"...Clear!"

Well, everyone who thought this blog is dead is about to be extremely disappointed. Because we have funny stories, deep philosophical prose, and enough video parodies to keep you watching for days.

Who am I kidding. I got nothing. There is nothing here for you to read. Nothing. Well okay, there is something, but not much that I can write on the internet. Like Fudge wrote recently, there's not a whole lot I can write without needing to create a whole seperate alias, thanks to google and its ilk, which I don't feel like doing namely because it involves me doing work.

Work. Hmm. There's a funny word I haven't been thinking about at all lately. Actually, here's an interesting piece of information. I recently saw some strange, yet hilarious videos on YouTube (discovered by Iguana) made with a computer game called Gary's mod. In less than a week's time span, with only about 8 minutes of the videos under my belt, it seems to have infiltrated every level of my daily life like only the PT and Homestarrunner could. I might just walk into a room and say something like "It's a great day to do what has to be done by me" and no one will know what the heck I'm talking about. Or I might put up as my facebook status "Rafi is back home safe and soon and left behind the bad place behind him" and I will get comments like "...huh?" Thats the annoying thing about Youtube I guess. No matter what it is, no one else has seen it but you.

Anyways, I got home tonight for the out shabbos and decided to look up whoever made these videos, since they sounded like they had been dictated from a PT-style volume of absurdity, complete with ridiculous spellings and extremely random subject matter. I figured it was some guy who found his 5 year old son's fan fiction hilarious and made a video out of it from this game. But when I looked into the guy who made it, it turned out to be a 17 year old guy from toronto, who has made tons of these videos and has no doubt made it his life. At first I felt sad for this guy, who must be some poor nerd nobody associates with if this is what he does with all of his free time, but I followed a link to his myspace page, and found that not only does he have thousands of friends, but that he gets hundreds of requests every ten minutes! I found that hard to believe at first, but when I saw that each of his videos on youtube had over 2 million views, I saw how that could be possible. It's crazy how people get popular these days.

What else do we have to talk about? The school year is going okay I guess. When I really think about it, this year is the most laid back school year I've ever had, bar none. Or at least it would be if I wasn't going nuts over what college/yeshiva I should or should be going to next year. Which isn't really true, since I haven't actually done too much toward that. I just worry about it. I don't actually work towards finding a place to go. Worrying is so much easier, and it beats not-worrying, which makes me feel irresponsible.

Well I guess thats not true either. I have applied/visited YU, and it seems that that's the most likely the place I'm going to wind up in next year. If one can "wind up" in a school that costs $40,000 a year.
I'm also going to Miami in 2 weeks to check out the Yeshiva there. Should be interesting. Looks like this boat could float either way right now, although I seem to have a well-paying internship as a video editor waiting for me in New York already, which will definitely influence my final decision. Makes me wonder if that's where my talent really is.
My rabbeim can't understand why I would want to go to college so early since I'm so good at learning. I feel like they may have gotten the wrong impression of me over the last three years. Who am I kidding, the only impression my rebbe this year has of me is the glance at my report cards he saw at the beginning of the year. "A's in gemara, your obviously a masmid! How could you not go to bais medrash?"
Today we had an oral test in gemara, which is done in groups of three at a time, and I was lumped together with the two top students in the entire class. These are kids who are not only going to be staying for at least three years of bais medrash no questions asked, but are probably not going to stop, go on to get smicha, and become rabbeim in either this school or another one. Not the same destination as me by a long shot.
Why was I paired up with them? I certainly didn't know the Gemarah as well as they did, as was demonstrated by my inexcusable ignorance on the oral exam. Nearly every question I was asked was passed on to one of the other two guys, each one eager to give the "obvious" answer. Several times I saw one shake his head and chuckle slightly while I groped for a different way to say "I don't know".
My rebbe pulled me aside after the 45 minute test, as I knew he would, and asked me what happened. "I thought you knew this material." Did I? I thought I did. I haven't really focused since winter break, even though I said I would. Did you honestly think I would know this gemara as well as they would? Why was I first in line, while the guy who is most likely the third best student in the shuir was bumped up another hour and a half? Was it completely random? Not likely. Nothing he does is random, as much as he'd like us to believe it is.
"I thought you knew this material" Where is the line drawn between "knows the material" and "enjoys learning it?" The last time I met with him, he asked me to come back to him in a week with a response as to why I should go to college instead of learning for a few years first, and while I'm at it why don't I go to israel, after all college isn't going anywhere.

I never got back to him. And I never plan to, mostly because I still don't know what to say. One thing I can say about me and my siblings: we do stand out. Maybe in a good way, maybe a bad way, depending on whose looking I suppose. And I don't think I am one of those other two people I took the test with, regardless of what my rebbe might think. I'm not one of those shtark bochers who learns mussar in his free time, and actually spends hachana learning. But at the same time, I'm not one of the people who have obviously bummed out and couldn't care less about davening or religion. That puts me right in the middle.
Is that what YU is?

I