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…
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