Miscellania from this week

I started to fall 'under the weather' (I use said (typed?) term as the weather has shifted for the cooler and my body mustn't've been prepared to deal with this change) Wednesday, with an inkling of a feeling Tuesday night. Boo. I had to survive a cold on my most social day and a half of my week (שבת קודש). That's weak - double boo. Although I'm hopefully feeling better (Please God, heal me), who knows how my throat will wake up tomorrow? I don't mind being sick too much, though this is break, so there's no better time to be sick than break. However, I am supposed to be leading מוסף for both days of ר"ה as well as giving a couple of דרשות, so it'd be horribly sucky for me not to be healthy and not to have full voice capacity.
I developed an interest in the exegesis of the beginning of Gen. 38, having realized that the simple reading of the text results in one realizing that Onan was killed because he did not provide offspring in his brother's name. That's it. So I begun to look at the relevant Talmudic pericopes, with Philo to follow, not to forget articles and, of course, the halakhic literature.
Found out that alcohol towards bedtime, although helpful in getting to sleep, actually mitigates one's sleep quality.
YCT had their/our first-ever (?) pre-holiday break mishmar on Thursday night. A מנין of guys stayed around, but I only made it until 2 am, mainly due to 1) my tiredness from lack of sleep in the previous several days, but also 2) because of my being sick (see above). It was cool, Reb Avi (Avi Weiss) gave us his Shabbas Shuva derasha, Rabbi Dovid Silber gave an AMAZING שיעור on סליחות - yeah, you read that right. But then again, he can give a lecture on anything and be amazing. That was a real treat. Then Rabbi Love gave a class on hashkafic perspectives on Sukkos, then Rav Nati gave a shiur on two days of Rosh haShana, then I stopped going to the classes and did some learning on my own until I left.
The pictures posted here are of Rabbi Avi Weiss and Rabbi Dovid Silber, both during the Thursday evening at YCT.
Friday mid-day, after waking up, I made it to Mt. Sinai and signed up for membership. So now I'm a Mt. Sinai member.