Well, the Boston winter is finally kicking in, although the
tourists still show up, come snow or cold or gloom of night. It was below zero
for a while over the weekend, with a far worse wind chill, so I went over two
days without leaving the dormitory. I spent most of Valentine’s Day and
President’s Day curled up on my bed with a cup of hot tea, a book, and my
laptop – just the way I like it. And one of my friends was sweet enough to send
me a flower for Valentine’s.
The long weekend was really about normal length, given that
I had ROTC for most of Saturday morning and section on Monday afternoon despite
the holiday. Still, it gave me some time to recharge. I needed to reevaluate my
schedule and make a few changes to accommodate the fact that I only have time
to make it through my full morning routine about once during the week because
of ROTC. And in addition, last week was just really busy, sleep schedule or no.
Last semester I started helping out with the Worship/Praise
Team for Christian Impact (Cru), and this semester I’m transitioning into
heading it. I led rehearsal and worship for the large group gathering last
week, with the help of some wonderful people, and I thought it went well. It’s
been two years since I’ve really been in charge of anything, and I’d forgotten
how much I like it. I remember now.
Of course, I am starting to do more in ROTC as well. This
past Saturday a couple of our instructors took a group of us over to Lincoln
Labs to see what they do there. You know you’re touring a government-affiliated
organization when the PowerPoint is twice as long as the actual tour. Still,
they have a lot of resources, and they’re doing a lot of neat stuff (which
they’re rather touchy about, so no pictures).
The tour was interesting and informative, but it was
slightly strange being the only non-STEM major in the group. The man taking us
around would say “this satellite technology does X to help us locate the bad
guys,” and everyone else wanted to know more about X, and I wanted to know how
you decided who the “bad guys” were.
I have the same strange pairing in my courses overall this
semester. I open the first book and find, “how would you calculate the course
and speed of ship M?” I open the second book and find, “Supposing that Truth is
a woman – what then?” (I’m sure Nietzsche thought the ‘what’ was something very
profound – or, being Nietzsche, he just wanted to mess with people’s heads.)
This, of course, is the text I’m reading in English for my
German class, not the text I’m reading in German for my Philosophy class. For
that, I’m reading Hegel, which is – well, convoluted, to say the least,
although the actual syntax is a little simpler than last semester’s Nietzsche.
You know you’re in trouble when your professor, who is a native speaker, tells
you he has no idea what the sentence you’ve just read is supposed to mean. It
keeps life interesting.
Life is also made interesting by the fact that I’ve gone
from not driving at all to driving several mornings a week for ROTC. It’s
usually not that bad with the snow – Boston is very efficient when it comes to
salting and shoveling its roadways – but this morning the job didn’t quite get
done, so it was a slippery, slushy trip to class. It took half the time of
public transportation, though.
I’ve also had quite a few meetings over the past few days –
I met with my squad leaders for ROTC, and I had dinner with my blockmate and
the tutor for our floor, and I met with my Bible study leader. I’m trying to narrow down my social
interaction to have more meaningful conversations with fewer people, but I’m
not sure if my life is organized enough to allow that to happen.
I’ll end with a bit of life advice: if you ever need to get
up early and watch a bunch of PowerPoint presentations in a cold room on a regular basis, make
sure to go to bed early and bring a hot beverage with you to the presentation,
and life will improve drastically. Hot tea covers a multitude of sins.
Pictures:
You don't get a ton of exciting pictures by sitting cozily inside your dorm room, but here are a few:
Harvard in the snow:
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