Christenings, Concerts, and Counting Down

            It’s been a fairly eventful week. Actually, it was mostly just a fairly eventful Saturday, for two very different reasons. So why don’t I start with that?

            Saturday morning, I was in Maine. It took an almost-three-hour drive to get to Bath, including our stop for breakfast, and we started early, at seven in the morning, all decked out in our Service Dress Blues (which are actually black). Once in Bath, we attended the christening ceremony for the USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000), the US Navy’s newest guided missile destroyer and the first of its class. There was a lot of speaking, all by very important people, ranging from Senators, Congressmen, and the children of Admiral Zumwalt to the Vice CNO and Secretary Mabus.

            The ceremony itself wasn’t terribly fascinating; we sat and listened to people talk about the virtues of the ship and its builders and the virtues of her namesake and his successors, and of course we heard about the wonderful people who had helped to appropriate funding for all the materials and labor for this ship. Afterwards we walked around, took pictures with the ship, and tried to figure out how many of the officers wandering around it was actually practical to salute. And eventually we grabbed some of the free snacks, headed back to the vans, and returned to MIT.

            I probably would have enjoyed the ceremony more if I hadn’t been constantly worrying about getting back to Harvard in time for our concert that evening. We started practice at five, and I didn’t get there until six, but everything turned out okay. I had time to change, and it turned out that keeping my hair in a bun all morning actually added some nice curl that made it look like I’d done more than just to take it down and brush it out.

            The concert itself was fabulous. I went from having no solos last semester to three this semester, and the songs were really great. It was the seniors’ last concert with us, which made it kind of bittersweet, but we all had an unspoken agreement not to think about it that much at the time, so it was mostly sweet. We stopped near the end of the concert for the rest of us to surprise the seniors with flowers and a song, which they seemed to thoroughly enjoy. It was a night to remember. I’ll post the link to the concert videos when they come out.

            I’ve been bordering on sick for a couple of weeks now, and my voice was already hoarse, especially with the extra practices we’d been having. It hung in there until the end of the concert, but I couldn’t talk yesterday, and I still can’t sing. Still, the music was great, and at the end of the concert we hung out with each other, some friends, and the Cross Products from MIT, who opened for us at the concert.

            We had a good time afterwards chatting and making up for an early dinner before the concert, but I left around midnight so as to get some sleep before PT this morning. We had the PRT today, and it was the last PT practice of the semester, but more than that, it was outside, for the first time this semester! I don’t know if I’ve just been deprived for months, but the weather outside is gorgeous. Not only are there colors other than brown, gray and white, but you can walk outside in a T-shirt and jeans and be perfectly comfortable, even be (almost) warm!

            And that’s not the only reason to be happy. Happy Holy Week, everyone! I received a lovely Easter package from my parents earlier that brightened my day. It’s also Passover, which means I don’t have Hebrew this week, giving me a little more time to study. I need it – I have several papers and presentations to finish before next week, and I’d like to have them done before this weekend. On Good Friday the Christian fellowships on campus are having an evening event I want to attend, and I’d like to have Easter Sunday completely off. We’ll see.

            This semester I feel like I’ve fallen behind on studying, partly because I’m starting to do a lot of other things, more social things, that I never really got into before, and partly because I’m just tired. The last couple of weekends have been busy, and I haven’t had a real break since January. When I get tired, as I’ve mentioned before, I stop worrying about things as much, stop working on things as hard, and it’s starting to come back to haunt my grades.

            Well, it’s almost over. I have one more onslaught of papers and presentations and two more take-home exams, and then I’m done. We’ve finished ROTC class except for final review, and the rest of my classes are starting to come down to final projects. I need to find some energy somewhere and start my final sprint, and hope that it makes up for lost time. Wish me luck, and Happy Easter!