The first day of MEET went off without a hitch!
Just kidding!!!
We left the house on time, promptly at 8am, and arrived early to the Hebrew University campus and the ORT lecture hall. Nervous chatter ensued as the idiosyncrasies of the projector and the spotlights were worked out. We hung our big MEET banner, and waited.
The first Year One student to arrive was Lama, who I had the chance to talk to. She can speak Arabic, Hebrew, English, and French, loves basketball and soccer, and enjoys reading. Meeting her reminded me that these kids are not average in any capacity, but some of the strongest students in the area. Over the course of the next hour, kids trickled in. Although our desired start time is 9am, given the state of the region and past experience of first day hiccups, that was quite flexible.
By 9am, only a handful of students had arrived. A large number of our students come from the West Bank, and therefore must go through a checkpoint en route to Jerusalem. These are not only intimidating, but also can take several hours to get through. Because of the hassles associated with checkpoints, students who have to cross these lines only do so once a week. They come into Jerusalem on Sunday, stay at the YMCA throughout the week, and then return home on Thursday evening. On the first day, things were doubly hard, and some students didn't show up until 10am or 11am or even later. We managed to keep ourselves (and the students) entertained. Kim even played the piano!
Abeer kicked off the summer program, and all of the instructors and staff were introduced. We got to do a 1 or 2 minute schpeal about ourselves in front of a hundred strangers!! A few rules here and there (English only; no cell phones), then off to an icebreaker event. But not before...
Shock! Yes, Shock, the drink of the gods. A chocolate milk analog which is actually more like a pouch of sugar and has very little to do with actual milk. I couldn't drink it myself, but beverage in pouch form is appealing nevertheless. And the kids gobble it up like it's their job.
Post Shock break, we went to the icebreakers event. Boaz and Basar (I cannot spell names properly, unfortunately) explained who they were and their experiences. Boaz, an Israeli, and Basar, a Arab, apparently belong to a group working on personal development called Plasma. After their long introductions, they had the students meet one another and converse, walk around a lot, and clap by number. The Year One students had the pleasure of enjoying an additional hour of their company. Though some of the activities weren't particular useful as icebreakers and development, at the very least e began to learn names and faces and personalities. This is as good a time as any to mention that... THEY ARE SO CUTE, AND I WANT TO SQUEEZE THEM.
During lunch, I sat with two kids, Dor and Or, who seemed to know more about programming than I did. They began by asking me if I knew PHP and ASP, and then explained that they had already met on a programming forum. Go figure. Needless to say, I began to feel a bit intimidated by some of my 15-year-old counterparts. The students in Year One are supposed to have no prior programming experience.
After lunch, Ted gave his lecture which was introduction to computers and computer science and Java. I've never heard anything except the most positive statements about Ted and his teaching skills, and this first lecture proved it all to be true.
A popsicle break followed lecture, then a trek to Sprinzak for our very first laboratory period. Here, Murphy's Law (which Ted mentioned in his lecture, of course) was in full effect. Before our students are able to use the Hebrew University computer system, they much register with the system. The steps are mundane: Type register, and ID number, first and last name, password, and user name. Poof! Easy enough, right? My experience went something like this:
First student: Type register. ID number. Error, ID number not found.
Second student: Type register, then ID number. Error, ID number not found.
Third student: Type register, then ID number. Error, ID number not found.
Uh oh. Turns out the ID numbers were never activated in the system. Unactivated ID = uncreated account = unhappy instructors. Being the wise instructors that we are, Alice and I signed into our accounts on multiple computers, and allowed the students to work together on the lab which we had prepared.
All was going along rather well. And then all the computers froze simultaneously. Okay, fine, no big deal... let's restart them! So we rebooted the frozen machines, only to be greeted by a Windows login screen. We are using a Linux environment to program, but even moreso than that, we don't have accounts for the Windows system.
Uh oh. Turns out we had been kicked off the CS network... sigh. Fortunately, by that time, it was towards the end of the day. We walked the kids back to the ORT bus pick up, and all the instructors collapsed in a big heap in the grass for our end-of-the-day wrap up meeting.
It was a hard day, and it was nothing at all like I expected. What better way to reward a hard day's work than with Yummy Yummy?! We first saw Yummy Yummy on our very first day in the region, en route to our flat.
What is Yummy Yummy? Well, a seller of "Baby Schnitzel" for one thing:
And the only local ball pit. In fact, perhaps the only ball pit I've seen on the trip thus far...
Yummy Yummy is essentially the local McDonald's knock-off, which serves the general fare of burgers, fries, and soda, but with added gems like schnitzel and "sailorman sandwich" (a poor translation of 'fish sandwich', I believe.) It has the feel of an old run down fast food place that is loosing all it's business to McDonalds and Burger King and Wendy's. Except, there aren't any of those around. The Yummy Yummy is VERY out of place in our neighborhood. In a lot of ways, its irony is part of the appeal, as well as it's ridiculous name.
And, the food ain't that bad either.
I know I really should write lots about MEET in this first day post, but I'll be writing about MEET for the next 5 weeks, and Yummy Yummy will be appearing much less frequently in the blog.
Just know: when the going gets rough, the instructors get going to Yummy Yummy.
Next Post: That Time I Gave a Lecture and the Kids Didn't Hate Me.
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