Lots of things have happened since I last spoke to you, blog.  Wars have raged.  I’ve thrice changed time zones.  Christmas merried and Hanukkah happied.  So, it’s time for some gift giving: a month of my life, jam-packed into one overwhelming post.  You don’t have anything better to do in the last few days before classes start, anyway.

Here’s to a happy new year full of adventure, misfortune, action, romance, suspense, and a barrel-o-monkeys full of humor.  Let’s get started.

/// (Winter Break Recap) ///

I spent the last 10 days in Israel on Birthright.  It wasn’t the trip of my lifetime (that prestigious honor will probably go to my , 23-day tour-de-Europe last June), but I could understand why some of my fellow right-ers might be inclined to think it was.

You certainly get your money’s worth, though.  You’re absolutely idiotic not to take birthright up on the bargain if you’ve got any remote kind of an inkling of Judaism in your blood.  I practice my religion by visiting synagogue twice a year on the high holidays, buys some gifts during December break, and observes Passover by skipping the hamburger line at the food court, and I’d put myself in the 25th-percentile most-Jewish person there.  There were a number of participants who haven’t been Bar Mitzvah’d, a couple who can’t read Hebrew, and possibly even a majority whose parents weren’t both Jewish.  And if you really can’t handle spending an hour or so a day playing ice-breakers and discussing your opinion on given topics in exchange for 10 days in a foreign country, your level of sanity is beyond my control.  If you’re worried about your own safety, then I don’t know who let you out of your germ-free plastic bubble long enough to use a computer.  Really – figure out what the deal is with your Hillel on campus and go on this trip.  No arguments.

/// (Israeli Lightning Round) ///

• The Israeli soldiers I met and befriended while hanging out in Israel left me somewhat torn: Amir said that when I came back to Israel, he’d take me around to bars to pick up Israeli girls.  Lily said she’d take me to her favorite strip club.  Shame I’m never going to see Amir again, apparently.  He’s an incredible guy.
• My last experience in Israel resulted a random girl walking in on me bent over with my pants around my ankles.
• It’s possible that I’ve never seen so many Yetis in one place for an extended period of time.
• One of the guys on the trip got excessively drunk one night and tried pooping in a urinal.  After, of course,  he threw up in the bag of one of the staff members.
• The staff members probably wouldn’t be too pleased to find out that I snuck out of the hotel on Shabbat and adventured around the old city in Jerusalem completely on my own one afternoon.  Not that they’d ever really find out.
• Whenever you’re given the choice of attending Conservative services, Reform services, and “Alternative” services, always pick alternative.  It shouldn’t be that difficult to read between the lines there about which is going to be the most entertaining.
• Yes, you really float in the Dead Sea.  But it is painful.  Especially, for some reason, specifically in your left nipple.

/// (Hodge-Podge) ///

• I took the hardest final exam in my academic career this past semester in Real Estate Finance.  And it was open-book, open-note, open-laptop, open-internet.  Google search failed to answer these questions; I bet you never thought you’d see the day.
• I finished reading the Lord of the Ring series.  The third book is very much like the third movie in that it goes on for a loonnnggg time after Frodo makes it to Mt. Doom.  I felt it weird, having only seen the movie, that Peter Jackson could have seemingly ended Return of the King four or five times before he decided to call it quits.  In the book, on the other hand, it’s actually a really, really nice change of pace from your typical action-climax-whopper-finale adventure, and getting to watch Frodo make his way back to Bag End, go on another small adventure, and age a few more years.  Unlike the end of the 7th Harry Potter book, where JK Rowling just flashes to 19 years in the future and leaves readers with so many questions that they’ve honestly held Q&A seminars and filled auditoriums with perverse fans who felt it worth their time to ask the author about the presumed theoretical future lives of her fictional characters.
• I finished the Book of Numbers and am now a few pages in to Deuteronomy.  Numbers isn’t really that entertaining.  I’ll have to put up more quotes some time soon.
• I started reading a book called Ahead of the Curve, about some french dude going through Harvard Business School.  So far, it sounds a heck of a lot like my experience at Wash U.
• Mother of God how is it possible that freaking Mo Vaughn is among those eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame this year.
• Every time I come home for break I have an allergic reaction to the house.  So for Hanukkah, my parents got me a trip to the allergist’s office.  Forty-two needle pricks in my forearms later, the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me.  Fourteen more needles into my upper-arms later, he concludes that I am allergic to dust.  I have absolutely no idea why “is this guy allergic to dust?” wasn’t the first and only needle they checked me with, but at least I got to a have cool polka-dotted underarms for the next day or two.
• My second Hanukkah present was my parents helping me clean and dust my room.
• My mom claims to be having a very difficult time finding gifts for me for the holidays.  Which I find strange, because there’s an entire page on this very site (which she reads) devoted to Things I Like.  She might find there that my favorite author has a paperback book, or that she could buy a framed and autographed copy of any of my favorite comic strips, or anything like that.  Maybe I’ll fill the page out more in the upcoming days.  Even still, I can’t help but find the most frustrating part of the holidays to be giving family members requests or recommendations for gifts.  “Oh! You got me exactly what I asked you to purchase!  How thoughtful!”  Ehhhhh.

///(New Years Resolutions)///

In the past three years, the most frustrating part of New Years to me has been the fact that the gym gets obnoxiously crowded for the first few weeks of school in January, no thanks to all of the “I’m going to get fit and cute this year!” pudgy college students.  I’ve found that the biggest problem with setting a New Year’s resolution is that trying to do something for an entire year is far too long a commitment for any normal human being.  I mean, if people can only commit to marriage at around a 50% success rate, how could you expect anyone to stick to a New Year’s Resolution for longer than a month.  Fortunately for me, this means that come February I won’t have to wait in lines to use the bench press anymore.

Instead of setting resolutions for the whole year, for the past few years I’ve set out to accomplish goals for only a month at a time.  It’s definitely easier to internally argue “dude, just stick this out for 7 more days” than “dude, just stick this out for 11 more months.”  And I’ve found that I’ve been able to succeed in my self-improvement a number of times.  In the past, for example, I’ve picked up among other things:

• Eliminating soda from my regular diet
• Going to the gym 3x/week
• Brushing my teeth more frequently each week
• Alleviating my heavy dependance freshman year on playing Super Smash Bros, and eventually, video games in general
• Reading books for an hour a day, and reignited my passion for reading

Unsurprisingly (though ironically), I’ve never been able to make it past more than April or May with monthly improvements, though I credit this more to lack of ideas than to lack of motive.  I’d still definitely argue that I’ve accomplished more than those bastards in the weight room.  Here’s what’s on the chopping block this year:

• Apply to one job every day
• Say hi to a complete stranger on campus every day
• Add mouthwash to my morning regimen
• Add protein mix to my workout regimen
• Learn to breakdance
• Listen to a new album every day
• Study for the GMATs
• Write a blog deal every day
• Work on my book every day

We’ll see what happens.

///(Conclusion)///

It’s been a great break.  I don’t think I’ll have anything else to comment on until school starts.  Enjoy whatever you’ve got left, and see you soon!

…Man, that was an uninspiring conclusion.  Whatever.