Rest and Recovery

            In philosophy we’re discussing what you do with a relative judgment that happens to be shared by everyone. One such judgment seems to be this: last week at Harvard was just bad. Obviously, this isn’t objectively true, but almost everyone I talk to had a fairly horrid week, including me. Because teachers like to give multiple midterms throughout the semester, I suppose because people study more for “midterms” than for “tests” or “quizzes”, once midterms start, they never actually stop; I have friends who have their last midterm and their first final only about a week apart. And of course, essays and projects have to be added in to all this.

            So pretty much everyone is feeling a little better this week, but we’re still all at least partially counting down until the holidays. If you saw me every day, maybe you would notice the change. At the beginning of the year, perhaps partially because of carryover from the summer, I dressed nicer; I wore skirts, I put on jewelry and makeup, I did my hair. That has eventually drained, and I now head to class in jeans, a t-shirt and a hoodie, spending thirty seconds or so to make my hair publicly presentable. My work, fortunately, has not taken the same hit in effort, and I do feel much more energized than last week, but still – a break will be very welcome.

            Why was last week so hard? Mainly because of my physics take-home exam. It took forever – longer than it took me to do all my philosophy reading for last week and write a Philosophy and a Hebrew essay. At five till five, all those of us scrambling to finish in the lab submitted and then finally looked up and around, a little shell-shocked. And then I and a friend went out to get shakes to celebrate. And after that, my day went much better.

            Not that I got much rest this weekend. All the time that I’d spent on physics instead of everything else now had to be compensated for, and it took me until yesterday to finish that. On Saturday afternoon we had our ROTC Pass in Review. We looked sharp, and the Deputy Commander of the US Special Warfare Command came out and spoke. This semester I’ve gotten a lot closer to the ROTC community; we spend more time together, and I feel like I know my way around the battalion more. The Pass in Review was a good opportunity to just sit and talk with people. Still, that left me less-than-ample time to catch up on work.

            And this week? This week has so far been nice, but it’s about to get really busy. Under Construction* is having its fall concert on November the 1^st, and there’s lots of prep to be done as treasurer and as part of the group in general. Our practice time is doubled, but we’re all excited to be performing – and to have six hours of extra free time a week afterwards. I’ll let you know how the concert goes!

            Luckily, this week has been good so far. For one thing, I slept until 9 this morning, which was very nice. For another, yes, you heard me right – I’m wearing a t-shirt, a hoodie, and jeans. The weather is cool, but a pleasant kind of cool that doesn’t extend to the point of discomfort, excluding the sub-45 temperatures before sunrise. And Physics this week is like shooting fish in a barrel. As in, we’re talking about diffraction angles, and one of the problems involves trying to shoot a fish in a barrel of water. And then the fish shooting back at you. My physics teachers cannot be faulted for lack of creativity.

            To finish, a few fun facts about my dorm room: it’s one of about only three rooms on the floor that’s carpeted, it’s less than half the size of the adjoining single, and whenever they turn the heater on, it sounds like there’s an angry chainsaw ghost banging away at the piping. The walls are also extremely thin – you can walk down the hallway and know who’s on the phone, who’s playing video games, who’s watching TV, etc. You have to be kind of careful.

            Well, that’s this week’s news. I’ve attached pictures of the pumpkin-carving contest results (I didn’t participate). Happy Halloween!

*my a cappella group

Work and Co.

            The majority of the last few weeks and, I expect, the majority of the weeks to come, can be summarized with one word: work. Or, as thesaurus.com informs me, with the words struggle, trial, drudgery, exertion, grind, pains, slogging, stress, striving, sweat, toil, travail, and trouble. All of them seem pretty accurate; from here on out I’ll be calling them Work and Co.

            I’m not entirely sure what happened: whether I’m somehow wasting my time more than I used to, or whether I’ve just hit rush hour. From what I can tell, though, I haven’t really wasted any more time than usual, so I’m going with the rush hour theory, in combination with a little less time efficiency caused by lack of energy.

            Over the last couple of weeks, I haven’t felt that stressed or depressed; it just felt like everything was falling apart, not going the way it was supposed to, not in a major way, but in a cumulative way, from banging my toe to not finishing a p-set before turning it in. At the same time, I wasn’t that worried. It felt like I was tumbling down a hill without really caring. Well, this week, the emergency thrusters came back online. Now I’m stressed – not overwhelmed, crying, hyperventilating stress, just the normal kind – and all my time is consumed with Work and Co.

            I do well under pressure; in a way, I’m in my element. At the same time, this isn’t a lot of hard work on a project I’m interested in; it’s work doing a hundred different things, most of which have to be done but aren’t that interesting or pleasant. And of course, while I’m taking care of immediate concerns, I’m neglecting all the other things I want/need to get done – reviewing concepts, exercising, and etc.

            Alright, enough already. For a short interlude, let me throw in a random fact about life at Harvard. I may start throwing these in every couple of weeks, so be on the lookout. Here it is: if you didn’t know, the outdoor steps up to Widener Library are some of the most awkward on campus; they are just high enough, and just wide enough, that you can’t run, jog, or walk up or down them without stretching your legs in a way that’s just – well, awkward – and falling into a sort of lopsided gait, sometimes subtle, sometimes not.  If you ever want to test that out, come visit!

            So, what’s happening around campus? Things are really beginning to pick up; I have Pass in Review for ROTC this Saturday, and then our a cappella concert, and then the ROTC Birthday Ball, and then Harvard-Yale (which involves another, joint, concert), and then it’s Thanksgiving. The good news it, time should really fly by between now and then. There’s so much to do!

            Sophomores are also declaring concentrations around now. At the moment, though this could change, I’m planning on doing a joint concentration (aka double major – don’t ask me why we call it something else; no one knows) in Near Eastern Languages and Civilization (NELC) and Philosophy. I’ve already gotten quite a few of my NELC classes out of the way, so I’ll be done with those requirements pretty soon, and then I’ll have more time for Philosophy. And no, no more math or science classes at Harvard after this, as far as I know.

            So that’s where things stand right now. It’s not just me; most everyone I talk to, including professors, has the feeling that we’re all just powering through until Thanksgiving. Midterms took us by surprise, and we all thought, “Wow! We’ve only got half a semester to go!” And a week or so later, we all thought, “Wow. We’ve still got half a semester to go.” But after Thanksgiving, everything is really just preparation for finals (I have two this semester), and then yet another semester is by. Just the thought of which reminds me to cherish what time I do have. The whole undergraduate experience will be over in a flash.

            And on that (optimistic?) thought, I’ve got more things to do, so I need to say goodbye. Have a great week, enjoy the fall weather if you have it, and if you’re like me and keeping company with Work and Co., keep powering through!

PS – I almost forgot to mention – I did get a care package from my parents yesterday that made me very happy!

Three Days... We're Halfway!

            The reverberations and aftershocks echoed through the room as the young warriors, still reeling from the recent onslaught slowly raised themselves, looked around them, and tried to make sense of what was happening. Finally, one turned to his friend and, hardly daring to breathe, whispered furtively, “do you think it’s over?”

            “For now,” the other replied. “I think that was the last one.”

            Suddenly one of the others seemed to realize something for the first time. Leaning forward, brow creased, he half-whispered, half-shouted – “but – but that means we’re halfway through!”

            The students stared at one another in growing amazement. It was true. Midterms had ended. And so had half the semester. There was only a month-and-a-half to go…

            I’m not quite sure where to go from there, but yes! The year is halfway through. Surprised? So were we. I think most of us are still settling in; there are weekly appointments I’m supposed to be having that we haven’t found a regular time for; there are friends I haven’t had the time to catch up with; I’m still trying to get an idea of how my professors grade and where I stand in my classes. And yet – and yet half the semester’s gone, and I have to hurry up and get everything done before it’s all over.

            The long weekend was very nice, despite all the anti-Columbus posters taped on various doors and message boards asking me if I know what I’m celebrating. I know what I’m celebrating: I’m celebrating having finished my midterms and enjoying my only three-day weekend this semester. At the risk of sounding callous and ignorant, that my three-day weekend happens to be connected to Columbus makes absolutely no difference to me.

            Anyway, what did I do this weekend? Because I was touring a ship with ROTC last weekend, I was behind on work all week, besides having three essays to write. So Saturday was a work day; I got up early and tried to knock as many things off of my to-do list as possible. I also helped ROTC pass out free programs at a Harvard football game; you may remember that I did this last year as well. It’s a lot less fun in a cold rain, let me tell you, but it went fine, and we passed them all out. It was a pretty productive day. Once the sun went down, though, my motivation flagged, and I ended up on Netflix once I’d determined that I’d done enough to get myself back on track.

            On Sunday I got up and went to Church, and on my way back I caught the annual Oktoberfest parade. After church I went jogging down by the Charles – (okay, I should stop to acknowledge this. I went jogging for the first time since I sprained my ankle, and except for slight twinges of discomfort, my ankle was fine, so that’s a prayer answered.) – and quite by accident discovered an entire festival happening down in Harvard Square. I just wanted to get to the river, but I did stop to snap a few photos. Sunday evening I mainly tried to relax.

            On Monday I slept in – I had a lot of sleep to catch up on – and then headed into Boston; I haven’t been to the MFA this semester, and I’ve missed it. However, I must remind myself in the future to show up earlier and not go on holidays; the line extended out to the street. So there was a change of plans, and I instead wandered over to the little duck pond behind the museum and spent a while just sitting against a tree and musing, away from school for a little while. It was pretty nice. When I got back to school I had a cappella rehearsal; our concert is coming up pretty quickly. And afterwards I had dinner and finished the rest of the work that had to be done this weekend. All-in-all, this weekend wasn’t as restful as I would have liked, but it was productive, and it’s the semester half-way point; nothing except Christmas break is going to be as restful as I want it to be.

            I am now going to indulge in a bit of mid-year musing, despite the fact that this post is already plenty long. What have I learned thus far? Well, as far as book-knowledge goes, I’ve learned a lot, though there’s as always the age-old problem of learning vs. education. I have more responsibility than I did last semester, and although I’m still not doing as much leadership-wise as I did my last couple years of high school, I feel I’m still progressing.

            One of the main challenges this semester has been balancing work and relaxation. I’ve tried to do that through my Sabbaths, but the further into the semester we get, the more my free time wants to encroach on my work time. I started this year ready to go, but the first couple of weeks were so crazy, they drained all my excess enthusiasm. I’m not quite in ‘survival mode’, like I was my first semester freshman year, but I don’t feel like I’ve got everything together, either.

            So I’m still experimenting with ways to recharge my energy. The best way I’ve found, in my little experience, is a ‘detox’ period, a time completely separate from responsibility, where I can wind down and de-stress, until I’m charged up and bored and ready to get something done – it’s not in my nature to do nothing for too long. Unfortunately, those times don’t come very often. And when I don’t get enough time, when I start to detox but don’t finish, it’s like waking up in the middle of a sleep cycle: I’m more tired than I was before. There’s such a thing as too much rest.

            Yes, that’s how I feel now. The whole weekend was a mix of wanting to throw all responsibility to the dogs and wanting to make sure everything was done and together. It was a mix of watching Netflix and sending business emails, of staying in bed and making to-do lists. It was strange, and I’m still not quite sure how good or bad it was, but hopefully it gave me enough energy to get back to work.

            It’s not that I don’t do well with stress; I work best under pressure. I love learning, and it’s awesome to be here. All the same though – I’ll be counting the days until Thanksgiving Break!

PS - If you recognize some of the places in these photographs, it's because I had pictures of them last semester - except that back then, they were covered in snow.

Exams, Essays, and Everything Else

            Well, we’re well on our way through October. The leaves are still just beginning to change, the tourists are everywhere, and the weather is getting nippy. Once again there are moments I am in my dorm room and my toes are numb from cold (there’s a vent in my room that looks like it should be a heater, but they’ve never turned it on). Still, I’m comfortable here. The other day I was walking back after a long day of classes to find that, for a few blissful seconds just as I reached the corner of the Quad, everything was completely silent. I just stopped and stood there a few seconds to soak it in. And then, of course, the shuttle came wheezing and rumbling by, and the moment was gone. But it was nice while it lasted.

            October also means midterm season. It’s not really that we all have a wave of midterms in the middle of the semester and then again during finals period. Some classes don’t have midterms at all; they have essays or projects. Other classes have three or four ‘midterms’ – that is, tests in the middle of the term – so there’s usually a starting point for the midterm wave, but not really an ending point until reading period starts.

            On my end there isn’t really a wave of midterms. Physics has three take-home exams, the first of which we’ve already done. (As a side note, I and a couple friends are starting a study group in Physics, which should prove very helpful.) Philosophy has three papers, one of which we’ve already done and are now editing to turn in again (they give feedback and then average the two grades to help us figure out how to write a philosophy paper). ROTC has tests and essays, one of each of which we’ve already turned in. In Arabic we have a test every two weeks, so I took the second one last Friday. Finally, in Hebrew, we have an essay due next week – an extended paper – that I think everyone forgot about until I remembered something about a midterm assignment and looked it up yesterday.

            It was kind of scary to notice that we had an essay due next week, but luckily, I’ve already read two novels in Hebrew for fun, so I’m planning on just writing my essay on one of those. If everything goes well, and I can use the outline I planned out yesterday, I think it will be a good paper, one I’m interested in. I’ll let you know how it goes.

            The only worry is that writing this paper will take up a good chunk of the three-day-weekend I recently found out I had. Of all the non-controversial holidays Harvard could choose from, they decided to let us out of classes for Columbus Day. I suspect this is solely so that a large portion of the student body can protest that we celebrate this holiday at all, but I’m not complaining; we all need a break. Perhaps they just thought we needed a holiday on this particular week of the year. 

            I am certainly looking forward to the holiday; I’ll need to do some planning to put it to good use doing all the things I’ve wanted to do all semester but haven’t had time for. My Sabbath’s have been a great help in that respect, though. Last Saturday I managed to finish a short story, read quite a bit on the history of Europe, and of course, catch up on Bones. It amazes me, when I think about it, that I could not do any work for an entire day every week and not be any more stressed out than I am. In any case, though, I would gladly trade an increased workload the rest of the week for the tension-draining effects of a day of rest.

            Speaking of rest, I think I’ve about rested my ankle long enough. Despite the physical trainer’s advice, I’ve found my ankle more stable recently – I’ve stopped wearing the brace, and I haven’t had any problems – and I had to jog across Harvard Yard to catch a shuttle the other night, and it didn’t cause me any discomfort. So hopefully I’ll be able to start jogging again soon. Now I just have to find the time.

            And speaking of time, I should get going. Oh – one more thing: the care package my mother sent me about two weeks ago finally arrived, full of everything from Arabic notes to Ramen! I hope everyone has a lovely week, and whether you celebrate it or not, happy Columbus Day!