Introducing our partners from Israel! cohort 17

Sunday, December 1^st, we, Cohort 17 had our 4^th workshop. It was an amazing day, because Cohort 17 met in the morning to truly begin our Diller experience by introducing our Israeli partners, while on the same day, Cohort 16 was graduating from the program.

Each workshop, we receive a mission to be completed by the next workshop. It has specific things that we need to do with our Israeli partner, such as Skyping, messaging, or talking on the phone about different topics. For the 4^th workshop, and our first mission, we were to get to know our partners by talking to each other about things we have in common, differences between each other, interesting facts, and what we would like to be when we are older.

I really enjoyed working on completing this mission, because it was the initial step in beginning our partnership with the Upper Galilee cohort in Israel. I remember the first moment when I learned about my partner. I received a friend request on Facebook from someone named Shir. I did not realize until hours later that that person most likely was my partner! The Israeli cohort had already received their matches, but San Francisco had not yet. I messaged her, first asking if she was my partner, and she replied with a “yes.”

A few days later, we started to talk over Facebook Messenger. We talked about the mission and discussed why the coordinators and JC’s had most likely matched us together to be partners. We both liked music, had older siblings, and we are both in a biology class. After talking to Shir and learning more about her, I was excited to meet with my cohort at the workshop to discuss our different partners!

To fast forward to December 1^st, Cohort 17 sat in a circle and went around and spoke about our partners in whatever way we would like to. Some fellows presented with a poster, another wrote a great poem, and others made games. We all enjoyed learning about the Israeli cohort and are looking forward to meeting them in April!

-Chelsea Roston Cohort 17