It's midnight. Here I am. Sitting in my awesome studio apartment in Netanya. It is an awesome up and coming city in the center of Israel, graced by the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. My apartment building is so new that there is a handy-man who still comes each day to do his touch ups (fire alarm installation, etc.) I am sharing my studio/dorm room space with another girl, but Hurricane Irene (that brat) has postponed her travels. The space is big and we have a flat screen TV with thousands of channels and nice little, tiny, figure-it-out kitchen area. I'm back to freshman year sharing this room, but I have no complaints there! My program has not taken full swing yet, we are getting used to the area we are living in and those sort of things before we start traveling into Tel-Aviv everyday for our training. I have now been here a full two days and I feel comfortable, I like where I live, I am excited to meet more Israeli's and the children I am teaching (which I found out are anywhere from 1st grade and up through high school?). I wish this experience for everyone. From the very starts of stress and packing, to anxiety on the airplane, to loss and confusion in a foreign airport, and even the semi-lonely feeling and jet lag in the first few days or weeks. This is what real learning is. This you don't find in a classroom. All that money spent on college (well spent money! Don't get me wrong), does not buy these real feelings and these true experiences. Maybe I don't have credibility yet because it has only been two days, but my feelings are strong and I am fully aware that even though my feelings are scary, they are real and natural human feelings - everybody's got 'em.
Decision-making has never been my forte. I don't like the feeling of possibly making the wrong decision and it being "too late." But I can say with confidence, this was the right decision, at the right time, with the right frame of mind, with the right heart, and the right pair of eyes. I deeply appreciate the roof that MASA (the program in which I am a part of) has put over our heads, the delicioussssss food I get to eat everyday, the face that I live 7 minutes walking distance from the Mediterranean Sea and I WILL be swimming in it almost everyday, and the opportunity to make a difference for the better. I can only hope that others find a path similar to mine and as easy as I did. It's times like these that we won't have forever....
