The Gaza Situation, and other less important things

Hey, all.

Sorry for the long interval between posts. It's been a few weeks of getting settled in and geared back into teaching mode after a fantastic holiday in the States.

First of all, Gaza -- I am sure you are curious about what it is like over here with a major military operation happening just down the highway. The military offensive began while I was still in Seattle, so I watched the news footage of things exploding and collapsing and people being rushed to hospitals before I came back.

Since I returned to Israel, I haven't seen or heard a single piece of evidence that we're militarily involved with anyone. No rockets, no sirens, no curfews. Granted, I haven't been further south than Tel Aviv, but were there no media, I would have no idea anything was different. So, please be advised that framing devices used in the media make things out to be much more dangerous to everyone than they actually are. I have no doubt that things in Gaza are absolutely hellish, but anyone who is not in the actual theater of combat has a life to lead, and they do.

Israeli reservists are being called up and dispatched, which is terrifying for some. One of our P.E. teachers who is taller than I am (hard to do in Israel) got called up, but his duty was to knock on doors and find malingering reservists who weren't reporting (and, believe me, if Doron knocked on your door, you'd probably do what he asked you.) However, he's back and teaching now.

As far as my personal take on the situation, I have a very mixed opinion on the effectiveness and the methods of the Israeli Defense Forces. However, I do believe from talking with the lovely people I've met, both reservists and civilians, that Israel wants peace and stability more than anything whereas Hamas just wants to destroy the opposition entirely, so I support Israel's intentions, though it means odious and continual fighting. War in general is tremendously more complex than anyone can imagine, so I apologize if this seems jingoistic, but I honestly don't want to follow the story too closely.

Anyway, onto other topics. As I mentioned earlier, I had a fantastic time back in Seattle. The feeling of living in two places is exactly that of watching two different movies concurrently -- pause one, start another . . . wait, where was I . . .? -- pause the other, resume the first. I look forward to an entire month home in the summer. Among the things I miss from the US:

Pumping my own gas
Ziploc bags
Drive-thru
Mexican food in any form
Choosing my own seat at the movie theater
Not having to be ultra-aggressive to get things done
Buying things on Saturday
Other band teachers
Coniferous trees
My friends and family

And, to be fair, things I will miss about Israel:

Spelling anything the way I want
The world's greatest yogurt (honestly!)
Uniformly gorgeous women
January here feels like April
People who are usually gregarious if and once you get to know them
Bauhaus architecture
Krembo (a winter confection with national treasure status -- kind of like a Ding Dong)
Free coffee machine in the staff lounge in Hebrew so you don't know what kind of coffee you're getting (button #5 from the top is pretty good)

There will be more eventually, but now back to getting settled in.