The question “Where are you from?” is not always an easy one for me to answer. I usually tell people that I’m from “Napa” if I’m speaking to someone in the Bay Area. “The Napa Valley,” if I’m talking to someone elsewhere in California. If my audience is from another state, my answer typically sounds like “Napa Valley, near San Francisco.” And to someone from outside the United States, I usually just stick to “California.” That usually draws the question: “Wow, do you know any movie stars?” (see 21 Things People Always Ask When You're From California). But even that answer is not entirely true, as I am not a native Californian. I was born in Germantown, a neighborhood in Philadelphia. My parents decided to move out to California when I was 18 months old, so my original memories of the place are a little hazy (but I’ve been back to visit relatives more times than I can count). My East Coast birthplace seems to have had an effect on me; I am dark-haired and dark-eyed, while my younger, California born brother has blonde hair and blue eyes. 

So now, a little bit more about me. I have been alive for 17 years (18 this December), and have a family with two younger brothers, two parents, and a large fluffy dog named Kelev (it means dog in Hebrew). I participate in the cross country team and tennis team at my school, and while I don’t usually classify myself as an athlete, I enjoy playing sports and staying fit. When asked to characterize myself in three words, the adjectives I usually pick are lanky, intellectual, and laid-back. 

As far as I can remember, I’ve always been lanky. I was a lanky baby, I grew into a lanky kid, and now I’m a lanky adolescent. I expect to remain a lanky adult for the rest of my life, unless I unexpectedly become fat or decide to start taking steroids. And being lanky is definitely an important component of my personality; I’m not the most graceful, and that translates to the way I act as well as move. But my lack of grace is not dangerous, for the most part. I tend to move too slowly and carefully to cause any sort of major damage to myself or those around me. 

So fortunately, my laid-back nature counteracts most of my clumsiness. I don’t think there is anyone more dangerous to be around than a lanky, hyperactive clumsy person—I feel blessed to have avoided that fate. My family is constantly annoyed by my slowness to move and respond. But often, I don’t even hear them because I’m too busy in my own head, thinking about something (or thinking about nothing).

When I’m not thinking about what I had for lunch or what I want to have for dinner, I usually ponder some mind-boggling topic. I just recently googled “solar system scale model,” and spent an hour scrolling through black, empty space interspersed with the occasional tiny colored dot (there is a lot of empty space in space) in an attempt to conceptualize the size of the solar system and my relation to it. 

While I could write about myself for hours, I’m very satisfied with what I’ve written so far. I hope you’ve learned a bit about me through reading this. Enjoy the rest of my blog!