My First Business Trip

Someone recently told me that I will never be good at things like updating a blog or keeping a journal, so I am going to try to prove him wrong! That is the hard-headed Israeli in me :)

Wow where to begin- well I will give an update on this past week because I have issues with long term memory! I had the amazing opportunity to go to London last week. I got an email from Brett, the CEO of Teach First which is the TFA styled program in Great Britain, saying that I should book my ticket because I am invited to London for the following week. So I quickly got everything in place and headed off to England for the first time. I have to say, someone else paying for it is a huge perk considering how expensive the pound is!! I spent 4 whirlwind days meeting with everyone tied to TF- praticipants, ambassadors of the program, staff, TFA alumni that are now on TF staff, donors, professors, etc. The goal of the week was to learn how the program is similar to and different from TFA and what programmatic features we can apply to Israel (I will write another post about my job so in the meantime just pretend like you know what I am talking about). What is incredible is that the program looks like a replica of TFA on paper but once I began to sift through their recruitment, admissions, training, on-going support and methodology, I realized how different it really is. Teach For Israel's Tomorrow, as the program will be called here, will combine a lot of of best practices from both programs since it can't attract people based off idealism like Teach For America does nor can it focus solely on leadership development like Teach First. I am really excited to synthesize everything I learned and apply it to the program here.

So now to the fun part. I stayed an extra four days in London with my good friend and former college roommate Sarah. We hadn't seen eachother in five years since she transferred to Columbia but it took us no time to fall right back into our old ways. We would stay up late giggling in bed, devour incredible chocolate and have deep conversations that reflected how intimately we knew eachother despite the elapsed time and distance. I, of course, managed to do all the touristy things- Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Tate Museum and even sat in on a House of Commons debate about transportation- but the best part was tea time at the Cambridge Club. Sarah and I met up Saturday afternoon and decided that I can't leave London without having a proper tea time. So we walked toward the ritziest members-only club (Sarah, using her journalist techniques, realized that she can be a member as a graduate of Columbia). However we quickly realized that I wouldn't be allowed to enter because I was wearing jeans. Sarah looked me up and down and said "Well you know what you are going to have to do? Button your coat all the way up and wear it as a dress! Take off your pants Yamit!" We giggled like school girls as we entered this glamorous place, looking like a terrible mish-mosh. She was wearing a shirt dress over tights and my crappy shoes and I was hearing my coat as a dress and her knee high boots so that I wouldn't look as naked as I felt. I couldn't believe they took us seriously! But we did in fact have tea and a muffin in their lounge and giggled the entire time by the sight of ourselves and whenever we realized that we are sitting among London's high society.