Welcome!

1. Of all food varieties, I regard steak as my favorite. An ideal steak has a tenderness unmatched by any other meats, while also managing to strike a balance with its charred, smoky flavor that it retains from the grill. Furthermore, served just right (for me, cooked medium to medium-well), one can fully relish the authentic juice of the steak between my taste buds.

2. English has been my most enjoyable academic class during high school. One of my greatest loves are writing and reading, and over the past four years, English class has enabled me to explore an array viewpoints toward the world that I would never have considered and to examine my own role as an independent thinker and a developing young adult through words. Hence, I feel that of all of my academic classes, English has enabled me to grow the most an individual, and moreover, it is the discipline that most interests and captivates my imagination. Although I have several outstanding academic teachers in my years at New Trier, my favorite was my freshman year English teacher Mr. Steve Meyer, who has since retired. At the same time that he instilled such high expectations of communication through the written word, he had a wry sense of humor and irony that always our enlivened our discussions of the literature and writing, and I feel that all of my teachers in the past four years, he taught the most within the shortest amount of time and was the teacher I shared the closest relationship with.

3. The time that I take the most pleasure in is the afternoon, the time that I deem as a bridge between the morning, the early part of my day that generally consists of school, and the rest of the day, in which I have academic and musical committments to fill at home. In this sense, the afternoon provides me with the opportunity to recharge myself and momentarily reflect on the obligations that will occupy my evening, clearing my mind for the challenge that awaits. In addition, I also enjoy the afternoon because it retains the light of morning prior to transitioning into the darkness of night, which suggests such a stark conclusiveness to the day that I always lament (oh if the days were longer...)

4. Between an igloo or a desert, I would much prefer living in the former. Being in an igloo, I would at least have the protection of ice bricks and therefore be sheltered, and I could wear a fur jacket and boots that would enable me to keep warm in spite of the persistent cold. Moreover, from such an environment I could learn how to fish and hunt for food and thus would never remain starving, would be able to drink water from surrounding freshwater lakes and would most likely be able to interact with other individuals within the "igloo community." By contrast, were I to live in a desert, there would be no humans around, no animals for food or water to relieve my thirst, and I would be basked in constant, agonizing heat.