I feel like every time I sit down to blog I want to start off with “Sorry I haven’t updated in awhile, my life’s been crazy busy.” Well I’m doing work week now, got rush coming up, a whole yearbook to run, and school’s about to start, so let’s assume my life will be crazy busy until further notice and my posts will be accordingly erratic.

I took a much needed break last weekend and went to visit some friends in the bay area. One day for lunch we went into this tiny little sushi place in Mountain View only to find… (dun, dun, DUNNN) a chain of sushi boats! There’s a moat around the central sushi bar with a ton of wooden boats all chained together that continuously rotate.

The color of the plate indicates the price of the item, so at the end you just stack them all up and they calculate your bill from that. Pretty sweet.

Taken at a bakery in Chinatown. Yes, those ARE cherry tomatoes! :D

Recipe for Photoshop awesomeness:

Take 1 low-contrast, overly bright desert panorama.

Add a single Curves layer.

BAM. Photoshop, you’re awesome.

The last day of the program is taken up mostly by bouncy castles and water slides, but before that comes the final presentations for Y2 and Y3. We had a little bit of time beforehand, so of course there was lots of last minute work.

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In about 4 hours me and my luggage will get in a van and head to a plane which will, over the course of 12 hours, take me back to the States. This summer has been one hell of a ride, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Things I will greatly miss:

• my students
• the food
• the exchange rate
• the nightlife
• the weather (most of the time)

Things I will NOT miss:

• having to turn on the hot water 20 minutes before I take a shower
• not having a microwave or an oven
• sleeping in a twin bed
• the weather (the rest of the time)

I’ve got a pretty large backlog of pictures from MEET events and the weekend trips of the instructors which I’ll be working through once I get home.  For now, I’ll end this post with one big shout-out to my amazing team. You guys made this summer better than I could have possibly imagined. (can’t credit the photographer, I’m not sure who he was)

Today was the last day of MEET. It’s been 4 full weeks since I first met my students, although it feels as if just a few days have gone by. On the other hand, it feels like I’ve known my students for much longer – I’m going to be so emotional at their graduation. The one downside of teaching Y3 is you can’t come back and teach them again. I’ll update more later; right now I’m dead tired. This program has been one hell of a ride. I kept all of the schedule cards for each day of MEET, and put them on the wall above my bed. (the hole in the middle was a Jewish fast day)

I remember nervously introducing myself to a crowd full of strangers on the first day, in the worst-designed lecture hall I’d ever seen. A lot of Y3 was near the front, and they made themselves known, though at the time I didn’t know anything about them. Now I can see them in my memory, clear as day. Michael, Roni, Melkar, Adam, Dor, Aalaa, Yahia… I had no idea what I was in for, but now that I’m on the other side I know that I had no reason to be nervous. This has been one of the most incredible experiences of my life, but while I’ll be sad to see it go I’ll be taking a lot of what I’ve learned here back with me.

Bluuuuuuuuurgh. Life here has been busy and stressful lately in ever so many ways, but this morning I got the results back from my week 3 student surveys.

Q: “What positive things (that he/she does now) should he/she continue doing in the future because they worked well?”

Student’s A: “being great!”

Thanks guys. :) You just MMD.

Today we herded sheep. Details will come later, just thought you ought to know.

I know it’s nowhere near the first time there’s been an article written about MEET, but it’s the first one that’s been written (that I’m aware of) while I’m here! There’s something special about that. :)

Jerusalem Post: Can Technology Bring Peace to the Middle East?

Last Wednesday our students finished off the day with “Sports Day.” This involved such activities as soccer…

(super image heavy post, lots more under the cut)

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