I’ll start off with the morning, the davening. I think the alternative davening is a good way even for those, who can’t or just don’t want to follow as closely, or just not feeling it really to still do the prayers, and still be themselves. My first actual lesson was a Bible class, which I expected to be very religious and boring, though I couldn’t have been more wrong about that. It was my favorite period in this program so far! The teacher teaching this class is the same one, that does AP biology for the students, so bible has instantly more than one approach. That was the topic of the lesson: Science and Creation. Not only was I surprised, that I’m not gonna be bored to death on that lesson, I was excited the whole time because I was never taught about the Bible in a scientific (theoretically) way. The next period I had was English literature. I enjoyed it, though it was hard to join in on the first half, because it was about a part of a text, that they read when we were in D.C. When we got to read the next part of it, then I could easily engage in it. I felt like on a literature lesson just like at home, but it seemed like there’s so much more content here. The one following that was AP (Advanced Placement) biology. As I said so before, this is the same teacher that taught bible, so I expected nothing less. The first impression I got was: She’s talking really fast. Rabbi Soskil told us, that she’s doing it on purpose, so the students have to listen for the whole time, in order to not miss anything. I don’t know how big part of that is, but they certainly have a lot to study, so this is needed probably because there’s so much to teach as well. On this lesson, interactivity won a new meaning in my point of view. I mean I definitely knew what it was, and I have seen it in classes at home to an extent, but there; it was done in such a good way, I was amazed by it. This kind of structure inevitably needs the students to put effort in it at home just as much (or more) as in classes. In conclusion about AP biology, I think this way is extremely effective, and tiring at the same time. The next up was the seminars we did for the current Seniors. They were the ones so far, that actually cared the most about what we were saying. That’s understandable because they are in the age, in which they might start to be interested in topics such as the ‘House of Fates’. Unfortunately because of some technical difficulties (I suppose) we couldn’t entertain and teach all of the groups, because we ended up short on time. I had some lunch, which by the way is still delicious. And a break after that. The next thing I had coming up was a meeting with Ms. Violetta, Alan, and a few of other SSG students about the Maryland Senator: Ben Cardin’s coming to the school in a few days. I got some useful info, and some inspiration from Alan’s ‘speech’ about us and the future that we possibly make. These conversations are the reasons I love to be around him and hear him talking. Some minutes later we headed off to JCC, to volunteer there, and bake challah. We got there, had some fine pizza, and we just got our tasks of volunteering. Our job mainly was greeting and guiding the guests to the event. I’m not gonna lie, it was kind of boring for me. I enjoyed the actual challah baking after that, even though it wasn’t going easy for me. After the event, we helped clean up the tables there, and not so much later we got picked up by the hosts’ parents. ~Akos
