Anna

Today didn't start well. I didn't sleep well the night before. Bad dreams. And I kept waking up. Combine that with some sort of vague feeling of badness in my gut and I just felt icky.

I dealt with the gut issues fairly well, I think. For breakfast and lunch I had the same thing: a single slice of toast with a dab of jam, washed down with peppermint tea. I sipped on ginger ale, meanwhile, as I collated the results of my research among Israelis who have learned English as a foreign language. Let's just say there weren't any surprises.

After lunch, I kept to nursing my ginger ale. Unfortunately, my guts staged a revolt. And while my front end was spared, the back half was certainly not. Okay, so Imodium (not under that brand name, loperamide in Israel comes under the charming brand name StopIt). Eyal kindly turned on the water heater for me, as while loperamide would work on the gut woes, a nice hot shower would most definitely cure the persistent icky feeling.

I was correct about that, by the by. I also noticed that my haircut had the added benefit of cutting my after-shower haircare routine by two minutes - going from 5-6 minutes to 3-4 minutes. Nice.

My gut is no longer staging a revolt, thankfully, but I'm not taking any chances. It's peppermint tea and toast for the rest of the day.

Although I'm not, as a rule, a morning person, I was fairly cheerful when I woke up this morning. The CELTA session promised to be an easy one - getting to know our new tutor, observing her teaching our new students, doing a getting-to-know-you activity with them, and then talking about lesson planning for next week. No problem, right? Right?

Alas. Upon opening my laptop and attempting to turn it on, it promptly shat the bed in spectacular fashion. Swearing profusely, I put off examination, messaged my new tutor that I'd be on presently on my phone, and quickly opened Zoom on my phone. We didn't get much time to talk, because the students soon arrived. At that point Sezgi - my tutor - turned off my camera and Dimitra's, and muted us. (Dimitra is my fellow student teacher.) This was a good thing, as it turned out. I soon found myself having a potty emergency. Off to the bathroom. At least no one heard my struggles or saw my pale, strained face. I'll spare you further details.

Once the observation was done, we each did a getting-to-know-you activity. I had to improvise a bit to adapt it to my phone, but hey, I've always been able to think on my feet. After that Sezgi had Dimitra and I dissect her lesson in detail, so we could improve our own lesson planning. I shared my outline for next week's reading lesson. And that's about it for Tuesday's CELTA session....

...now I just had to figure out what was wrong with my laptop. More importantly - was it something that could be fixed until March, when we planned to buy a new laptop? I summoned Eyal, he fooled around with it for a bit, and declared the whole damn thing kaput. Since I needed a new laptop yesterday, he agreed we would go get one later. As he pointed out, we were planning on it anyway, so the financial pinch wasn't a problem.

Actually buying the thing was the easy part. We'd been scoping out laptops for awhile, searching for something to fit my needs, and found something that would be good. All we had to do was go to the store where it was in stock and pay for it.

So here I am. New laptop. A month ahead of time. But it has been a day.

1. Started my Hebrew course today. It's fun, actually. I'm also looking into taking some professional courses (online marketing, web design). I may as well do my best to keep busy whilst waiting on the CELTA course. At least that way I'll be ready to start my business as soon as I have my diploma. Since the Israeli state has organizations that help people with disabilities start small businesses, including hooking them up with accountants and lawyers, I'm very keen to get things up and running as soon as I can.

2. I don't know that I specified what, precisely, my business would be. Quite simply, it would be teaching English to individuals or groups up to four. My client base would be adults studying for the university entrance exam (most people in Israel delay university until after they finish their military service), older teenagers studying for the diploma exam (yes, it requires English proficiency), and adults looking to improve business English. I have no plans to teach kids (although my seven year old nephew Yosef loves learning English from me and so far can count to 100 and knows his colors and shapes).

3. Laundry continues from day to day and week to week. Laundry is the one a few tasks I don't delegate to our cleaning lady, Tiferet. It's not that I'm a control freak, it's just that laundry is something I can do. Ditto the dishes and cooking. I also de-clutter the dining and living room every Friday before Shabbat comes in. I hate lacking the spoons to do deeper cleaning, but in all fairness Tiferet does a much better job than I would even if I did have the spoons. Anyway, as I was folding Eyal's clothes today, I found myself happy that the quality of his clothing has drastically improved in the four years we've been together. No, I don't pick out his clothes...though I did suggest he switch to boxer shorts (he loved them). I also suggested he upgrade his ill-fitting and raggedy clothes, which he did on our trips to the States. Thanks to the Jockey outlet, he now has supremely comfy underwear and undershirts; Old Navy and Marshalls provided fun t-shirts; Target supplied new jeans. All at better prices than can be found here in Israel.

4. In a couple of weeks the holidays start. We'll probably do Rosh Hashanah with my sister-in-law Orit. That's always nice; I get along extremely well with everyone - all seven of her kids, her husband, her husband's family even. It's lovely to do the Rosh Hashanah seder with them. The singing is lovely, with haunting Iraqi melodies. Then the day after Yom Kippur, we drive to Petach Tikva to Eyal's mother's grave for her memorial. Sometimes it's hard for us to get a minyan (if women counted it'd be easier, but we don't, so ten men older than 13 it must be) to say Kaddish, but it's been easier since last year when Alon (Eyal's brother) started coming. (There's a long story there but I can't get into it here.) After that? I think forever after Simchat Torah will be tainted with mourning...it's the anniversary of the October 7 attack on the Hebrew calendar. Just like we still recite prayers composed to mourn the victims of the Rhineland Crusades and the pogroms and the Holocaust, new prayers will be composed.

Yesterday I had my interview for the CELTA (Certificate For Teaching English Language To Adults) Training Program Online, administered through an adult learning center in Frankfurt. Not my first online interview, but I wanted to up my game.

My mom advised me to put my laptop on two large books for a better angle. And - yes - wear makeup, because it's professional to look well-rested and fresh. And a nice outfit, of course.

It goes without saying that I pored over the pre-course materials they sent me very carefully the night before. And in the morning I chose an appropriate outfit - cream blouse with a pink floral pattern and gray tailored trousers. I put on makeup - just enough to look well rested (for the curious: e.l.f Tinted Brow Gel in Blonde, Maybelline The Falsies Lashlift Mascara in Brownish Black, e.l.f 16 Hour Camo Concealer in Fair Rose, L'Oreal Lumi Glotion in Fair, NYX Professional Makeup Longwear Slim Lip Pencil in Peekaboo Natural, L'Oreal Colour Riche Lipstick in Peony Pink). I spritzed on cologne for a bit of confidence (Jo Malone London Silver Birch & Lavender - comforting). I was ready.

It was a tough interview. My command of the English language, it turns out, is far more intuitive than systemic - something that native speakers of any language contend with when they turn to teaching their native tongue as a foreign language. However, I did get high marks for my approach to solving problems with students and correcting them. As well, I think my attitude that a good teacher really makes or breaks a course for students (from my own experience) went over well.

I got my acceptance letter this morning. So! I need to return a scan of the acceptance letter with my signature, printed name, and date as well as a scan of my passport. Then I need to cough up €200 for my deposit - the course costs €1,200 total, including deposit. I also dropped $150 on course materials.

I did get welcome feedback from the interview. I will definitely be studying English grammar intensively between now and the course beginning in June, along with all the other pre-course tasks. Also taking some Zoom tutorials and probably springing for the premium version of Zoom.

After this course, Eyal suggested I do a course in web design and another in Internet marketing.

He's invested in my success.

Mind you, today I'm beat. I'm pushing through, of course. And without Facebook in my life, curiously enough, my energy is returning. Funny that.