By Belle Gabel-Frank, NFTY-EIE High School in Israel Student (Fall 2011)
Originally published at The Huffington Post
WEEK ONE
That moment has finally come. The moment I’ve heard about so many times from my sister. The moment I was wishing I could fast-forward to while I was sitting, waiting for that awkward moment to pass a week ago at the airport. Finally the moment has come, when I’m really at where I really am.
Now before I get too existential for you, let me clarify. The “where” that I’m “really at” is Israel. The “moment” that I’m really in, is when it has finally hit me: this, Israel, is where I really am, and where I’ll be, for the next four months…
…We’ve got school five days a week, including Sundays (but excluding Fridays), and classes for eight hours a day on average. Compared to school at home, however, this place is a gem. My largest class is seven people, my smallest is one. As in one-on-one with the teacher, which sounds awkward, but is actually amazing. The classes I have one-on-one are French and Math, which is great because 1) the best way to actually learn French is to sit and have a conversation with a French person for an hour or two a week, and 2) math is not really my thing, so pretty much having a personal math tutor twice a week is perfect. My most notable class, however, would be AP Literature. This teacher would best be described as a modern Dumbledore, with a splash of Robin Williams in Dead Poet’s Society. Each day’s writing is “nourishment for [his] soul,” and our job as students is to provide “cakes of creativity for [him] to feast on each day.” This class is leading me to write like I’ve never written before; I’ve spent hours in the cafeteria, alone at a side table with a cup of mint tea and a hard-boiled egg for protein, just sitting, writing…
Read the whole blog post by Belle at The Huffington Post
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