Coming into camp I did resolve to sleep more this time around. Judging by how things have been progressing over the first few days, I’m not sure that goal is going to be realized. In an effort to get ahead of the craziness that will be tomorrow influx of coaches, and the training session I will be running, I wanted to get this post done before sleeping. Here’s how today went down:
It turns out my new cell phone has a pretty decent alarm that builds to a rather startling crescendo in 10 seconds time. After hitting it several times, I got up and managed my morning routine without the nicer amenities of my checked bag. Oh, I did get an email from the baggage company saying my backpack should show up tomorrow. Yay. After showing I enjoyed a nice breakfast of bread and what I call Israeli Nutella. It’s a bit sweeter and not as thick as Nutella, but still quite good.
I then transitioned back to working on training materials. Linda made a shopping run and picked me up some very tasty wafer cookies that I really need to not eat so many of. In the mid-afternoon David, Nancy, and Amir showed up, so now, really, camp can begin. During the day the Pearl boys materialized, as did Idan. Later in the evening Chelsea, Sarah, and Alice joined the party.
For lunch we enjoyed some chicken and various side dishes. Also, in the late-afternoon a bunch of people went to the pool. During their foray into the outside world I continued to work on coaching materials, socialized with Raz, and rested a bit. I also spent some time working on the camp IT infrastructure, doing battle with a wireless printer, and fixing some collateral damage I most likely caused on a pretty nice SSD netbook.
For dinner we had a great round of Falafel, which I capped off with some great ginger (?) and lemon potatoes. The evening was filled with lots of organizational work, as the various directors buzzed about copying, strategizing, and tackling spreadsheets. Overall, everyone is feeling really good about the full opening tomorrow.
It’s a wonderful feeling to be back at Manof. In a way it feels like I never left. Everything is set and ready for the incoming wave of coaches, CITs, and campers. I can’t wait. Here’s how I got here…
My journey began in the early morning on Thursday, 6/20, at my brother’s apartment in Jamaica Plain outside of Boston, MA. My first waking thought was to mentally check over everything I had packed, which was followed by a quick physical inspection of my carryon bag. All was set and by a little after 8am, Jesse and I were on the road.
We worked our way through a bit of traffic, said our goodbyes at the curb at Logan, and then I was off into the airport. After a bit of shenanigans getting properly checked in for me 3-leg, 2-airline flight to Tel Aviv, I cleared security and got myself comfortably ensconced at my gate. A short flight later I was in JFK, which I was happy to find felt much nicer than I had remembered. It then took working my way out of security, a short train ride, and a trip back through security to get to my next gate. On the plane I found myself sitting next to an 11 year old gear traveling by herself to Hungary. Way cool. I used some of my basic Hungarian, which she actually understood. The couple on the other side of me was on their way to Paris to take a river cruise to Prague. That’s definitely on my list of things to do one day. JFK to CDG (Paris) was smooth. I read, slept, watched a couple mediocre movies, and caught a second short nap right before landing.
I would have loved to been able to at least see some of Paris, but my short lay over combined with the heavy fog meant that I didn’t get to see anything. After chatting with some friendly travelers at the gate, I boarded and got back to my book (Inferno — Yah, Dan Brown is pretty fun). Not long after, I slept and woke up shortly before landing in Tel Aviv.
Walking off the plane, even at 5:30am, the weather was warm. I made it to passport control where I spent a little while chatting with a family who was on their way to Jerusalem and Jordan. After getting my stamp, I made my way over to the luggage carousel… where my backpack did NOT show up. Sigh.
I made a claim over at the desk and they said I should get my bag up in Acco in the next 1-2 days. I always tell my kids to never check their cleats. I’m so glad I didn’t! At this point I tried to use the international cell phone I had purchased before the trip… and the sim card was inactive. Hooray. Fortunately, my carryon bag was well packed and I didn’t have too far to go to get to Acco.
Right outside the airport, I boarded the train, made sure I was going north, and settled in for the 2 hour ride from TLV to Acco. At a little before 4pm I was at the Acco train station where I caught a 3 minute cab ride to Manof.
After clearing the Manof gates, I made my way to the main building where I found three CITs — Ali, Raz, and Asma! All three were in MA in April for the US tour. It was wonderful to see them all again. I then connected with Tomer, Mickey, Zolo, and Ben. Moving into my room (with Abe!) was easy, considering I had one small backpack to unpack.
For the next several hours I caught up with people, worked on various tasks, and helped setup. Around 7pm we all drove to the old city center and had a very nice dinner overlooking the water. An hour or so into dinner Linda, Bob, and a bunch of other people showed up. Our numbers are growing!
Fully stuffed with hummus and chicken, I got back to Manof and returned to working on my coaching training slides. Karym showed up a bit later, and he, Tomer, and myself ended up spending several hours late into the night working in the main office.
So far the morning has been pretty relaxing. Lots of tasks have been done, but the overall feeling is that everything is ahead of where it was last year at this time. The big thing we’re waiting for is the incoming wave of coaches and kids! As I was saying to Mickey earlier today, it’s nice being at Manof when it’s quiet… but it’s going to be so much better when we’re at full capacity and everything is in motion!
After packing up my classroom and home office, I found many wonderful artifacts. One that I thought was worth sharing is the STJ Ultimate 2004 Yearbook. I founded the club Ultimate program in 2003, but we didn’t start traveling to play other schools until the spring of 2004. That spring we played 33 games and traveled 3,707 miles :)
This summer I am spectacularly excited to be returning to Israel to work at CampUP, a youth Ultimate camp run by a phenomenally amazing organization called Ultimate Peace.
For those of you that like things short and sweet, here’s the outline of what’s going on:
– This summer I’ll be in Israel from June 18th to July 16th, working with Ultimate Peace at two consecutive 5-day overnight camps for Arab, Jewish, and Palestinian youths.
– In addition to coaching two teams of my own, I will be continuing my work as the Director of Ultimate and Coaching. In this position I am responsible for the training of more than 50 Ultimate Peace coaches.
– Ultimate Peace operates fully by donations, and each coach is responsible for raising substantial funds to make the camps happen.
– Every last little bit helps, even if it is to just spread the word!
– I will be blogging about all of my Ultimate Peace experiences at www.UltimateJosh.com.
– On 3/28/13 I gave a presentation at the Catamount Arts theater as part of the Osher Lecture Series. My presentation was called “Building peace in the Middle East: One game of Ultimate at a time”. I spent an hour talking about my experience working with Ultimate Peace as well as answering questions from the audience. You can watch the presentation in it’s entirety right here.
– The most recent Ultimate Peace promo video can be viewed right here.
– Please consider supporting us at www.ultimatepeace.org/donate/. If you do make a donation on my behalf, please put down my name on the online donation form where it says “in support of”. Donations are tax deductible.
If you are up for the long version, or want to know why I’m taking the uncomfortable step of asking for money, please click here.
I just launched a new annual prize at St. Johnsbury Academy that will be given out at each Last Chapel. From the prize’s charter document:
The Spirit of the Game prize will be given to a St. Johnsbury Academy girl and boy annually who have participated in two or more years of Ultimate Frisbee, shown a strong work ethic, and who have always practiced good sportsmanship in true embodiment of the Spirit of the Game.
Here’s the video of me presenting the inaugural awards:
Everyone morning during the school year all sophomores, juniors, and seniors meet for a live reading of the morning announcements along with (usually) several other live performance. The gather is non-denomination and called “Chapel”. It’s one of the central core elements to the identity of St. Johnsbury Academy.
Last Chapel is the big goodbye ceremony for departing faculty. Each departing faculty member gets to choose the student who gives their farewell speech. I chose Noah Abramson. Here’s his speech:
I recently asked each member of the 2013 Ultimate Peace staff to choose the one word that they think best describes Ultimate Peace. Here’s what they came up with:
Click the image to view/download larger versions of the word cloud.
