Examinations and Evacuations

            Well, I’m on a plane headed to San Antonio. Headed home. I’ve finished my first semester. Of course, the end of the first anything usually leads to reflection, but there are also other important and interesting things that happened this week – the most important being the bomb scare which ended up on national news. I’ll get there in a second.

            The only things I can remember from the last week, outside of finals, are end-of-year celebrations. ROTC had their change of command ceremony a little while back, with speeches and refreshments and new drug-and-alcohol forms for all of us to sign. The main speaker was the father of my squad leader for the past semester. He’s also a former SEAL and a current NASA astronaut. It was pretty neat.

            My a cappella group also had a Christmas Party, complete with a Secret Santa exchange. It was an interesting party – more like a business meeting with presents and snacks, really. We all had fun for a while exchanging presents and hanging out, and then we talked about tour (we’re planning on heading to Taiwan for Spring Break), song suggestions for next semester, and a few elections. Some of the officers cycle through every calendar year, and some every school year, so that someone always knows what’s going on.

            The elections were interesting for two reasons. First, they aren’t really, technically speaking, elections. If you sign up to run, you will either be in the position or co-hold the position. This is probably helped by the fact that not many people are overly anxious to run – we all have many other things to do – and consequently, only two people wanted to run for the two positions open for this coming semester. Which is a long explanation of how I ended up as Treasurer/Secretary as a freshmen.

             Harvard also has its own Christmas activities. I’m attaching pictures of the gingerbread-house decorating competition. It was a nice evening, together with all the participating freshmen in Annenberg with gingerbread and icing and all sorts of candy for the taking. At the time, though, I was still a little sick, so I grabbed a few sweets and some hot chocolate and headed back to my room. There was also a Christmas caroling service last night, but I missed that due to all the confusion about yesterday’s finals.

            Yesterday was crazy not so much because of the bomb scare, but because of the rerouting that said scare necessitated. I was in Sever when they first started evacuating; we had just started our finals. What is the first thing that Harvard students – or most college students – do when the alarm goes off during a final exam?

            That’s right. Nothing. We glanced up, slightly annoyed at the noise (we were trying to concentrate, after all), and then went back into the ‘zone’ and tried to keep working. For the record, there was a fire alarm in my dorm earlier in the year, and we did exactly the same thing. The real problem without an organized evacuation plan doesn’t seem to be people panicking – it’s people continuing life as usual.

            In any case, it wasn’t until they told us we had to leave that we finally surrendered up our finals to the proctors and walked outside. The first hint that it was something serious was the police officers – not the Harvard Police, but the Police Police. Then it started getting more confusing. They told us to get away from the building, to go somewhere and wait, because it would be a while. People unfortunate enough to leave phones or coats in the buildings couldn’t go back in, and when the proctor started to send us to the Science Center, they informed us we couldn’t go there, either. After a few minutes of speculation, we deduced bomb scare.

            I didn’t see anyone besides maybe the police officers who looked particularly worried about the bombs. We were much more worried about the finals. Contrary to popular belief, Harvard professors do not simply hand out A’s, or even passing grades. Averages aren’t so great going into reading period, and we needed those finals.

            We sat in Panera’s for two hours, having discovered that we were locked out of the yard, and tried to figure out what was going on. Most people don’t bring that much to a final, but some people had laptops, and almost everyone had a phone, and for a while both stories of Panera were filled with Harvard students tracking the news, the Crimson Twitter feed, and an assortment of group texts to try to figure out what was going on. The students didn’t know; the proctors didn’t know. The administration was trying to figure it out.

            I’m sure the cancelled finals, and the closing of several buildings used for afternoon finals, was an administrative nightmare. We all understood. But we had flights home which depended on our finishing exams on schedule, we couldn’t study properly without access to the materials in our dorms, and it wasn’t really helpful when Harvard sent out two or three emails an hour-and-a-half after the fact to tell us we’d been evacuated. Well, I’m sure it was news to somebody.

            After a couple of hours watching the gates and contacting my parents, ROTC, and concerned friends to let them know I was fine, the gates were reopened and I was able to get back to my dorm. It was strange – the yard was empty except for a few police officers who let me pass after asking where I was going. I did make it to my afternoon final, and after a lot of discussion with a lot of people who were just as confused as I was, my calculus professor was nice enough to let me personally come to the newly reopened Science Center to take the exam I had missed that morning. And thus I am sitting on a plane now instead of finishing the make-up exam, which was rescheduled for today. The legacy of yesterday’s bomb scare amounts to nothing more than a lot of texts and missing the Christmas caroling service.

            The finals themselves, despite being nearly derailed, were about as expected in content. I’m not sure how I did yet, but none of them caught me unprepared. My answers to some questions may not have been stellar, but I had a reasonable answer to all of them – there were none of those moments where you just stare blankly at the page and wonder what’s happening. That’s always a good thing, right?

Maybe it’s because of the stalled and then quickly rebooted adrenalin of testing that I still can’t relax and go into break mode. I’m not sure why, but I’m still tense when I think about those exams. Well, it’s over. I’ve already finished one-eighth of my time at Harvard. Now I’ve left the snow of Boston behind me, and I’m sitting here with a Tom Clancy novel on my Kindle half-watching 300 playing on the screen next to me and trying to think philosophical thoughts.

            I don’t think we ever feel the full import of the watershed moments in our lives. Some moments may be enormously impactful, but almost everything in live is a conglomeration, a compilation, of many, many moments. A final exam counts for a high percentage of the grade, but it is meant to measure the comprehensive course load – the sum carryover of each reading, each lecture, each section combined. Life is much the same – there are weightier moments, but they are given weight by the sum of the circumstances they are built upon.

            I guess that’s my long way of saying that I don’t really feel that different from myself four months ago, that I don’t feel like I’ve grown older or more independent. I don’t feel anything particularly special, other than lingering tension from finals and the anticipation of heading home. I’m sure I have grown in some ways – things that used to worry me don’t bother me as much; I can do more things on my own initiative with my own judgment. But this particular moment doesn’t strike me as a milestone – my first semester of college.

            That said, this does seem the appropriate time to make a few remarks about the first semester of college. So, overall impression? I like it. It’s different than high school, for sure. Mainly, the difference is initiative. You learn what you want to learn; you participate if you want to participate. There are always incentives for doing more, but it’s not required to go the extra mile, or even to make the trek in the first place. If you like to walk, though, it’s a much more scenic route.

            Enough with the extended metaphors, already. But college is what you make of it – much like life. And Harvard is great. The people are considerate, the community is interesting, the classes are fantastic, and the weather isn’t that bad, discounting February. The only complaint you can have about the activities is that there are too many – you can never have time to do everything you want. The same could be said of the class offerings. Overall, I am glad I came here. I would recommend it except that, well, it’s Harvard, and I don’t really need to. But rest assured, this is not a place where people do nothing but sit and study – even on finals week.

            I’m also happy with my choice of extra-curriculars. I’m not burned out, as I’ve heard so many stories of, and I have a solid foundation to work with if I want to add other things in the future. My a cappella group is made of a great group of people, and I’ve also formed good relationships through ROTC. I’ve had a great time with the Christian fellowships and at the church I attend here, and I look forward to returning to them next semester.

            But for now I’m headed home to sleep late, read for pleasure and have Christmas. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I hope you get to spend the holidays with you families, wherever that may be. Thank you for reading my blog this semester, and I look forward to writing for you again in the coming year. Until then, best wishes!

Sincerely,

Lauren

 

Post Scriptum - Thank you to my dad for the picture of me coming off the escalator at the airport. Also, with everything else going on I'd forgotten about my ROTC class's VIP tour of the USS Constitution. It was really interesting, and we had a great time! I will now move on to swamping you with pictures!

 

 

 

Toiling On, Toiling On...

            …and labor till the Christmas Break. Sorry, Winter Break. We also have Winter trees and Winter wreaths around campus. And many of us are looking forward to going home for Winter so as to tell Winter stories and eat Winter dinner with the Winter log on the hearth.

            Okay, enough of that. In case you were wondering, classes ended here last Wednesday, as did ROTC, and now everyone is having a good time/studying for the approaching finals. I did finish my projects (they were due yesterday) and so have my time free to study for finals, when I can bring myself to once again write about the material.

            Most of my time this past week, though, has been spent being sick. When I get all stuffed up, it’s usually just allergies or a minor thing – I very rarely get fevers. I remember always having a runny nose and clogged throat and still being able to go to school. And I don’t want to be the sort of person who makes illnesses up to get out of things, so I put down my temperature fluctuations to the contrast between the heater’s steaming hot air and the chilly temperatures outside.

            And eventually, when I spent an incredibly horrible night on Friday and the fever finally broke, I admitted I had one. Due to some very good council from my dad and some friends, I was already planning on taking Saturday off, and I think it helped. But there’s less than a week before my finals, and it’s time to get cracking again.

            If I wax more loquacious than usual, it’s because I’ve been reading a Victorian-era novel. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the word “peccadillo” used so casually – hearkens back to my SAT-studying days. The book is “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall”, and it’s good, as long as you don’t expect it to be overly cheery.

            I’m combining this reading with listening to the radio more than I have in a while and, bit by bit, convincing myself to study for finals. One of them is Calculus, and the other two consist of several Essays/Short Answers. No notes. Which means a lot of research and a lot of memorization in a very short period of time. Any of you who wrote practice essays for either AP History test will probably understand this.

So lately I’ve spent most of my time inside, studying and reading, excluding the half-hour walk to church and then the return trip yesterday. The theme outside, as you can see from the pictures below, is cold. It wasn’t too bad yesterday – you just have to be careful of ice disguising itself as puddles. But today I woke up – or was woken up by someone’s very loud banging – to find it was snowing. Or had been snowing. I believe it’s now somewhere between raining and sleeting. I, for one, plan on staying inside as much as possible, though I did slip down for a few pictures and, of course, breakfast.

And at church we’re lighting the advent candles! Carols are being sung! And perhaps because where I come from it only appears in movies, in the snow there’s the feeling of – well – Winter, if you know what I mean. But at the moment, I have to go to a review session, and it takes a while to get layered up again – I am wearing my snow boots today, for the first time since I visited Boston last February. So enjoy the pictures, good luck to everyone who’s also finishing up the semester, and I hope you have a wonderful vacation!

PS – I will write another post next week and then sign off until we come back for next semester. So tune in one more time this calendar year! Also, I forgot to thank my dad for the pictures of me and the fireplace in the last post, so thank you!

One down...

           Sorry this is a little later than usual; I thought things were going to get less busy during the last days of class, but I’ve been swamped. It’s mostly my own fault, not because I procrastinate but because I had, anticipating free time, developed a very heavy schedule for myself. I always overestimate the amount of time I’ll have available to do things. And so, in order to finish my goals, I’ve been working pretty non-stop the last few days. I’m enjoying it (not sarcasm), but I hope I can get everything done. You don’t really want to hear about my to-do list, though, do you? You want to hear what it was like to go home for Thanksgiving and come back. So we’ll move on to that.

Coming home for Thanksgiving was lovely; I was so happy to be able to spend time with my family. I was looking forward to Thanksgiving for most of November, but honestly, by the week right before, the anticipation had worn off. I was worried I wouldn’t be as excited as I should be when I saw my parents.

Once again, my emotions caught me by surprise. I didn’t realize how much I had missed my parents until I’d come down the escalator at the Austin airport and had them physically wrapped in my arms. I didn’t want to let go – and that’s only happened one or two times in my life; usually I’m the impatient one rolling my eyes over your shoulder.

I think that’s what Heaven will be like when we get there. We go along in this life, kind of numb, not really noticing our disconnect with God and all the things we’re missing, just kind of floating through, checking things off our to-do lists and occasionally stopping to take pictures. Things aren’t bad, but we won’t know what we’re really missing until we’re in the physical presence of our Father.

The holidays were a wonderful time, and due either to increased maturity on my part or awareness of the clock’s ticking on all our parts, I don’t think my parents and I fought at all. There weren’t even any minor disagreements or annoyances, as far as I remember. Hopefully that will keep up for the Christmas holidays – keep your fingers crossed.

The time spent at home also raised questions of what, exactly, “home” is. Several people told me that when I got back from the Thanksgiving holidays, it would feel like I was “coming back” to Harvard and not just “going back,” if you know what I mean. I would no longer be the dove grabbing a piece of twig and then flying back to home-sweet-ark. I would find a branch and settle there.

            In a way, they were right. It felt like I was returning to somewhere when I came back here. Once you live in a place a while, there are familiarities that make it ‘your territory’, that make it home. But I also felt I was returning when I went home – there’s something about the place you grew up in, a place that formed you even as you carved out your place in it, which resonates deeper than a room you’ve decorated for a few months. But perhaps the truest sort of home is not the sort you are born into, but the sort you create yourself. We’re not there yet, though. I’m just happy that for now, wherever I am, I’m home.

            And this home is bustling just about now, not with Christmas cheer, but with finals preparation. I have two projects and three finals to complete before I head home, along with all the other projects I’ve set myself in anticipation of this free time. At this point, I have all my daily goals written out on a piece of paper that’s the first thing I see when I wake up. And it just keeps getting more and more crowded. Well, two-and-a-half weeks, and it’ll be over.

            This is also the last week for ROTC. We had our Physical Fitness Test (PFT) this past Monday. I did fine, despite my loathing for mass starts on 1/8 mile tracks. As a very goal-oriented person, I have problems with the idea of constantly running away from the finish line. There’s also the fact that when doing 12 laps, I almost invariably lose count and mess up my pacing. All the same, it was a good finish, to be wrapped up with change of command on Wednesday.

            Everybody’s already busy planning for Spring Break and next summer, and I just want to get through the next couple of weeks. I’m planning, yes, but that’s in the background. Mostly, I’m concentrating on checking off those daily goals. And yes, this blog is one of them. So I’m going to post this and then move on to the next thing. For tonight, one down, two to go…

 PS: The pictures are 1: my room cleaned up and in stasis as I head out the door. 2: a cinnamon roll from Panera’s (significant because I, without realizing it until afterwards, went to Panera on my way to the airport and got the exact same thing as I ordered with my parents the first day here), 3: the hotel back in Texas the night before the airport, and 4: a fire in my own living room (I believe it was initially colder in Texas than it was in Boston), and 5: a pic of the Charles river from the T as I headed back to Harvard.

 

 

 

 

Breaktime!

           Well, I took my first final this morning. It was ROTC, and I’ll have the same instructor next semester, so it feels more like a midterm, but it sounds nice to say. And tomorrow I won’t have to get up at five or six or six-thirty, because tomorrow Thanksgiving break starts – and I’m flying home.

            Which is a lovely thought, but would be a lot lovelier if I didn’t have to worry about the work I have to do when I get back. An essay, two projects, three extensive finals… well, it’s almost over. And the nice thing about college is that when the semester ends, it ends. There needn’t be any carryover into the next semester; you kind of get cut loose. And since the thing that wears on me the most here isn’t the material or the lack of free time, but the never-ending flow of responsibilities, getting cut loose sounds heavenly.

            Not that I’m going to run away from responsibility, but we all need a break sometime. And it’s much nicer to fulfill one’s responsibilities with a fireplace, a family, and a full night’s sleep than otherwise. Everyone here is very excited about going home – excited enough that most of them aren’t in class today. According to my Philosophy professor there used to be class on Wednesday, but no one came, so they just cancelled it. And now the same things happens on Tuesday, or even all week. Some people went to the Harvard-Yale game and never came back.

            Yes, let’s talk about Harvard-Yale. I have pictures, including those of Harvard storming the field at the end, when we won, 34-7, for the seventh year in a row. I left on Friday afternoon with my a cappella group and we drove the three hours to Yale, where we arrived in time to put our stuff away before singing a joint concert with Living Water, Yale’s Christian a cappella. The concert was awesome, and afterwards we sat around and sang together and as groups and had a sing-off and taught each other songs until dinner finally arrived at eleven pm.

            It was a good time – it’s always fun when a bunch of people who do something well get together to do said thing for fun. And when it’s a bunch of Christians getting together for a worship jam improv session, it’s even better. Nevertheless, I don’t stay up until one-thirty very often, and I was beat by the time we finished. This was exacerbated by the fact that it had been dark outside since around 4:30, which drives my internal clock crazy.

            When I was little, my parents used to take me back to visit friends in my original hometown. It was about a five-to-six hour drive, depending on traffic, and to me it was a great odyssey. I did all sorts of things in the back seat, without any siblings to annoy: movies (this was when the mini-TV was still shaped like a box), books, games, for hours and hours and hours. And then we would finally arrive and it would still be light outside, and I would always be simply amazed. The trips to Yale and back were the opposite – I felt like we’d been traveling for hours. I may have gotten jet lag; I’m not sure if that’s possible or not.

            Anyway, we woke up on Saturday morning just in time to take a shuttle the three miles to the stadium, and despite some very unorganized shuttle lines managed to grab some snacks at the tailgate before heading in. I’ve missed football, and it was nice to watch again, though it didn’t help my ‘jet lag’ that the game was on a Saturday afternoon and not the Friday night I’m used to. Our a cappella group sat together; everything is more fun with friends, and we all had a good time.

            And while I’m totally not on this topic, it’s cold here! It snowed again for a few seconds when we got back from Yale and didn’t stick, and the same this morning. I’ve never worn so many clothes in my life! At the moment I could take off two complete layers and still be fully clothed. That’s partly, though, because my room is pretty cold itself. The heater’s broken. Or at least, it blows room temperature air, and since room temperature is probably in the low fifties or below, that doesn’t really help. Hopefully they can fix it before I come back from holiday.

            I will be back at school at the beginning of next week, hopefully through with all the projects I need to turn in – if not, the post may come a little late. I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving, share some good time with family or friends, and get ready for the even bigger holiday season that’s coming!

            And Go Crimson!

PS – They got the heater fixed!
PPS - Yay! Lots of pictures! I took all of them except the one of all four of us - Jasmine took that one! Enjoy!

An Eventful Epoch

            So far, today is awesome.

            Why, you ask? Well, several reasons. First, the weather is lovely. Second, a week from tomorrow I will be on a plane headed home. And third, I woke up at 6:30 this morning to find that my ROTC class had been cancelled. Which means, if you do the math, that I got to sleep in two extra hours and still had an extra hour of study time this morning. Life is good.

            The more settled in I get, the more events I go to outside the normal routine of classes. This past Friday I went to the Veritas Forum. It was a conversation-sparking discussion between Professor N.T. Wright and Professor Sean Kelly, moderated by Professor Jay Harris (the latter two are from Harvard.) There was a packed house to hear them talk – the topic was “The Bible: Gospel, Guide, or Garbage?” The interesting and non-contentious discussion followed into the refreshments and mingling afterwards.

            On Saturday I served as a judge – yes, a judge – for a Junior ROTC drill meet. The drill meet itself wasn’t, perhaps, so interesting, but I got a big kick from being on the other side of things, what I call an anti-vicarious pleasure. I was judging Armed Regulation, and all of the cadets looked so nervous! It brought back so many memories – all those nervous minutes we spent standing on the side of the drill deck, just waiting for the big moment so we could compete. It all seemed like such a big deal back then – not a minor interruption to a relatively calm Saturday. Of course, part of that was the smaller size of this drill meet, but the difference in atmosphere still stood out to me. Incidentally, I was also amused that I was judging Armed drill. I never liked marching it.

            Saturday night was a birthday party for one of my friends (pictures below) during which I finally learned how to use chopsticks. It was a good time, but afterwards we all agreed that we’d eaten way too much. On Sunday I had church in the morning and then we had the Hebrew department dinner that evening – the first time I’ve had falafel since I was in Israel. I’m going multi-cultural over here, I guess.

            Yesterday was a normal class day, more or less. We had ROTC PT in the morning. I didn’t do the track workout, due to a strained ankle, which meant that I joined a few others in doing other exercises. Mainly planks – a lot of planks. But it was good. And of course, there’s no ROTC class today.

            Classes, on the other hand, are passing out final assignments and slowing down. All we really have left for ROTC is review for the final. In Philosophy we’re finishing off the Problem of Evil and the Free Will Defense, which are a lot more complicated than I thought they were, but far from unfamiliar. In Calculus we’re rounding off the semester with Green’s theorem and then starting review. And in MME we have an essay due today, a short oral presentation on Thursday, and then prep for the final. (How do you give a broad-based, well-supported and developed argument in two minutes? No idea. At least it’s in English, though, right?)

             In Hebrew, we’ve finally gotten into one of the great loves of my life: complex sentence structure (e.g. If I hadn’t been able to see you, I wouldn’t have been able to give you your present). I enjoyed the class, despite the fact that we probably spent half-an-hour arguing over the translations because of complexities in English grammar. If you want something to puzzle over this week, imagine that it is an hour before your exam, and someone asks you how you think you’ll do. And you say, “Had I studied, I would succeed.” Wrong or just weird-sounding? Anyway, between this and the novel I am now over halfway through, I’m pretty excited about Hebrew at the moment. So classes are going fairly well.

            And everyone is getting increasingly homesick the closer we get to Thanksgiving. Posts are popping up all over facebook; random comments come up in conversation; countdowns are being recorded. Those who aren’t counting down the days to homecomings are counting down the days until the semester’s end. Once we come back from Thanksgiving we have one more week of classes before the start of reading period and finals. And then we’re an eighth of the way through college – geez, where did the time go?

            During the drill meet last Saturday, everyone was commenting on how little the high schoolers looked. And I commented that when I was in third grade I though middle school students were really big and mature. And when I was in middle school, I thought the same about high school students. And so on and so forth. I suspect that one day I’ll wake up, eighty-five years old or so, and find that it isn’t nearly as old as I thought it was.

            But before then I have an essay to proofread and Harvard-Yale to prepare for this weekend. So with that thought, goodbye until next week, and I’ll see some of you in nine days! Go Crimson!

PS – Okay, maybe not epoch. But it starts with an ‘e’, and it’s close enough.

PPS – Finally, pictures of people! You can also catch glimpses of my new Harvard hoodie – I tend towards the cheap side, so it hurt a bit, but I figured I needed one…

 

Gold Stripes and a Glimpse of Snow

           Happy Veteran’s Day, everyone! I’m sorry this is up a little later than usual; I was waiting so I could tell you about a few events that happened over the past week. It’s been a fairly packed last few days.
           A lot of things have been happening with ROTC, first of all. Last week we had a Marine Lab, which meant a lot of PT, a lot of yelling and, it turns out, a lot of fun, despite or because of the other two. Though I must say, while USMC boots may be made for mad dashes and flutter kicks, our NWU steel-toed shoes weren’t very cooperative. But everybody loved it either way. At one point I was a ‘casualty’ in a fire and had to scream my head off for fifteen minutes straight – it was fun. Believe me, it was fun.
            We also had our Navy/Marine Corps birthday ball this Friday, which was nice. A former Navy pilot/SEAL and a USMC General spoke about some of their own past experiences and what it meant to be part of the military. We had a good time; the food was good, and so was the company, despite all the freshmen freaking out because of the sea of gold stripes in the ballroom. You couldn’t move without accidently bumping into somebody important.
            The Veteran’s day ceremony at Harvard last night was about the same, except that all the people there weren’t only military personnel, they were also attending Harvard grad schools. Which of course isn’t intimidating at all. They were all really nice, though, and we got to mingle with actual active-duty personnel more than we did at our own ball. And they cut the USMC birthday cake again – for our ball I was on the detail walking it in, so it was nice to just be able to watch the second time around.
            Having appointments directly before and after the Veteran’s day ceremony at Harvard made me notice how I change in different atmospheres. It’s not that I put a false persona on, but I see things in a different way and act differently at ROTC events, especially in uniform, especially in SDBs. It’s as if I’m living in two worlds: military and civilian.
           This is exacerbated by the fact that 1) ROTC mainly takes place at MIT or BU, not on my own campus/home; 2) people don’t tend to recognize me in uniform, so people I would normally interact with now reply to my waves with blank stares; and 3) ROTC usually takes place very early in the morning, and when we go back to Harvard I tend to go back to sleep before starting the rest of my day. All of these together mean that ROTC exists in a kind of quasi-alternate universe for me, in a different place, with different people, and in what seems a semi-awake twilight zone during my fully-conscious life. This isn’t really a problem; it’s just something I notice more when things are suddenly juxtaposed.
            Anyhow, enough about ROTC. There are other things going on in my life, though perhaps not quite as interesting. My CI group is going well; we had some good talks yesterday night and got to know each other a little better. I’m so glad I have a group of girls I can just sit down and talk to about things, or invite out to lunch spontaneously, however infrequently I may actually take advantage of that. We also have the Veritas forum this Friday, but I suppose I’ll talk about that when it happens.
          Classes are alright. I’ve about given up hope of getting an A in math, a subject I always loved before, but it doesn’t matter as much as you might think. I’m not, of course, happy about it, but it’s not the end of the world; I got over that years ago. All my other classes are going great and are very enjoyable. I have finished most of my major assignments before Thanksgiving – I have one more paper to finish, but that’s all.
          And with the assignments finishing up, there is time open for other more enjoyable things. My current preferred form of free time is a pastime I have long neglected – reading a fiction novel. The catch? It’s in Hebrew! Six months, and I can read and understand a novel – not perfectly, but enough to tell what’s going on. Just the thought excites me – even aside from my natural excitement at the unexplored pages of a physical book!
         I have also, quite randomly, started watching episodes of the original “The Incredible Hulk” on Netflix. They’re not bad, if you can ignore the special effects and the fact that the Hulk wears bell-bottom jeans and has hair that looks – well, monstrous.
        But TV and movies are for weekends, so right now I’m just chugging through, waiting for Thanksgiving to get here. I’m not homesick – I’m just home-excited. I can’t wait! When you’re in college and only come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, home doesn’t just mean the glories of family reunion. It means food and rest and, at least to me, warmth.
         It snowed yesterday – first time this year. It didn’t last very long, and it didn’t stick, but it did snow. I don’t know if you can see it in the pictures – I couldn’t – but take my word for it; it was there. I wore long underwear for the first time yesterday as well. I grew up with a subconscious distaste for it, probably because my only recollection of it involved vague images of Mr. Edwards in Little House on the Prairie. Turns out, though, it’s quite comfortable. I have a feeling it will be used a lot in the coming weeks – at least until I can head back to Texas. I’m dreaming of a green Christmas…
        Well, this installment was pretty long, since I had a bunch to cover. I’m using a lot of next week’s ammo up here, so don’t worry; my next post should be shorter! Until then, I wish you health and happiness and, if you live somewhere less wonderful than the American South, a few pairs of long underwear.

God bless!

PS (aka Glossary, feel free to ignore):

ROTC – Reserve Officer Training Corps
PT – Physical Training
USMC – United States Marine Corps
NWU – Navy Working Uniform (the blue camouflage one)
MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology
BU – Boston University

CI – Christian Impact (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ)

PS - post scriptum

aka - also known as...