Uncle Elan and Ivry's Fourth Birthday

It was a glorious three days with my brother Elan who had just three days to be with us. For me, it was an opportunity to connect just like old times but with a bit heavier emotional baggage than usual. But for Ivry, it was a very special time to finally meet his Uncle Elan as opposed to hearing about him virtually.

Ivry was so excited as we were all to have a family representative celebrate his musical birthday with Daisy, his music teacher from Household Harmony. We greatly benefited from Uncle Elan's technical expertise as we uploaded yesterday afternoon a youtube video (10 minutes) of the musical celebration. Click here to see the video.

As I'm writing this, I'm a bit wistful about Uncle Elan's leaving. We managed to deeply bond during this brief three day time. Perhaps because we both knew that we didn't have much time and wanted to focus on making each other happy and feel comfortable. I must have watched that youtube video at least ten times - now that Uncle Elan left, I'll probably watch it some times more.

Happy Holidays.

Ivry's Love in a Winterland

I'm Thankful!

This is late but better late than never. Yet the timing of this post couldn’t be more perfect. The last few weeks have nothing been short of miraculous in terms of watching Ivry become potty trained in just three days! We've been waiting for this moment a year and did all the coaxing and bribery that one can think of - but he validated for us that the difference between a soiled pull-up or pair of underwear is his affirmative self. I am amazed and grateful for his self-directed affirmative self. He holds his head high and marches to the bathroom without expecting a bridge. I'm grateful that we haven't used bribes and thankfully, we have managed to also get through this one. I hate bribes.

As a writer, I spend many lonely sometimes rainy Saturday and Sundays (in addition to the other 2 days a week) writing, finding work, checking off the items of m writing plan. I work on revising the first two chapters of my book in order to bring it up to standard, which I started in my sabbatical from my teaching post in Israel last year. I continue to submit articles to online sites on educational topics. I continue to write for my new site (www.newteacherresourcecenter.com) The New Teacher Resource Center and build up a wide readership of teachers and professionals that hopefully, will become my dream community. I continue to try and find a decent online or offline teaching job that matches my credentials and abilities. I write children's fiction and non-fiction and send them off to big publishing houses in Manhattan that are just a train ride away from where I grew up in the Greenwich Village.



I'm grateful for having the blessings that I do to at least to try weave my dreams Uas an ESL professional and writer (no doctorate but considering it) I just wish that sometimes, just sometimes, these decisions were more self-revealing than simply working hard and not knowing what the future will bring. This IS hard.



I'm grateful to have found a partner who is a writer at heart and extremely smart and understanding. He has pursued a position as a manager in the cheese department earning decent wages to provide for our needs. He is my one and only true companion, keeps me sane and rational when it's cold and rainy outside and I feel sometimes alone and stuck in my head.

I’m learning how to hustle and find jobs, keep writing articles and maintain momentum. But I know that this process takes time. Sometimes my thoughts aren’t lucid and clear as other days. I keep giving thanks to god for showing me what it is that I should write about. Almost always, I am shown the answer - whether by a force above or from within - I am my own self-affirming writer.

For now, we are eternally grateful to have come this far.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

To acquaint our international guest Haruka with the holiday, I printed a short synopsis of Thanksgiving from an American point of view, xeroxed a few pages from the 1971 book If you Sailed on the Mayflower. I was impartial to becoming too sentimental. But big Haruka was already happy to feel part of a great American tradition and that was ALL that mattered. I was happy to know that we also made another friend in the process. For Ivry.

Funny how the PCIV thinks we are traditional "American hosts" for internationals when I feel that we are still immigrants from the outside looking in.

PCIV Trip to Frank Llyod Wright's Falling Water (Pittsburgh Council of International Visitors)

The DAwning of a New Era

I must have changed my mind at least ten times during the last half. Obama or McCain? I didn't follow the campaign trail but I felt we needed in my heart a change for a strong leader.

And still, up until yesterday, I still was undecided...

I walked around the college still with unsurety. I even asked an instructor: "who do you think I should vote for?"

"Obama," he replied.

I am generation X - product of Watergate, cold war and Reganeconomics.

I felt largely removed from the election process and the candidacy because of my absence from the US. 19 years.

I came back from Israel's own wars to find a political friend, not an adversary. Somebody who can lead the planet.

In going forward, we can find our own strength and belief in who we really are.
I could definitely understand the joy, the dancing in the streets down Forbes Avenue last night. It comes with no surprise the long polls and the high percentage of minority and women groups.

His victory speech was the affirmation we are all looking for. We are looking for healing, a period that "WE CAN."

Like others, I too want a president I can now call my own. With pride. America has done it.

America has awaken to a new era.. our first African-American president. It will be some years before we see the profound changes of this new leadership.

We are making history and paving the way to change. I don't think anybody can realize now what this means for America.

Ivry's First Haircut and Second Farm Fall Festival Trip

My First US Paycheck in 19 Years

My last paycheck I received just before I took off for a 19 year journey that would bring me full circle and back to the States last year was from a US employer. The Year was 1989. I worked for CTI Messengers in downtown NYC delivering small packages via the subway and my bike. I owned the streets of Manhattan, knew how to time my three-subway ride in twenty minutes from Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan to East forty second. Boy, I was a pro.


The image you see in front of your (and my) very own eyes is the paycheck I received from CCAC Allegheny Community College a few days ago - a grand total of $432.00 and some pocket change for teaching an ESL written composition class for two days a week, an hour and a half each time. I am loving it! My students are from East and West Africa, Pakistan, various provinces of India. The feedback has been positive and students are affable and earnest and motivated. It is a definitely refreshing break from twelve years of the Israeli classroom. As I noted recently to a friend, I keep expecting that an Israeli student will step into the classroom, raise his/her hand as in salute, cry out my name, do something to disturb the classroom deliberately so that I can't teach. In my mind, they inevitably speak back to me as they are VERY direct and verbal. It is no wonder that they have the appellation "chutzpanim" (im relating to plural of students) But none of those scenarios I've built in my head in fact happens, leaving me to conclude that my cultural reality in the US is not completely real.

So back to the paycheck issue - I am now a US taxpayer of Uncle Sam - all over again. I don't mind so long as I am learning and growing. Even in today's crazy economy, I must not be afraid. I WILL NOT succumb to fear. It is paralyzing. It's hard though not to. But the media does a damn good job of relating to it as such.

And a few updates:1.I just joined Suzanne Lieurance's Build Your Business Write. I participated in her Working Writer's summer boot camp, and it just boosted my confidence to take my writing to a completely different level. You can hear my testimony about on the left side link of my new teacher's blog blog. Just scroll down a bit.

2.I've got a newteacherresourcecenter over at blogspot and I've just purchased six months worth of my own domain name - newteacherresourcecenter.com Yay! I'll have my own domain name which I'll be setting up probably tomorrow when I'll choose a new template "face" for the website. My baby.

3. I'm also very excited with my marketing efforts until now. It has been a satisfying experience and I'm learning not to be intimidated from the technical issues that have been popping up as a result of the process. So far I've been able to successfully:

1. establish two of my own informational products including a FREE bimonthly ezine and ebook
2. post three times to my blog.
3. send already a FREE ezine to my 65 new and seasoned teachers on my mailing
4. establish a mailing list
5. network with teachers all over the world
6. submit articles to the EZine article directories thus increasing traffic to my blog


Anyhow, I've celebrated the Jewish New Year with the birth of my blog. Let's hope the New Year rings in business!

Simmons Farm - First Farm Festival Trip

We finally made it to our first hayride excursion out to Simmons farm, about 40 minutes drive from Pittsburgh in the South Hills. Luckily, a ride pulled in for us at the last minute and a friendly young woman by the name of Stephanie from the UJF (United Jewish Federation) was so courteous and helpful. (it really does suck sometimes not having access to a car.)


Ivry had a great time sipping apple cider, going on his first hay ride, loading play trucks with dry corn, riding a 17 year old horse and playing in a fire engine. It was a beautiful sunny day with amazing blue skies. The weather was perfect. I think we came a bit too early to really enjoy foliage, but the signs of it were sprouting everywhere.


We bought two little pumpkins (85 cents each) and a candied apple for fun. We also amazingly delicious apple and pumpkin butter. Yum! We bought a few veggies including: zucchini, a buttnut Squash, some red peppers (which I fried to make a salad) and four tomoatoes at a whopping $4.00. We also bought some garlic gloves and a small jug of apple cider, but the price of veggies are still so expensive. The veggies in Israel are so cheap and fresh. I guess farm produce is the closest to freshness that we could find. Simmons farm is very kid friendly, but what a money making machine. I paid three bucks for a horse ride for him that took 50 seconds. They wanted five bucks for two rounds. Can you imagine? But of course, these are the memories which Ivry will have for his whole life, and these are the special moments for him that I can't get anywhere else..... so go figure...

Many people especially children, came clad in their Halloween trick-or-treat clothes (not costumes) and it was great meeting some of Ivry's friends at the JCC too. It's amazing what a few hours out of the city can do for my tired brain and for a happy preschooler who fell asleep on the car ride home. What a wonderful day!



Now that we are almost ready for bed, he is watching the fiftieth anniversary edition of Laslie and I am reminded of how he and his father went down to the basement to look for tigers (cute) because of the tiger episode with Laslie. Now, Ivry is in his tiger slippers and pj's ready for bed. What a cutie! For some reason, everywhere I go, everyone calls him "she" - "she wants to play," and "she wants to get out, so move please..." and so forth. Weird.

Anyhow, hope y'all are having a good week. Enjoy the pictures and the two videos of Ivry's first hayride.

StoryWalk - Squirrel Hill - 2008

This amazing literacy event was a feast to the imagination!