Let’s all pause for a moment of gratitude that this hellish heat didn’t show up over Yom Kippur.  What kind of mid-October day just decides to cook all of L.A. at 96 degrees?

I think the sun made me hallucinate, because when I crossed Olympic today, I saw a very peculiar bunch: a shirtless middle aged man in long jeans; a “gangsta”-looking dude in sagging long pants, t-shirt, plaid button-down and jacket; and a suited Persian man wearing a kippah and large cross across his chest.

I actually glanced back after I passed all of them to make sure I wasn’t just imagining the three most random people I could think of, all walking together.

Back to Yom Kippur, though, I was thinking: what if we could pick one food item to eat over the entire 26-hour fast?  There’s the instinctive ‘bulk’ approach (an entire pizza pie or roasted turkey) or the more liquid-minded one (a watermelon, for instance).

For some reason, though, I was craving lox through the entire fast.  Don’t ask me why.  There was lox at the break-fast I went to – I cleaned that platter up.  No bagel, no cream cheese.  Just that smoked salmon.

Oh, the places our minds take us when we get that hungry.

“Our Year”

Basketball practices started this week (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday) and I also watched 20-plus potential debaters sludge, bumble, and — occasionally — glide their way through Model Congress tryouts on both Wednesday and Thursday after school.  But who wants to hear about my insane workload and full schedule, which also includes three AP courses and college essays and applications?

Nobody.  I’m tired of going over the details myself.  I’m almost regretting starting this post with a quasi-complaint.

So scratch that—time to twist the trouble into the terrific.

This week, my basketball coaches and friends kick started my motivation to make this year “our year,” as seniors.

Coach confidently predicted a state finals appearance come playoff time, and my fellow debaters and I realized that our last opportunities to bring home some shiny hardware (Model Congress slang for “gavels”) in the name of the Big Bagel are fast approaching.

With a strong core of athletes and debaters returning to our respective basketball and Model Congress teams, I’m already feeling restless to play my part in this year’s to-be successes.  When Coach calls me up to play, I need to step on the court and shut down the other teams’ (especially the Summit Views’) challenges to us Firehawks.

My first night of committee at Princeton Model Congress in D.C. must put my chairs and competition on notice—I’m flying back to L.A. with at least one engraved hammer.

The necessary pieces are in place for an entertaining, crazy, and success-filled year with respect to co-curriculars.

It’s time to set out to conquer our year with every dribble, amendment, article, cross-examination, soliloquy, musical note, spike, goal, home run… I think you get the point.