By Lila Rimalovski ’15, Certified French-Braider 

     “Backpacking in 70° weather, with 40 lbs. on my back, in 4 feet of snow was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life,” says Lila Rimalovski, a current freshman who presented her immersion experience in morning meeting, “but that’s not what really happened in those three weeks when I was in the Pacific Northwest…if that’s even where I really was….” Lila lied to us all. She used this “immersion requirement” as an excuse to do what she has always wanted to do. She didn’t go “kayaking” in the “San Juan Islands,” she didn’t go “rafting” down the “Dechutes River,” and she most definitely did not “repel” on the “traverse” in “Smith State Park.” Lila did none of the above. Instead, she embarked upon a journey that changed her life.

She ate 7 meals a day with only one chopstick. She discovered Nirvana while praying with Betty White on a lonesome hilltop in Nebraska. She wore nothing but a paper bag while glaciating with penguins on an iceberg in Greenland. She was offered the job as the top designer for “Crewcuts,” the line for J-Crew™ kids, however she turned down the offer to become a Red Bull™ sales associate. Lila created a deep and strong relationship with the once-assumed fictional Mr. Krabs, who then guided her to the secret ingredient in the Krabby patty.  In fact, she is one of the three people in world who know….Mr. Krabs, Lila, and Mr. Brower.  As her main hobby, she freed captive bluebirds out of various dark and mysterious caves along the coast of Fiji.  In the words of scholar Robert Walter Iverson IV, “she lived, she laughed, she loved.”

She fit exactly 37 Sour Apple Warheads in her mouth without letting out a wince. She took apart a printer and reassembled it in less then six minutes. Lila won the “Best Abstract Self Portrait Contest” at the Jerusalem Arts Museum (her drawing consisted of precisely three lines and a dot, the judges called it “revolutionary.”) She expanded her Silly Band collection to over 37,000, including the famed “Komodo Dragon” (the most desired band among the collectors – there are only 4 Komodo Dragon ones in the world).

Lila received the “Best-Dressed Award” in 13 schools across the country that she does not even attend. 17 out of the 21 days she was away, Lila spent training birth-defected dolphins at the center for birth-defected dolphins in Indonesia. She is now one of the three people in the school that are members of the New York Times Crossword Puzzle Sleuth’s Club.  Mr. Jacoby and Doc Schaffler are the others; Jacoby proudly displays the certificate on the board across from his office.  Michael J. Fox gave her the key to the time machine from Back to the Future. She traveled to tomorrow, yesterday and today.

“Because I was in a group with so many different types of kids, I really had to learn how to be a leader, and when it was right to stand out, or just to follow the others,” Lila said, responding to Mr. Parlin’s “what did you learn about yourself?” question in Q&A session following her MM presentation. Well, as you may guess, her answer has changed now that you know ‘what really went down’ as one would say. Lila was solo. She didn’t learn how to be a leader. She didn’t learn how to follow others. She learned how to eat 7 meals a day, chopstick in one hand, a life full of adventure in the other.