That Time I Found a Secret Spot

In less than 8 hours, we'll be "in the thick of it", as Ted would say. Tomorrow marks the first day of instruction to our students, when 40 eager 15 year olds will begin their first bout with Java. It also marks the beginning of a week with 8am departure times.

I took the opportunity to sleep in late, and go for a brief walk around the neighborhood. The majority of what I'm recording in this blog is events/factual information, but I'm interested in recording my personal experiences as well. These are not fodder for the public domain, nor the kinds of reflections that can be composed in a noisy apartment with many distractions.

I found what will be termed my Secret Spot. It is a safe place to be, and I am welcome there, as I had a conversation with several of the people sitting outside who confirmed this. So that's where I'm going to go when I need to have some me time. I was in the Secret Spot today around 12:30 when the call to worship began, and it bounced of the hills and filled the air. Very peaceful.

On my way back to the flat, I discovered the the street was more or less packed with cars. I'm not sure if this was because of a special event, or just a regular Saturday streetscape.

I returned to the flat just before the beginning of our final teaching workshop. Year two instructors got a chance to strut their stuff. Humberto explained optical character recognition, Bo taught about investment banking, Kim expanded on the Challenger explosion, and Zach demonstrated the intricacies of the bicycle wheel. Post-presentation conversations reminded me about some of the quirks of professors I have had while at MIT, and how much they could have benefited from a similar workshop.

After the workshop, a bunch of us headed to the falafel stand on the corner for our 6 shekel lunch. According to Humberto, if you order a hotdog, you'll get an extra long bun with 2 links plus any falafel toppings you'd like. Next time we go there, (dinner tomorrow night, I suppose?) a hotdog is in order!

When I returned, I had two and a half hours to kill before the all-hands meeting. I revisited my attempts to locate local parks on the internet, but instead got side-tracked with Jerusalem history on wikipedia. In my internet travels, I stumbled across the Second Intifada, then Ariel Sharon. And ultimately, I wound up on persistive vegetative states. (For those not following the path: Ariel Sharon was the Israeli Prime Minister during the Second Intifada, and he is currently in a persistent vegetative state)

I learned quite a bit. When Israel was first created, Jerusalem was designated as an 'international city', which was to be governed by the United Nations in light of its associations with three massive religions (Judaism, Islam, and Christianity). This never actually happened, and Jerusalem was quickly divided between Israel (West Jerusalem) and Jordan (East Jerusalem) following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. According to Wikipedia (no source cited for this part...), Jordanians desecrated the cemetery on the Mount of Olives and used the tombstones in construction projects, and also destroyed basically everything in the Jewish quarter of the Old City. In 1960, Jordan designated Jerusalem as its second capital, but most nations refused to recognize this. And in 1967 during the Six-Day War, Jerusalem and the West Bank were recaptured from Jordan, and the boundaries became more or less what they are today. We have a tendency to look at a map of the world as a static being, but in reality, the boundaries are not definite.

Post-wikipedia, I started reading "The World Is Flat" by Thomas Friedman before our evening all-hands meeting. I didn't get very far before I fell asleep for an hour or two. For the all-hands meeting, Abeer gave us a brief introduction to the program, including a shpeal about how to deal with the press. Apparently, Middle Eastern reporters are much more caustic than American reporters.

After running through the schedule for tomorrow and explaining each year's weekly goal, we all headed off to dinner at the Focaccia Bar in West Jerusalem. Since we've spent most of the last several days eating at falafel street stands, sitting down in the restaurant was quite a treat. The decor was especially pleasant, and we found the ceiling particularly captivating.

Ever since Katie (my sister!) and I devoured free goat cheese samples at an organic grocery store on Father's Day, I've had a bit of an obsession with the stuff. My choice of focaccia with goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes was a no-brainer. It was also cheap: 32 shekels - 20 shekel MEET subsidy = 12 shekels! The focaccia served at the restaurant can best be described as a pizza-sized pita, topped with various spreads, cheeses, or vegetables. Here, Froy has stabbed his focaccia bubble with a knife to let the inner air out.

Post-dinner, we made a quick gas stop. The cars we are using have built-in RFID cards which automatically bill the amount; unfortunately, in the car that I'm driving, the RFID card doesn't work. Instead, we did things the old-fashioned way: handing over shekels to some guy who pumped our gas.

The gas prices here are about 7 shekels per liter, which turns out to be a little less than $8 per gallon. And we thought we had it bad in the US?! It gets even worse though. In the Gaza, prices are more like $50 per gallon, which has led to forced innovation in some cases.

After getting home, we did all the necessary prep for tomorrow, including sorting out papers. (We pretty much killed a tree!!) I also watched Ted's lecture for tomorrow. Each evening, the instructor giving the next day's lecture does a test run with at least one other instructor present to critique them and act as their audience.

Now, off to bed. Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day.

Quote of the Day: "This country produces the strangest noises." (Zach)

Next Post: MEET!!!!!!!!