The last time I updated my blog I was in the middle of my first course. Now, I am an instructor and will explain what has happened until the end of the first one!
The second half of instructor’s course was anything but simple. As I said in an earlier post, during week 7 I was in charge of making sure the girls got everywhere on time and of telling the commanders who’s not there, where they are and why. Every time we had to be anywhere, we had to stand in a “chet” formation, wait for the commander, and I had to “accept” them with a certain phrase in Hebrew. I was very nervous- even for that - because I had such a hard time remembering what the words were! In addition to that, I chose the value of determination and will and had to give three classes pertaining to that topic. I spoke about the importance of persevering no matter the circumstances - explaining how hard it was for me to get to the army and that it’s still hard now, but with the will to succeed you can and will! I also spoke about how Israel is still around today as the great country it is because of our will to survive no matter what. After the class I got good feedback from the girls and commanders so I was happy! Other than that, as per usual, each girl got assigned a weapon, learned about it, and had to give a class on it. At the end of the week, we had a test on all of the weapons we learned about. Needless to say, there was barely any down time - actually no down time at all. But at the end of the day, I learned a lot about myself and did things I would’ve never imagined I could do.
Week 8 was the last full week of the course, so of course everyone was very excited - however we still had to keep the distance with the commanders and act as though we were in the first week of basic training! The finish line seemed so close yet so far. It was also my birthday that week! It was a bit of an interesting schedule...the first half of the week, we were tested on level “C” of the course. We were given a weapon/ armored vehicle to teach and then tested at the end on all of the weapons. The only difference between these classes and the ones we gave in the previous weeks is that all of the commanders interrupt the class more than a hundred times posing as different types of soldiers to see how we deal with them. There could be someone who doesn’t stop playing music on his phone or interrupting the instructor or someone in reserves who keeps talking about how he knows everything and wants to go home already. Barely anyone got through their entire lesson, and no one got through their lesson without laughing a lot. It was so funny sitting in those classes. We then went to a base in the North of Israel to help out there...To be honest, not exactly sure what the point of us being there was. It was my birthday though! My class surprised me by singing happy birthday when I walked into my room with signs and such a thoughtful gift. All I can say is that my first birthday in the army was a lot different than my birthday last year when I went to Disney World…! We stayed on the base that Shabbat - our last one in the course- it was nice! The last few days of the course were very fun. It was a lot of wrapping up loose ends, and we broke distance with the commanders on the last night! For the whole 2 months, we had distance with them.. Had to call them by their title (ex “commander), they don’t smile at you - everything is very very formal. Braking distance was by far the weirdest experience ever. All of the commanders suddenly become your best friends, and the strict, stressful atmosphere turns into one of complete normalcy.
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