come on mood, shift. shift back to good again.

today was interesting. i stayed up kind of late last night talking to my mom, dad, and brother. sorry i was so tired, guys. next time i call you, i'll have some more energy. still haven't talked to gammy yet though. :(

anyway, woke up a little late, walked to the falafel place. the guy there is in love with alli. i swear, now when we walked down the street there's people that we wave to in shops and stuff. like in beauty and the beast. i'll have to figure out which one is which.

after lunch i went to kadima alone, as everyone else has either had their schedule changed or worked instead. i almost didn't, but i ended up bringing 3 of the cameras that ofir had given me from oranim. they're cool looking things, and super gigantic. i mean these things are so old that they run on floppy discs. i'm not kidding. but i saw some of the photos they took and i was pretty impressed despite the 2 megapixel quality. i think i was scared to bring them, because that would mean i am to start teaching today, which is something i have no idea how to do. but fuck it, i said. i'll figure it out.

when i got to kadima, i found sivan (director) and told her i had brought the cameras. she was really excited, so she hooked me up with another volunteer, who in turn hooked me up with tal (a better english-speaking volunteer). he told me that we'd get the 12-15 older kids together later in the day to start the lessons. "ok, " i thought, "maybe i won't die". the first 30 minutes after i arrived i actually retreated to the office and then the back room trying the charged battery and floppy discs in each camera to see which ones worked. also, to figure out how to use them myself. after fiddling around with them briefly, i discovered that only 1 of the 3 actually functioned, but i gathered enough of an understanding to work that one, so i took a few photos to show the class. keep in mind, i have no fucking clue what i'm actually going to do with them.

after i figured this out, i found the 6th grade class that i'd been working with last week. there's a little boy named yossi that needed help with english, according to sitvanit, a very sweet volunteer in charge of the class i was in. this kid is really cute actually, but has a really hard time in english. not to mention, it seems that because he has a hard time, he doesn't want to learn. on the other hand, the worksheet he had was kind of hard for his level of understanding. i tried to help him do the worksheet, but the breakdown in communication today was so bad that i just tried to start a game of hang-man so he could guess english letters to form a word. basically, this didn't work either. that was pretty hard, because i was in this class and i couldn't communicate. so the rest of the day, i didn't really say anything else, just kind of sat there trying to understand what was going on and listening until class was over.

tal got all the older kids in a circle and i came in with the camera, showing them how to use it, while tal translated. i didn't know what the fuck to do, since the battery started to die right after we sat down. and one of the kids asked me why we should take pictures with my camera when his camera phone can take the same picture. i had no idea. tal then asked me to tell them what "my project was". off the top of my head, i said that our project would be three parts:

1) something you love
2) something you hate
3) something you want to change

for next week, i told them to bring in one thing they love so that we can find out different ways to take a picture of it. i have no idea what i'm going to teach them, but i'll just think really hard about it. and hopefully get more cameras that work. i asked ofir, and he said he'd have an answer for me by wednesday when i go into work.

jen picked me up from work and we had dinner at the apartment. it was nice to chill with her. afterwards, i took a mighty little nap. then we walked back to the house. i've just been hanging out, so i'm sleepy now. going to bed. ulpan and TV station tomorrow!!! laila tov (goodnight)

b'ahava (in love),

sally