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Published: November 18th 2006
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Hello All! Another lovely entry from my life in Tel Aviv. I continue to love this city. I always said that I never wanted to live near the beach, because the beach was like a paradise for me, and I didn't want it to lose that special feeling. And, I love living in the city, and I didn't want to give up the city life for the beach. I guess I never realized you can have both at the same time. Tel Aviv is this perfect combination, a big, vibrant city, on the beach. You don't have to go to far to reach the beach. And lucky for me, I live 5 minutes walking from the beach. It is truely amazing. I love having the best of both worlds! And, while I used to be afraid that the beach would lose its paradise feeling for me, I certainly don't have to worry about that anymore. If anything, it is even more of a paradise for me now, a place to relax and get invigorated again. I go and walk along the beach as much as I can, because the feeling I get when I'm there, just puts everything into perspective. Tel
Aviv has lots of hidden treasures within in it. Clubs and cheap super markets, and restaurants, and cheap stores, you just need to know where to look. And I'm learning.
So, I suppose you are all wondering why I haven't written about my internship. Well, the reason is that it hasn't been very good, and there are some bureaucratic problems going on, but they are getting worked out. I am working at 4 different schools in different cities around Tel Aviv, with highschool students from underprivileged backgrounds, and mostly immigrant families from Ethiopia, Russia, etc. The kids are really nice, but definately like inner city kids you would find in the US. So, I'm supposed to be teaching english to the kids, but not as a normal teacher. Basically, me and my friend Erica (we are working together) hang out with the kids, talk about the US, or music or whatever the kids are interested in, but in English. In Israel, they start learning english in school in like 4th grade, or something like that. At the end of highschool you have this huge exam in all the main subjects in order to graduate highschool, and it also affects
which division you get assigned to in the military (remember everyone must join the army at age 18 after highschool). So, students have to have decent english in order to pass this test called the Bagrut. I guess you could compare it to VA's SOLs, or NY's Region exams, but the Bagrut, actually matters! Unlike the SOLs. So the kids I'm working with, most of them have very poor english skills, for whatever reasons, and they need to at least be able to pass the basic level of english on the exam. Mostly, their problems are in speaking, they are very unsure of themselves and are shy about speaking. However, what I have found is that, they have a lot of vocabulary in their heads, from school, and all the american/british tv shows that are on Israeli tv, but they are severely lacking in the grammar, or proper phrasing of sentences. This is because, the way sentences and phrases are put together in english is opposite from hebrew. I think this is the same case with spanish. So, my purpose in working with these kids is to help them improve their english, in a non threatening, non classroom style. Hopefully
windsurfing in tel aviv
its the surfing, wind surfing, parachute surfing season in Israel this fall, because of the strong winds and the bigger waves it will work out.
Last Shabbat I spent at my friends' house in Ramat Hasharon (some of the people from the program) and it was very nice as usual. Then I went out a few times this week, mostly to some local music clubs. My friends who live in Ramat Hasharon are studying at the Rimon Music School, which is the best music college in the country. So, all of them, and all the friends they are meeting are musicians, and have shows all over Tel Aviv, so I am getting to go to a lot of their shows, and meet some very talented musicians. Its been a lot of fun. Maybe some of them will even be famous some day!
Yesterday, I went for a very long walk along the beach/ promenade, all the way to Jaffa. I was out for over 3 hours, walking, and taking pictures. It was a beautiful day, and tons of people were out on the beach, in the water and on the promenade. You can always find people on the promenade at any time of day: bikers, joggers, skaters, motor bikes, strollers (both people and baby carriages). And today was certainly
no exception. And since the weather was so perfect (maybe 70, with a good breeze), there were tons of sail boats out as well, and wind surfers and parachute surfers. I've been in Tel Aviv 4 months now, and never seen more the two or three sail boats out at once. Well yesterday, the marina must have been empty, because there were easily three dozen sail boats out (and there is only one marina in Tel Aviv). There are also tons of fishermen on the rock piers in Tel Aviv. Its not something I ever expected to be common place in the big city of Tel Aviv, but it definitely is. They use the long rods that I think are more for deep sea fishing, rather than the cheap little ones we all use at home when we want to pretend to go fishing, hehe. Yesterday was a big day for the fishermen, old and young. You can find look fishermen fishing on the piers in every oceanside town in Israel, but especially the poorer or more Arab cities. I'll post some of my pictures of this.
Well, thats about all that is going on for me right now.
I'll hopefully be getting busier in the coming days, as I'm getting very restless!
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the US! I'll miss being home to celebrate. Not sure if i'm going to do anything here or not. Everyone enjoy your vacation.
Love,
Leah
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N-Dogg
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why are you waiting to exhale?!?
It sounds like you are having a wonderful time--great!!! You also seem busy with FUN stuff, which will make the entire experience SO memorable for the rest of your life. Treasure each moment and keep taking pictures! Especially of the people, but of the places too ;)