Am I a Failure?

The other day, I was having a conversation with a friend who had just finished high school last year. He mentioned a favorite teacher that he did well with in his senior year, and I thought of my senior year English teacher, who inspired me to work harder my second semester senior year (getting my first A in honors English in all of high school). In the course of the conversation, I found myself saying, "That's how you know a teacher's good. When he inspires you to want to do your work." (I said he, because I was thinking of a specific male teacher. But I suppose it applies to women as well.) And then I thought about my own students. For my last assignment, not a single student handed in the paper on its due date. Nor on either of the next two days that they could have before leaving for a Kibbutz for a week. So this paper, that I assigned two weeks in advance and gave a two-day extension on for my class, was either ignored or not completed. And now it's been over a week, and I'm going back to class. Do I assume that I've failed somewhere? Do I know if my students are learning anything?
The past month of teaching has left me very satisfied, generally speaking. I enjoy the time I spend in class, I feel like I am connecting to my students, and I feel confident in my abilities to teach. None of my students is doing spectacularly, but none is failing either. I am getting mostly positive feedback from my supervisor. But the question remains, how do I know how I am doing? Can I measure myself by the strength of my students? Can I measure myself by their interest and effort? Or by the way they react to me outside of the classroom? I don't know. The biggest struggle of teaching has been finding a fair way to evaluate my students. But perhaps the bigger challenge is finding a fair way to evaluate myself.

Nothing to Blog about

Since I've unfortunately reduced my blog into nothing more than a giant kvetch fest, I have nothing to say. I mean I want a car. Please buy me a car.
And I don't like dealing with Israeli bureaucracy. And I can't spell bureaucracy without a spell-check.
My life has become somewhat normal, somewhat stable, and fairly boring. Maybe in some future post I'll blog about something of interest about problems in Israel, the poor education system, the corrupt government, the lack of public transportation on Shabbat (which I bemoan despite not traveling on Shabbat anyway). In the meantime, I have papers to grade.

Who are You?

Who are you to tell me I'm unhappy? Seriously. Post after post, lately, I've been enlightening you, friends, faithful readers, naysayers, about my trials and tribulations living in Israel. Life here isn't easy. Maybe I see at as my goal to convince gungho Zionists not to up and make aliyah without ever living here. Because even if the point of aliyah is "to live the dream," it's bullshit, unless somebody's dream is vivid enough to include a lower chance of finding a good job, an awareness of the difficulties of living thousands of miles away from loved ones, and obnoxious Israelis. So yeah. I'm happy to be living here, despite all this stuff. And even though I knew, and I have known, that it would be difficult to find work here, I didn't really know what that would feel like, and even now, I'm commuting somewhere between 4 and 5 hours a day just to do a job I enjoy and make a little money.
But you know what I'm even happier about? I'm happy that I haven't made aliyah. Yet. I'm happy that when I was 14 I decided I wanted to move to Israel when I finished college, and that I did move to Israel when I finished college. I'm happy I decided somewhere near the beginning of college that I wanted to live in Israel for a few years before making aliyah. And chances are, in the near future, I'll be happy to make aliyah. But in the meantime, I'm happy to be living here not as an oleh. And you know what else? I'm happy to be teaching at TRY. I like my students. I like the subject matter. And I really like the people with whom I work (and I hate dangling prepositions).
But what is a blog for if not to complain? Seriously, how enjoyable of a read would this be if I just talked about what's great here. Cause God knows I don't have many interesting stories. I've gone on one date this year, made vague plans with various girls which have inevitably fallen through, and maybe on my way to becoming study buddies with a rapper. But I'm not working in Israeli music television, I'm not dating an Israeli supermodel, and well, I don't even have enough of an imagination to make up some other theoretically exciting situation. So, faithful blog reader, accept this blog for what it is: a way for me to blow off steam. A way for me to kvetch about the things that bother me, so I can continue to enjoy the things that make me happy. And I'm happy. And fuck you for judging me otherwise.

PS- Dear New TRY student. Congratulations! You found my blog! Way to go!

Follow-Up

Hebrew or no Hebrew, no second date.
Possible things that this girl didn't like:
That I'm a Conservative Jew.
That I'm liberal.
That I'm younger than her.
Things that clearly had nothing to do with it:
My dashing good looks.
My dashinger personality.
And to be clear, those last two comments were not sarcastic.

I'm Proud

I sustained conversation for 2 and a half hours in Hebrew. I'm proud of myself.

I Guess I Miss It

I'm not gonna lie. I sort of miss posting to my blog. Since I'm barely talking to any of my friends regardless of whether or not they read the blog, what the hell. At least you can sort of know what's going on in my life, even if I have no idea what's going on in any of yours. (Shameless plug: I have an American phone number. Call me on it!)
I've had a really big identity crisis lately. It's probably somewhat apparent from this blog. Aside from all the issues (mostly dealing with Judaism and homosexuality and less so with religious Zionism) discussed in previous blogs, I have significant, unexplainable issues with being religious. For some reason, I am ashamed to be thought of as "dati" in this country. I continue to wear my kipah and my tzitzit (tucked in, but I've done it that way for as long as I've worn tzitzit), and yet, I often wish it wasn't there. I feel the need to explain to every restaurateur that I am ok with eating dairy in a non-Kosher restaurant, and to tell marketers on the street that they won't appeal to me by appealing to my religiousness. What the hell is going on? Does anybody really care that I don't respect the Rabbanut in Israel? Do I even care?
In a few days, I have a blind date, set up by my friend's sister (thanks Meira!). I've heard lots of great things about her (she staffed the AviChai trip and so I got to do some leg work before hand). She's modern orthodox apparently, and I was relieved to hear she wears pants and not just skirts. Honestly, what the hell is wrong with me? I bitch every other day that I'm having a hard time meeting people in this country, especially girls. And yet, I almost gave up an opportunity to meet someone new (in the context of a date, no less), because of some religious prejudice toward people who, like me, are committed to religion. Well, until I run into some observant, cynical, Conservative/Reform, left-wing, not quite Zionist but not quite Post-Zionist attractive, fun, girl between the ages of 20 and 26, I guess I should just be open-minded. But what does it say about me that I'm having such a hard time being so?

Am I Proud to Be Conservative?

I felt it necessary to post about this. Maybe the blog lives on after all.
So yesterday the Conservative Committee on Jewish Laws and Standards voted on 5 responsa about homosexuals, their right to marry within Judaism, and their right to be Rabbis. 3 responsa passed, one maintaining a ban on commitment ceremonies and admitting gay Rabbinical students; one permitting Conservative rabbis to perform same-sex commitment ceremonies and permitting the Rabbinical schools to admit homosexual rabbis (this responsum also continues to forbid anal intercourse between men); the third, suggested that congregations should encourage homosexuals to undergo "reparative therapy." What the fuck!? I do not know who voted for what resolution and how many voted for each. But I am thoroughly disgusted that there are at least 6 Conservative Rabbis who want to encourage therapy. Forget 6 members of the CJLS, 6 Conservative Rabbis period. I am appalled. But at least I'm glad that institutions that have no problem ordaining adulterers can stop pretending that homosexuality is a crime against everything for which Judaism stands.