Rested and Ready

I know, almost all my titles follow the same format. But hey, Bones has gone through 8 seasons with titles like “A Boy in a Tree”. I can’t be doing that bad, right?

I have waited to write this particular blog because, due to the three-day weekend, not much happened between my last post and yesterday. Harvard is apparently the only Ivy League to celebrate Columbus Day; I’m not quite sure why they do it, except that people need a break in the middle of midterms (Groups have advocated to change this to Indigenous Peoples’ Day). But a holiday by any other name is equally appreciated. I slept for eleven hours last night, and it was heavenly.

I have finished all my tests for midterms; now I have all the papers and projects that still need to be done. I’m pretty good at not worrying about things when I don’t want to; you could call it conscious denial, or compartmentalization, or whatever you want, but if I have time and I don’t want to think about something, I generally don’t think about it. Which is fine, until you get up Tuesday morning and have to think about things again.

But the weekend was really very nice. I spent a lot of time with UC; we had a social on Sunday night at one of our members’ apartment – members’s apartment – the apartment of one of the members. I had Korean food for the first time in my life that I can recall, and then we sat around and people did card tricks and played games and had an overall lovely time. We took a few pictures with the freshmen – I posted them here.

ROTC has settled down as far as events go, somewhat, and now are concentrating on semester- or year-long projects: activities points and Midshipmen Professional Qualification Standards. So wish us all luck with trying to coordinate those. The ROTC freshmen here at Harvard got to meet with Dean Dingman and Dean Shapiro last week to discuss coordinating ROTC and Harvard classes and bring forth any issues, which was really great of them.

I have decided that the time has arrived that I really do need a coat, so I’m working on getting around to that (Harvard was awesome and gave me the money – now I just need the time and organization to go shopping!). I am feeling much better, by the way; besides a little clogged throat, I’m all better. A little sleep can do wonders for you.

And with the long, restful weekend I can feel my curiosity beginning to peak again. I want to read about things, learn about things, figure things out, create new things. I remember again that I am here, with all these resources I can never exhaust waiting at my fingertips, and I want to explore.

I also want to write; I’ve started going through all the old plots that never got written down, wondering if any are interesting enough to write in English or simple enough to write in Hebrew. I’m devising grand outlines in my head for essays I may or may not ever write. Now the only trick is to apply this newfound assiduity to the essays I actually need to write and the presentations I actually need to finish…

Well, hopefully I can direct my energies where they need to go; I don’t know if my compartmentalization extends that far. But I have found that work is kind of like a cold pool – when you stop dipping a toe in and pulling away and instead jump in and grab it by the horns (forgive the mixed metaphors) it ends up not being that bad. Not pleasant, maybe, but not that bad.

So yes, I had better stop writing and prepare for all this stuff. I hope ya’ll are having a great week, and happy Columbus/Indigenous People’s Day!

PS: Thanks to Una for taking the pics at the social! There was also a parade in town - the one I mentioned on Facebook. I didn't get the best of pictures, but here they are!