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Disclaimer - We are a very dedicated and passionate group of people coming together in a workshop experience to improve our teaching and the lives of our students. The opinions we express here are our own, and not necessarily those of the institutions supporting us! Thank you for understanding.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Coming Up for Air

Wow, what an amazing week! It was so much better than I had hoped to imagine. The projects were amazing, the best bit of evaluation I ever did :)  You are creative and intelligent - UNRWA and your communities are so lucky to have you.  I told you being heroes and heroines is  not easy work.  For what it is worth, you have my respect for a lifetime. You all were fantastic, and I don't think I ever felt that much of a family feeling, even in my own family growing up. I was amazed at how much you cared for each other, your schools, UNRWA, and your students. I don't always do very intelligent things, but coming here and working with you makes me look brilliant :) I am rested now (got six hours of sleep), am off to the ALC conference to present, wa anna saufa erga ela Amreka bukhra inshalah. I will spend Sunday getting caught up on my work over there, and then I will be back after you all Monday for six months. Keep reading and responding, in many ways we have more to do than ever, it just won't be so compressed. I have lots of ideas about the near future, as does Bassam, as do you all. We will not lose this momentum, because I am no longer driving this train. Thank you Fatima for creating the Facebook page, and I hope you all can join it: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1499577476#!/groups/271380266262369/

Thank you so much for the gifts - the Koran, the containers inside the containers :), the wonderful sand art, the books, the wallet (thanks Nihaya), and your unconditional love and support.
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9 comments:

  1. khawla adarbehJanuary 19, 2012 at 10:44 PM

    thank you Michael we all learned many things with you ,we hope you good luck travelling to your country.
    Best wishes for you all the participants .Im glad to be with and it was a great week

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  2. Alaa AmouraJanuary 19, 2012 at 11:27 PM

    Dear Michael,

    Meeting with you is one of the best gifts I received in my life, and working with such great people made me think of how much great people are there.

    You were more than a Philosopher :) You have created a great culture here and done a great job. Inspiring Orchestra player! It sounds amazing now the symphony you have played..and you know, it is Friday and I got up on time, I didn't set my alarm for this, but it was my heart or maybe my new philosophy that shaken my bed to be on time!

    I am sure we will be back to your favourite part of this; the Homefun but I am sure we will do it with much fun now. One per week is quite good, Teacher :)

    We have just started our mission :)

    Looking forward to that Monday :)

    Little 26-year old philosopher

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  3. salaJanuary 19, 2012 at 11:33 PM

    thanks a lot
    hopefully you'll all arrive to America safe and sound
    and as for keeping the momentum there is one advice for the group members:
    share your future ideas, projects and techniques and don't get too involved in personl chatting at the expense of critical contribution
    hope we'll not only keep the blog alive, but prosperous as well..

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  4. AnonymousJanuary 20, 2012 at 4:09 AM

    i CANT PUT THE TAPE ON MY MOUTH ANY MORE .THE WORDS CANT EXPRESS MY FEELINGS .IT WAS A GREAT DAY
    WITH GREAT PEOPLE .THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR EFFORTS AND TO OUR LEADER MICHAEL. SABREEN

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  5. Fatima RamadanJanuary 20, 2012 at 4:18 AM

    •Words can't describe how thankful I am.All I did is nothing compared to your dedicated work.Allah bless you

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  6. Amiira Abu alteenJanuary 20, 2012 at 11:25 PM

    i would like to say again that this is not the end .this is not even the beginning of the end but it's ,perhaps, the end of the beginning . thank you TEACHER Michael

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  7. AnonymousJanuary 21, 2012 at 3:31 AM

    it is the best workshop i have ever had, and i know its just the bigining. thank u mr.michael u were very inspiring to me
    Abeer Zayed

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  8. Ahmad Al-JoghaimeJanuary 23, 2012 at 2:42 PM

    It's very naturally to have that family feeling Michael, don’t remember how many times I called you my senior brother?! , you really were a great brother for all of us and don’t mentions those gifts you had, in fact you were our real gift, and we can’t thank you in any way or in any manner , may ALLAH bless and keep you Michael.

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  9. MichaelJanuary 24, 2012 at 3:19 PM

    Khawla, Alaa, Salam, Fatima, Amira, Sabreen, Abeer, and Ahmad, you words are too kind! You all made this the most wonderful week of my life, and I know we are only beginning! Now I need to keep up with this crew of philosophers :)

    ReplyDelete

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