Superficial Joy

No airport produces more anxiety in me than the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. But this visit was either an opportunity for God to show off or I got really lucky. Who knew that a trip to the airport could become a theological exercise?!?! Leave it to me to complicate and overanalyze an everyday event.  This view from the end of the long line. It looked worse in person! I finished the school year on Wednesday and flew out on Thursday morning at 8:30.  I try to avoid morning flights out of Israel because it is truly a 4-hour airport. I get  to the airport 4 hours early because it can take so long to go through all the security and check in lines. This has been an adjustment after living in Boise, where I left my house 1 1/2 hours before my flight, and Abu Dhabi, where 2 hours for an international flight was plenty. Unfortunately, the 8:30 departure was unavoidable so I arrived at 4:30 a.m. Flights into and out of Israel require an extra layer of security--an "interview" (...

Congratulations to all the teachers out there who have completed or as short to complete the "way worse than we thought it would be" school year! My last day was yesterday (June 15) and I have to say that this was my best year of teaching in my 11 years (which, by the way, I just figured out. All year long I thought this was my 10th year of teaching--maybe I just blocked out last year).  My two closest friends in Israel, Jessie and Lynn Aside from the fact that we were not on Zoom this year, which made everything 1000 times better, I loved my students. Because we were open in Israel, students got to sit in groups and move around and after spring break we no longer had to wear masks. Something new to me was Week Without Walls. My school in Abu Dhabi didn't do this was a first. It is really "3 days without walls" (Wednesday to Friday), but whatever. I was anxious about spending 3 days with 50 eighth graders but I was wrong. It was really fun! And it turned out to ...