission! :) I am excited to participate, though I will be a lot more excited once I can get to rehearsals without having to hobble on crutches across half of the Hebrew University campus. But stay tuned...

And here we go. It can no longer be avoided. With almost three weeks off, I've almost forgotten where I work, but not entirely -- so time to touch base there as well before this post reaches a conclusion.

First of all, last week was an exciting week, Teach First-wise... Wendy Kopp, the visionary who founded Teach For America 20 years ago was in Israel.

TFI brought her to us on our day of studies last week for a lecture/open discussion about our work. Being an "anglo" myself, I was also invited to eat lunch with her and was interviewed for Ha'aretz Anglophiles newspaper (supposed to come out this week or next -- will keep everyone posted!). She is a remarkable woman and it was a pleasure to get to meet her and hear her speak. I think we all needed a fresh dose of inspiration (although I think she may have left us thinking that the Israel branch is something of a downer... I think everyone could use a three-week hiatus, it's a shame that I had to break myself in order to get one). All in all, she's very striking, and I feel very lucky to have gotten to meet her!

In other news, on January 16th (about a week, I think, before I temporarily departed from the school), all of my eleventh grade students arrived at the school for their matriculation (bagrut) exams.

This was the moment we had been preparing for all semester, after two weeks of not breathing, not eating, not sleeping, nothing but concentrated days... I had several days where I was in the class for many hours, at the expense of their other classes, drilling them only in English. The peak was the "marathon" -- the day I arrived at the school at 7:30 and left at 11:00pm -- we got on buses, went to a building a small distance away from the school, and spent the ENTIRE DAY drilling English with the same students. It was an intensive and exhausting day, but nonetheless (surprisingly) effective.

Now the big day was here... and once it had finally arrived, the school was a mad house. The exam is monitored by external proctors, first of all -- the teachers are not allowed to come near the students when they are taking the exam. Furthermore, in Israel, there are many students who receive special conditions for test-taking; someone to read the test to them, or extra time, or reading answers into a tape instead of writing them down... and each of these students has to be approved and then provided for before the test begins. Also, the listening portion of the exam is not provided on tape (with the exams that are delivered in big gray envelopes minutes before the clock starts ticking), or read by the proctors... it is broadcast on the radio, twice, at a very specific time that is determined in advance.

On the day of the bagrut, the English department was running up and down stairs, plugging and unplugging CD players, tuning radios, re-tuning radios, providing headphones and pens and special conditions to everyone who needed them... we made signs to stay quiet, hung them all over the school, turned offices and closets into personal exam rooms... there were a million and one preparations to throw together before the students arrived en masse, ready to tackle their matriculation demons.

Once the exam started, however, and we were no longer allowed inside the classrooms, the atmosphere suddenly became relaxed. We all retired to the teacher's lounge, made coffee, and then each one of us took a blank copy of the bagrut exam for our own group. We then sat and filled them in, listening to the broadcast for the comprehension exercise, and discussing the answers with each other... and once the students were finished with their own exams, they began showing up at the door. We were ready for them -- batting back questions like "what was the answer to that question about the interview??" with "here are all the answers -- go check them quietly."

This is a very nice tradition, I think. The students can have their fears and insecurities about the test instantly allayed. Of course, for those who did poorly, it can be a big slap in the face to see that upon exiting the exam, but they all seem to prefer that option to the haze of uncertainty.

The students, with all their problems, all their behavioral issues, their LDs, etc, all become very sweet and lovable on the day of the matriculation exams. As soon as answers were right, they jumped on me, gave me hugs, in one particularly euphoric case a big lipstick-smeared kiss on the cheek... it was, all in all (and very surprisingly) a most enjoyable day. Now, together, we are all waiting for the results... but no matter what, now, they are over! Now, onto the second semester, and the second round of bagrut exams!

I need a t-shirt that says "I survived the winter bagrut." I am holding a contest for the nicest design. Please send submissions to Shani, c/o my school. Winner receives a free t-shirt and a signed, personalized plaque. Contest open until May 15th. Please agree to my Terms and Conditions before continuing. Thank you.