Two

About a week ago now, two things happened that made me realize I needed to start updating this blog again:

- Tumblr wished "Mr. Ben at King's" a happy first anniversary, reminding me that I have a blog in the first place (although it isn't actually a tumblr)

- a woman on my flight from New York to Amman (first direct flight to Amman ever!) asked me if I was traveling on to Kuwait. I said no and asked why, and she responded, "I'm moving there to teach this year, and wanted to ask if you were too because you look like a teacher."

I didn't ask her what she meant.

Then, more recently, something else happened that led me to the same realization, which was that I learned that one of the new Teaching Fellows has read this entire blog, which he found in Google results for "King's Academy." I didn't know there were people who followed this blog who didn't share genetic information with me, so I was flattered/inspired/embarrassed/encouraged and have now decided to take up the mantle once more. Shout-out to Mr. Tom for all the page views.

So hello again, world! Since last I posted here, I have:

- flown on 9 airplanes
- gotten my passport stamped in America, Japan, America again, and Jordan
- eaten so much good food, so little of it hummus
- seen so many people I already know and love
- met and come to love so many other people (to which I largely owe GAKKO, which deserves a blog of its own that I will never write)
- listened to great music and made OK music
- thought about the new school year, but probably not enough
- a lot of other things besides

But now the summer is behind us all, and I'm back for another round of adventures. King's looks pretty much as good as ever:

And I have moved (and more or less settled) into my new apartment with Chase, with a significantly smaller room...but look at how efficiently my Shirt Rainbow uses that space!

And we've been orienting and meeting and writing and planning and recovering from jetlag and welcoming the proctors and getting geared up for the Actual First Day, which is just about 36 hours away. I would've written sooner, but I spent most of my free moments either putting together my bedroom or thinking about how much more productive I could be if I had had more than 4 hours of sleep. Glad that part's over.

Hopefully I'll be able to update as regularly and enthusiastically as last year! I preemptively beg your forgiveness, though, because of my increased responsibilities here: 

- teaching 4 sections (instead of 2) of 3 different classes (instead of 1), not to mention the Glee Club;

- advising 6 beautiful and amazing students, 4 of whom I already know to be beautiful and amazing and the other 2 are new but I have high hopes; 

- living with a roommate, which has already revolutionized the solitary and arguably over-scheduled existence I led last year;

- a lot of other things besides.

But I'll do the best I can, especially now that I know that this blog has so much traction vis-a-vis Google results. Future King's teachers of the world, find this and read it! At least one person who works here has already found it informative, and the school year hasn't even started yet.

Who knows what will have happened by the next time I post. It's definitely different to start the year already feeling so familiar and knowing so many people and so much Arabic, and I'm glad to know that this year will mean not only the old comforting routines, but also lots of refreshing, unexpected challenges and opportunities. For now, it's time to head to Burger Shack. Let's get this party started. 

Well, here we are.

Tell me: how do two weeks go by so quickly?

I have been meaning to write something new for a while now, but I had absolutely no idea it'd been two weeks, and I think it's mostly a testament to how wild and crazy the last 15 days have been. Since returning from a whirlwind trip to the US for Yale graduation, I've been making my way through an equally crazy time here, and the busy-ness is just beginning to wind down. Here's a little trip through my last two weeks:

(Even writing "last two weeks" I am flummoxed. Has it actually been that many days? How and why did it all start happening so fast?)

Anyway.

1: THE LAST WEEK OF SCHOOL.

Not much to say here, really - I didn't get back from New Haven until May 20th, and by that point there were only 3 school days left. One of my classes, having lost 7 seniors (they don't have to attend the final week), was down to 6, and so those last few days felt more like a chance to hang out with my students and casually wind down the year than actual days of class time.

Not only that, but of those three remaining school days, only one was actually a normal school schedule! That was the first day. The second day was

2: PROM.

Which is a big deal here. Like, shortened-school-day big. And they do the campus up right. This year was World-Cup-themed, and we were all decked out in Brazilian flag colors:

The students dress to the nines and arrive at a red-carpet reception, and we teachers did the same: you actually walk through a gauntlet of people and get your picture taken and the whole shebang. I have done a fair number of things in my life, but that was not one of them until last Thursday. Still don't have those pictures though...

The event itself is also a total blowout. People have been telling us for months that "the campus is transformed" for prom (using that exact phrase), and I have to say that it certainly didn't look like the courtyard outside the library usually looks. DJ and dance floor, of course, as well as popcorn and ice cream machines, massive buffet spreads, couches and tables moved outdoors, and all manner of lights and flags and decorations. Here's the party in full swing:

Like any good movie-cliché high school, we even elect a prom king and queen (not to mention prince and princess for the juniors), and you will have to take me at my word that there were fireworks when their names were announced. Like I said, we go big for this thing.

Then afterwards the students make a break for it and rent out Amman's swankiest event halls for their post-prom. We get together in a faculty apartment and have some fun of our own. I stayed up late that night.

So that was the second day of school left. The third, and final, was

3: GRADUATION.

No pictures here. Know why? Because it's a state affair, that's why. 

As of about 4pm after the school day had wrapped up, His Majesty's security detail was on campus. Dorms got locked up, metal detectors got set up, and the students were confined to the auditorium (except for a few singers, who joined me to perform at a development event for the dedication of a newly-named classroom. Further proof that singing for swanky events and little chocolaty hors d'oeuvres never has to end).

The event itself is also quite a show. The whole underclassman student body, as well as the faculty, line up along "Commencement Walk," and the seniors process down past us, led by Their Majesties themselves. There was a lot of walking through gauntlets of people the last week, now that I think about it. I guess it does make things feel pretty celebratory.

And because of the head honcho's tight schedule, the event is pretty quick: a few students get awards and deliver addresses, the Queen (this year's speaker) gives a lovely commencement speech, names are read and diplomas are given, and then we process in a big giant mosh to the square outside the dining hall, where everyone hugs and cries and takes pictures and leaves forever. 

It is a little weird to think that I'll never see the seniors again (although a half-dozen of them have already friended me on Facebook). I liked them and I'll miss them. Also, let's pause to consider that I work at a high school at which graduating seniors receive their diplomas from THE KING OF THE COUNTRY. I may never stop looking around and thinking "what on earth am I doing here."

4: OTHER THINGS.

There are always other things, in and around these final days of school, and here are some of them:

- The senior awards night dinner, at which I conducted the Glee Club (they sounded great and the mic'ing was INCREDIBLE for outdoors) and gave out the Choral Award, which I was sort of surprised to learn was actually an award. But we had a senior singer who deserved it, so she got it!

- Oh, also, two days before graduation Pope Francis came to Jordan. And we went. Look!

So in between all this school madness, I was that close to the Pope in a big stadium full of people where he led a partly-Italian, partly-Arabic mass. Frankly, the best parts where when he entered and exited on that awesome Popemobile, because the mass was hard to understand and no one in our section of the stadium seemed to care that much anyway.

But it's still pretty awesome and pretty once-in-a-lifetime to find oneself in such a place. Here's a picture of some priests (you can make out their white-and-gold umbrellas) spelunking into the crowd to dole out a massive communion:

To be honest, most of what we remember is this abominably catchy song, which played about eight thousand times before His Holiness arrived. His face, and this melody, may be forever etched in our memories.

5: NOW?

Yeah, good question: what are we doing now? It's been three days since graduation, although to be honest it feels like a million (time is really doing cartwheels around me right now), and I am 14 final papers away from being done with my first year as a teacher. Mustering the energy to grade them will certainly be a challenge, but I've got it blocked into my schedule today, which I call a good start.

Other than that? Just wrapped up 3 days of Professional Development with some folks from CollegeBoard who gave us a very productive and quite engaging 12ish hours of activities, strategies, and discussions about reading/writing/analyzing/other schooly stuff. I'm glad it's over because I don't have to do anything any more, but I'm also bummed it's over because I don't get to do anything any more. I was even too lazy to go shopping in Madaba this afternoon, and am here trying to eke out some productivity points by writing this blog post instead. 

Home beckons in about a week, and until then:

- PARTIES. Rooftop barbecue; department dinner; student graduation party; goodbye party for a special TF friend; goodbye daytime barbecue for all departing faculty; real goodbye party with Haram beverages for departing faculty; FINAL goodbye dinner for everyone. 

(That's seven parties in the next seven days, and despite the fact that one spills right into another, something tells me at least one more Fun Event will rear its head before I get on a plane out of this place).

- A few more meetings, probably totaling a couple hours.

- My personal goals: starting to get ready for next year's classes and the summer work I have to do, packing up and preparing to move (oh yeah - I'm moving in with Chase next year! Nothing more to report there except that I think it'll be fun to live with him and actually be in a dorm), and getting bored enough that I actually want to be productive. I have a lot of free time so I think I might actually be able to make that part happen.

This might be my second-to-last post before the summer begins, and I think I'll go on a hiatus and start a food blog? Definitely still up in the air. For now, at least, don't touch that dial; I'm sure you all want to hear about all the parties I'm going to in the next week. Right?

(Oh yeah - and that Wadi Rum music video finally got released!! I still haven't seen my face, but you can see Alli and Jimmy and I think you can make out my sweatshirt. Still totally worth it.)

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...

I tested out a lesson on existentialism and nihilism this week as we discussed The Meaning of Life, and was considering showing a video of Ian McKellen's Macbeth speech. Ended up using "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "TiK ToK" instead (there's so much existentialism in contemporary pop music!), but I guess the speech has stuck with me.

Because TOMORROW I'm heading back stateside! For another weekend! And as I sit here in my second-to-last Supervised Study Hall of the year, with my last two fully-stocked classes lined up for tomorrow (the seniors leave next week), it's hard not to have the upcoming travels on my mind. But there's been plenty to keep me busy this week:

First, I think I'd be remiss not to mention my star turn in the faculty play, which Lina (my wonderful Arabic teacher) writes for faculty members of all Arabic levels. This year, the plot centered around an American husband and Jordanian wife who'd just had a baby, and guess who got to play the baby. The baby girl.

Yes, that is me in the foreground of this picture that was seen by every student, teacher, and parent, wearing blue tights, a black tutu, and a beautiful little headband. I sang a whole song to the tune of "Old MacDonald" in Arabic, got lifted up into the air by some other teachers, and the kids seemed to enjoy it. Having made it through college without having to do much drag, I suppose the time had finally come.

(If you want to see more pictures, Facebook's got a treasure trove. Help yourself to more of my low-cut pink women's shirt.)

But were there other things to look forward to this week? Of course!

Here's the biggest and best one: last night, my 8 voice students presented the a cappella song they'd been practicing, with my help, for the past few weeks. I was basically just a facilitator for this one: the song was arranged by a student and I played no role in the actual performance. They did themselves real proud - for the first-ever a cappella performance at King's, done by a bunch of kids with no experience, they put together a pretty wonderful number. Check it out here!

And now? I sit here, bound to the study prison once more, and shuffle my papers. Tomorrow's class barely needs a plan; one class has had so many absences due to APs and lazy seniors that we've been able to do seminar-style discussions around a table for nearly two weeks, and the other class is so chock full of excitable sophomores that I barely need to do any talking. Since tomorrow is the last day for the seniors, we're basically just gonna keep the discussion moving and see where it takes us. I feel no extreme need to develop a Big Plan, though I might have no choice given that there are still nearly 100 minutes left of sitting here. Wish me luck!

Fewer than 48 until passport control in JFK, and then I'll really know the end is coming. We've been starting to hear about how prom and graduation and the awards ceremonies and dinners and parties all work, and it seems like this school puts on quite the to-do for its departing seniors. Expect pictures and updates and (hopefully) crazy stories. This place is usually good for one or two of those.

May, somehow?

In the thirty-ish seconds that I took to brainstorm a title for this post, way too many of the ideas in my head had to do with "ends" and "finales" and "lasts." And indeed, here we somehow are on the eve of my last full week as a Teaching Fellow (credit to Yale for scheduling its graduation during the actual last full week of classes), and May has already reached double digits. I'll save the sappy talk about endings for a future post, maybe on Wednesday or something; for now, here are six pictures to sum up the last two weekends.

WEEKEND 1: LONG WEEKEND!

Lina, Jimmy, and I decided to live it up on the First of May with a trip to the Dead Sea! It was my first on this side of the border, and definitely my most luxurious, as we treated ourselves to a full day at the Mövenpick's Zara Spa.

Picture whirlpools galore, poolside bar service, and views like this one:

And we covered ourselves in mud and got in the real Dead Sea too, and left feeling thoroughly cleansed. After a month with not a single full five-day week, this still felt like a well-deserved break, and I think I'll be making my way back Seaward whenever I need to let off some steam.

Also went on a super-sweet rappelling hike that weekend, but I didn't have my phone so no pictures of our death-defying cliff descents. Strangely enough, the hike led us all the way through a canyon to the entrance of the very Mövenpick I'd enjoyed the day before. Next time, day hike to the spa, anyone?

WEEK IN BETWEEN: NORMAL, NORMAL WEEK.

I guess it was abnormal in that it was 5 days long and I hadn't had one of those in a month, but otherwise things went smoothly. The APs are in full swing and our students are allowed to skip class (?!) the day before they have an exam, plus a lot of seniors have sorta just given up, so my classes were a little emptier than usual. This was generally very pleasant and allowed for some AWESOME seminar-style classes where we just sat around in a circle and talked philosophy. That's something I want to keep up in the years to come.

WEEKEND 2: BUSY. AWESOME.

Yesterday was the real busy day, for all the right reasons. We forewent weekend brunch and set off, famished, for the International Community School's annual Food Fair, which is exactly the hullabaloo of food stalls, bouncy houses, and costumed children that we all hope such things could be.

(Also, there's a 21+ section, which is even better than we usually hope such things will be).

Though we partook of fare ranging from Malaysia to Mali, from England to Pakistan, I managed to snap just one food picture which I hope will tell at least part of the story:

Belgium, I am forever grateful.

And here's a shot of the fair itself:

As post-day-drinking dehydration set in, we made our way back to campus, where I pretty immediately performed with the faculty band in an outdoor Music Fest. Always fun to get to show off our stuff to the students, and there's definitely a video on Facebook that I am purposefully not linking to on this blog because it feels like tooting my own horn. But it's out there.

When we wrapped up our final number, a rendition of "Feelin' Alright" that featured several students who hadn't known they were performing until immediately beforehand, I quite literally walked off the stage and straight onto the bus to East Amman for the next adventure:

Jordan Star.

See, one of the things about this country is that it's small enough, and developing enough, that you manage to get your way into an awful lot of cool events if you have connections at King's. Hence the performance for HMK and HMQ two weeks ago, and hence too our front-row seats at this knockoff of America's Got Talent. Here's the gang, five teachers and three students, in front of one of those fancy I'm-at-a-celebrity-event backdrops:

And although Jordan Star is apparently widely ridiculed in this country, it was a pretty good time and a pretty professional production. Here's a shot of the stage and one of the producers giving us some pre-show info:

One thing I learned is that when you watch one of these shows and see everyone clapping as an act begins, it's because there's a 3-2-1 countdown that tells you exactly when to start clapping. What a thrill to be behind the scenes! And in front of the camera, too; there were a ton of sweeping shots of the audience that heavily featured the front row. If video surfaces, I'll link to it here; somehow it doesn't feel as self-serving to include footage of me clapping like a moron on Jordanian TV.

Here's one of the acts, a duo of prepubescent (twin?) brothers who actually sang damn well. They made it through the vote-with-your-cellphone round but didn't get to advance to the next round. Better luck next time, boys. 

And now, here I sit, having taken over a dorm duty so that my Study Hall next week will be covered. Three Supervised Study Halls left. See? Can't help but think about the end.

So Yale beckons in the immediate future, and you may see another update before then but don't hold your breaths. Beyond that? I guess we'll get to see this big finish everyone keeps talking about. Stay tuned.

Who's Stopping Us?

As I sit in my usual Study Hall perch this evening (albeit with only two students to supervise!), I invoke the mantra of the Whiffenpoofs of 2012, and with it the days of singing and reveling on sunny verandas for people in nicely pressed suits. Why, you ask?

Because it never ends. And here's the proof:

Here's the surprise I've been holding onto, from blog readers and teacher friends alike, for the past few weeks. That's the sunny veranda of the home at which I performed this afternoon with 9 King's Academy singers for a fundraising event thrown by the school's development office. They invited a whole host of well-to-do Jordanians (and others from around the region) for a truly lovely garden party luncheon and wanted to show off some of the school's finest. As always, this meant musical performances, and so continued my illustrious career of singing songs at fancy parties...

After some scrambling around the last week or so, I assembled a 9-singer team, rehearsed a pretty and simple 3-part Arabic song, and along with the student string quintet (+ percussion and another vocalist) we squeezed into a bus right before typical school lunch. The kids were excited enough to be missing two periods of school, but that was only the beginning.

Here's our lunch table, with individual gifts (they turned out to be very pretty candles):

And before too long, the party was in full swing! Our view from across the infinity pool:

All this - not to mention the ancient daggers in the living room, the beautiful still life paintings on the walls, the terrace and gazebo - might've been enough, but the real treat was the guests of honor. 

I don't want to get too detailed (this is The Internet, after all), but suffice it to say that we performed for some very important people. As in, the most important people. The most important two people. And I have to say, seeing the Big Guy as he speaks on the KA stage is one thing, but singing him a song from twenty feet away is quite another.

And it went great! The kids kept their cool and sounded real good, and we got a personal table visit from him afterwards to congratulate us on a job well done. He has a real knack for inspiration: he gave a little speech to the donors about the power of the school to bring people together and propel them towards successful futures, and I found myself really buying into it and feeling really proud to be part of such an institution. Not sure how he did it: is it something about his status? Or does he actually truly have a way with words? Either way, it was surprisingly moving for an off-the-cuff speech, and reaffirmed my belief that this is a pretty freakin good place to be.

Then, of course, it was lunch time, and when you've got guests like these, you don't skimp on the good stuff. A buffet with seemingly endless options (including caviar, smoked salmon, duck, scallops, and some seriously prime cuts of meat) was followed by an equally endless dessert with all manner of Jordanian and Western delights. I didn't need dinner, to say the least.

So the kids were awed and thrilled, Reem (the string quintet director) and I were feeling good, and our headmaster and trustees seemed legitimately impressed by our performance. I can't say my time with the Whiffs didn't prepare me well for this kind of thing. Another box checked in the world leaders category!

***

And as a fitting coda to such a special day, we celebrated the best way we could: more food. Specifically, Four Winters, the brand-new liquid nitrogen ice cream place in the swanky part of town. Here's the wizard at work, with bottles of what I could most accurately call "pre-ice cream" behind him:

A few glugs from those bottles, plus a liberal application of liquid nitrogen from some kind of extensive network of tubes, plus a few casual smooches from a blowtorch to keep the product from freezing to the bowl, and voila:

This, if you can believe it, is beetroot ice cream - yes, they do crazy flavors in addition to crazy preparations. And it was so good! A nice sweet start that gave way to a deeper and more savory vegetable flavor, and the orange balanced things out with a juicy, citrusy pop. As tempting as the chocolate peanut butter option was, I'm glad I went out on a limb this time; this crazy pink adventure was well worth it.

So here I am, with one day of school until another three-day weekend, and then it's May all of a sudden and I think I'm going to the Dead Sea for an epic relaxation adventure. Barely enough time to bask in our success this afternoon, but I have to say that the feelings were more familiar than anything else. There's something about throwing on a suit and singing at a party that I doubt will ever quite get out of my system, and though I hardly expected those particular skills to come in handy on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday, it's a good thing I've got them on hand. Almost two years removed from those crazy Whiffenpoof days, I find myself realizing more and more how much they changed me and led me to where I am now. Maybe we don't do as much wanton wandering as we did back then, and maybe we've grown up from that strange golden age of no consequences, but on days like these, when performance and privilege and opportunity seem to land in your lap, the question once again rears its head: who's stopping us?

Spring Turns A Corner

Hello from my bed, which seems like the only reasonable place to be after a day of parent-teacher conferences. They weren't even that painful, frankly, and I only had ten, but there's something a little exhausting about wearing dress shoes on a weekend. 

So I've got a half hour until we leave for a very fun-sounding dinner outing, and I have my lesson plan for tomorrow laid out (which means Monday is taken care of too!), and I am feeling like I need to be productive so a blog post seemed like the right move. Is it actually productive? I leave that question up to you, dear readers.

Since last we spoke, life in the desert has been generally quite pleasant. I chose the season-related title because it really does feel like things have turned a corner in a few ways: May is fast approaching, for one, and the weather has decided we've had quite enough pleasant coolth and it's time to bring the heat. Grown-Up Clothes are so helpful in cold weather that I'd frankly forgotten how freaking hot they are when it's warm out. May's gonna be a sweaty one for all of us.

But anyway. The Glee Club concert went so well! The kids were super engaged and very confident, which is a big improvement from our last little performance, and I'm really proud of what we pulled off, especially considering the extreme brevity of our rehearsal time. Here's a little teaser that Meredith snapped from the audience:

More to come from the communications department, I hope!

And this weekend has been a lovely one. Pick-up softball yesterday, which drew a fairly impressive faculty-student showing (enough for two solid teams, at least) and was INSANELY fun. For much of the time, I played first base, which is a little terrifying when the other team keeps hitting it to the shortstop who actually played baseball and whose every put-out throw reminded me of that time Peter Smith knocked my glasses off in 8th grade. But I held my own, at least most of the time, and more than anything else it was a great sunny afternoon. We may even do it again next week!

And beyond that? Hamantaschen baking with Yasmine, only about six weeks late for the relevant holiday. Our first batch left a little to be desired from an aesthetic standpoint:

But thanks to some architectural mastery, round 2 was significantly more successful:

That's raspberry, apricot, chocolate chip, and a homemade prune compote thingy that only Yasmine and I will eat because everyone else is scared of prunes. More for us!

It's amazing how much they taste like the holiday; I think it's the lemon zest. Really no clue how I'm gonna live a fulfilling culinary life without Yasmine next year, but perhaps it will be time for me to leave the nest and go it alone. Cooking with company is a hell of a lot more fun though.

Hope you enjoyed reading my stream of consciousness, folks! I suppose I do feel somewhat more productive, and I'm confident enough that the week to come will be a fulfilling one for my young philosophers.

In closing, I have a secret to tell that I will reveal later this week. It has to do with the Glee Club, and it's secret enough that even they don't know what they're doing yet, but I am super excited and it's definitely adding a little spice to the next few days. Stay tuned...

Speed Week

Hello everyone! I am writing this post from Supervised Study Hall, which probably won't surprise those of you loyal followers out there. I have to grade an assignment that my students submitted last night, but I am being uncharacteristically procrastinatory, so I decided to goad myself into action by checking something else off my to-do list. Here I am now, bringing you up-to-the-week news straight from my own life.

It's a three-day week. WHAT A FEELING. There was school today, and now it's a two-day week! How did it go so fast? Then there will be school tomorrow and heck, it'll practically be over already. I can get behind this system. Pity it's only happening this once.

Anyway, though, the four-day Easter weekend went just about as well as we could've hoped. Daniel and I set sail right when school ended on Thursday, and after an eight-hour border crossing that left us very glad to have each other as conversation partners, we arrived at our destination: Machon Shlomo yeshiva in the Orthodox enclave of Har Nof, a mountaintop neighborhood set off from the hustle and bustle of the city.

Despite the late hour, we were welcomed cordially by a group of familiarly frat-bro-esque American yeshiva students, some of whom were full-timers but most of whom were in Har Nof for a 3-week Orthodox immersion program called STEP. We didn't get to see the view from the yeshiva until the next morning, but it was worth the wait:

That's the largest Jewish cemetery in Jerusalem, just a part of the gorgeous panorama out the windows of the yeshiva. Machon Shlomo is scattered across three floors of an apartment building and its pleasantly, familiarly grungy aesthetic keeps the frat house theme going nicely. Here's Daniel in our room:

It actually belongs to 3 actual students, but 2 were away for the Pesach holiday, so we snagged their beds and the hospitality of their roommate, Aaron.

The weekend itself was quite immersive: davening (that is, prayer) 3 times a day; meals at a few local homes; and study sessions when the holiday schedule permitted. For these sessions, which took place on Friday and Sunday mornings, we and the STEP students paired up with Har Nof volunteers for one-on-one Talmud study for an hour. I was lucky enough to work with our contact, Rabbi Yonason Sigler, a Princeton and MIT grad (and a cappella singer!) who's a published astrophysicist and former NASA employee. Smart, to say the least; and a thoughtful and engaging teacher too.

After that first hour, we'd all group together with Rabbi Sigler to go over the topic; this weekend happened to be a bit from the Gemara about whether it's appropriate to recite the Sh'ma in any language, or just Hebrew. Esoteric stuff, to be sure, but Daniel and I agreed that it was as much about learning the process of Jewish logic than the actual content. Taken as an exercise to that end, our study was quite rewarding.

The third hour was the most thrilling: guest lectures! The first was from a Rabbi Triebitz, who got his Ph.D in mathematical physics from either Princeton or Stanford (but who's counting) at age TWENTY-ONE (I'm counting). And apparently conducted at Juilliard when he was 14. And now sits in a plastic folding chair in an old apartment building lecturing to twenty-somethings about the Jewish conception of the World to Come. Given that I certainly never would've heard any of his physics lectures, I might make the argument that I'm better off for his change in life plans.

The second lecture was from a guy who I honestly might best describe as Chasidic Santa Claus. The jolliest, twinkliest-eyed Danish Jew you could imagine gave us a phenomenal lecture on his studies of the Jewish notion free will, while cracking jokes about his beard and soliciting feedback in a way that rivals the best efforts of the King's Academy faculty. There was some inspired and inspiring teaching going on at this place, and we felt lucky to be there.

And the rest of the weekend? A delightful Shabbos dinner with a South African guy and his Canadian wife and their adorable kids; Saturday meals at the Sigler household, featuring epic 3-part harmony by the Rabbi and his two oldest sons (plus the youngest boy, who'd wail away an octave above his dad); and plenty of contemplative prayerful moments and discussions with the other students, who were fascinated about our work in Jordan and generally kept very open minds.

Some more pics from Machon Shlomo! Here's the dining-type area, where we had college-kitchen-esque eggs and matzah lasagnas and intriguingly gross-but-addictive Kosher for Passover strawberry jelly on matzah:

An actual culinary highlight of the yeshiva: gefilte fish and horseradish. Home sweet home.

All in all, a bizarre and pretty wonderful experience. Am I considering going back for the full three-week STEP adventure? Totally. We'll see what happens.

And the rest of the trip was fun too. We scooted down to the Western Wall on Saturday night and were just in time to see the Gerrer Rebbe, leader of the biggest Chasidic dynasty in Israel and sharer of Daniel's last name. CRAZY crowds of Chasidic dudes trying to catch a glimpse of him as he made his way to pray. Our sheer dumb luck put us in just the right place to see his wizened face paying absolutely no heed to the literally hundreds of men clambering over each other to get close to him. Very weird. Pretty cool.

We spent the last evening with Micah, which was pleasantly reminiscent of last time, playing frisbee in a park and eating Chinese food because it was the last night of Passover and everywhere was closed for the holiday. It felt weirdly like being an American Jew on Christmas, but was somehow very appropriate. Then Daniel and I somehow finished a pint of Ben and Jerry's in like 10 minutes. I think the best explanation is that there's Ben and Jerry's in Israel. It was like an ice cream oasis.

***

And now I'm back for this cute little school week! Put three asterisks up above in case you were bored of the Israel stuff and wanted to skip it and get back to the present. You're welcome!

On tap: a Glee Club concert, the last big one of the year. We were quite anemic tonight in the cavernous and acoustically deplorable auditorium, but started to warm to it towards the end, and I think things will turn out fine. Then parent-teacher conferences over the weekend, and then a week at whose end is the first of May. Where on earth does the time go?

Well, took more time and wrote much more than I'd planned to. Time to be productive and do some grading like a Real Teacher; if all those weekend lessons and conversations with Daniel led to anything, it was confidence and reaffirmation that I've got a great job and that the challenges are all so worth it. Let's hope those thoughts continue to prove true, and that I can practice what I preach to the kids and finish this year strong.

Oh, and I'm gonna order some mana'eesh in fifteen minutes, because Passover is DONE and it's time to celebrate. Mmmmm.