'Twas the Tuesday before Thanksgiving...

And all through the class

Everyone’s eyes were glazed over like glass,

As they counted the hours ‘till they would awake

And find that they’d started the holiday break.

            Well, that’s not entirely true. I still pay attention in class. But I can’t say I’m not excited about the fact that, by the time most of you read this, I’ll be on a plane on my way back to Texas. Until then, though, it was a very busy weekend, so there’s a lot to write about.

            First of all, Harvard-Yale. We won! As we have for the past 13 years, barring one game. However, unlike last year, this game was very close and pretty exciting. I left at half-time to do work, and I’m sorry I missed it, but I’m glad we won, and it was nice to be able to go to a football game again, even if it was a far cry from Texas football. The halftime show was especially telling – on the Yale side, the about thirty people who made up the band (and one twirler) pretty much walked out, made a peace sign, made a triangle, played a song, and then walked off the field again. Harvard was a little better, but I have to say, SHS (and pretty much any other Texas High School) could have run circles around Harvard and Yale as far as halftime shows are concerned.

            The one interesting part in this break was the emblem-smashing; every year, each school produces an emblem of the other school, and then destroys it. Yale had a giant cloth H; they proceeded to have their band act like a bow and then had some other people, the ‘arrow’, run forward in a line toward the H. It was rather unimpressed. Harvard, on the other hand, built a structure resembling a bulldog (Yale’s mascot), which they brought out. The people inside then proceeded to burst out and hack the structure to shreds. That was a little better, but fortunately, the actual game was interesting, so we didn’t have to rely too heavily on halftime for entertainment. There are also pictures of the tailgate before the game. It was much more pleasant than the one last year – there was a lot more space and a lot more food, and I wasn’t afraid of getting trampled.

            Anyway, the best part of the weekend was our Under Water concert between our group, Under Construction, and Yale’s group, Living Water. We each sang about five songs, which for us included a Christmas carol arrangement we’d only had a week to learn. But everything went fine; Yale sounded great; I thought we sounded good. Afterwards we went to the official Harvard party for the night before the game. I ducked out of that early, too, but it was a good time.

            Why did I keep ducking out early? Partly because I haven’t gotten much sleep lately, and partly because I needed to work on my take-home physics exam, which had its deadline extended until Monday afternoon. It was tedious, but I finished it – I repeat, I finished my last physics take-home exam (hopefully) ever! Now all we have to do is finish our physics projects, and we’ll be good to go.

            And last but not least, the news closest to my thoughts right now – I’m sick. I started feeling bad over the weekend, and Sunday night things started getting a lot worse. I still went to PT on Monday morning – lack of sleep and being in the cold rain for an hour weren’t helpful – and then sent my Arabic teacher an apology and slept instead of going to my morning class. Things were better in the afternoon, but I woke up this morning still worse. Hopefully I’ll be better in time for Thanksgiving. It seems, though, like everyone is getting sick around now; everyone’s energy is running out.

            Whether or not I get better, though, I’m happy to be going home. I’ll let you know how the break goes, but until then, all the best, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Hobbits, Hebrew, and Harvard-Yale

                There are eight days left until Thanksgiving break; I have the exact countdown on my phone. This is, in fact, the last full week of school before Thanksgiving, and when I post again, it will be on the last day of this section of the semester.

                Of course, Thanksgiving doesn’t mean that the semester’s over, but you must realize that we’ve only had one holiday in the entirety of the rest of the semester. A five-day weekend sounds pretty good. Besides which, when we get back from Thanksgiving, there’s only one more week of classes before Reading Period and finals, so the bulk of the semester is for all practical purposes finished a week from today.

                Of course, there is still a lot to do. There are papers to write, projects to finish, and exams to prepare for, on top of the normal work that’s still coming. The fact that we’re close to the end means I have less and less motivation to work; I still get things done, but I’m increasingly distracted by things like sleep and TV. I did watch the second two Lord of the Rings movies for the first time over the weekend. I didn’t get as much work done as I would have liked, but I was glad I finally saw them.

                There is a definite psychological effect to the early sunset here. The sun has started setting by 3:30-ish, and the official sunset is shortly after 4:00. By the time I get out of class, it will be dark. I will either go and sit in one of the libraries, with the artificial lighting reminding me I’m stuck inside, or I will go to my room, where my window will remind me that the lighting would be perfect for sleeping if I’d just flick the light switch off. Either way, I won’t want to work. Everything was amplified by the rain yesterday, although I did manage to get something done.

                Not that I haven’t been doing a lot of things besides studying. On Saturday we had the Marine Corps Birthday Ball, which went nicely. I helped with set-up and check-in, so I was helping out starting around 4:30, and dinner ended up being a little late – 10:30 pm late – so I went ahead and left after the formal part of the evening, but it was good to see everyone in a social capacity.

                Also, this weekend is The Game – Harvard vs. Yale – and I got my free ticket yesterday, so that’s exciting. It also means that in a cappella we are preparing for our joint Harvard-Yale concert – Yale is coming to Harvard this year, so we don’t have to travel; we just have to host. We’re also learning some Christmas songs for caroling a little later in the year, which is exciting. Speaking of which, the feeling of Christmas is definitely in the air around now. Carols are stuck in my head, the store windows are decorated, and everyone’s finally capitulated and started wearing heavy coats and boots.

                Yesterday was a busy day as well; I went to the Hebrew department’s dinner, where I had pita and falafel for the first time since this summer, and listened to a speaker on Israeli music. The falafel wasn’t as good as in Jordan, but I definitely enjoyed dinner more than I did last semester, when I couldn’t enjoy it at all. In addition, this year, when people spoke Arabic as well as Hebrew, I could still make out some of what they were saying.

                Also this week in the Hebrew department, we had two screenwriter/directors come and talk with us about their work. We’d watched movies from both of them in class, and both of them graciously agreed to come talk (on different days) and answer questions about their films. It was very interesting to hear what they had to say, although when I tried to introduce myself I kept accidentally switching to Arabic instead of Hebrew.

                As you can see from the last few jam-packed paragraphs, there’s a lot still going on; college doesn’t stagnate like elementary or high school around the end of the semester, where everyone reviews and has parties and whiles away the time. There’s still a lot to be done, although I will say we do a lot more whiling than usual around this time of year. It’s strange to think that I only have about three weeks left at Harvard before I leave – not just for Winter Break, but for next semester and summer as well; I won’t be back until next August.

                This is the last lap of the semester before the final burst of energy to help me down the final stretch. I’m not sprinting yet; I’m still jogging. But I can already see the finish line.

Sailing and Next Semester

            It seems like, as time goes on, the days get longer and the weeks get shorter. I’m getting plenty of sleep, but it’s getting increasingly more difficult to get myself out of bed in the morning – not from depression; just from indolence. However, despite that, last week was a fairly eventful week, so I will deviate from my countdown of the days until break to fill you in.

            First things first: concert videos are here! I’m posting the link at the bottom of this page, so you can watch them at your leisure. Enjoy! Also, while on the subject of good news, I was quite worried about my physics grade for a while last week. Harvard factoid: we have no way of tracking our grades – sometimes the teachers even refuse to give out overall grades until the end of the semester. However, I did end up crunching the numbers, and it turns out I’m doing much better in physics than I thought, so that was encouraging.

            Another bit of welcome news: I was accepted into my study abroad program for next semester! I didn’t want to mention it on here until I got In, but it’s official – I’ll be spending next semester in Jerusalem, barring any unexpected obstacles, and studying at the Rothberg Institute at Hebrew University. I’ll have more information on that as it gets closer to time to leave.

            For now, though, there are still plenty of things happening here in Massachusetts. Speaking of Hebrew, my Hebrew class attended a film screening on Thursday night for an Israeli TV series that’s being remade in the US. It was very good; I haven’t been able to find it online, but in the process of looking for it, I stumbled over several other TV shows in Hebrew that I’m excited about watching when I get time.

            Not that I’m terribly busy at the moment. I spent the weekend browsing through a bunch of Spanish, Hebrew, and Arabic films on Netflix, along with having a few American films thrown in. It wasn’t all that productive of a day, but I did get some foreign language study in, and I did all the work that needed to be done. The fact that MIT got Monday and Tuesday of this week off for Veterans’ Day meant that I didn’t have PT Monday morning, which helped. Over the weekend I also finished the 600-page novel I bought as a stress-reliever earlier in the week. I haven’t finished a book in a long time; it was a good feeling.

            Also this weekend, I picked up another activity that I haven’t done in a while: sailing. ROTC had a mini-regatta this past Saturday for Midshipmen in our company. We sailed for a while, to practice, and then we ate grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, and then we went out and actually raced. The first time, my boat came in last, since neither I nor my partner remembered much about sailing. However, we moved up a place each time, so we considered ourselves as receiving the award for most improvement at the end.

            Sailing, I found, can be a source of life lessons. For instance, in sailing, the tighter you make your sail, the more control the wind has over your boat, which is to say that a tight sail is good if you want speed and bad if you’re about to tip over; those two have to be balanced. Furthermore, the thing to always remember is that, if your boat is about to tip, one of the best things to do is to let the sail out; the effect is noticeable and immediate.

            However, letting the sail out is very unintuitive for me when the boat is starting to tilt. The more we start to lean, the more I want to pull tight, to hold everything in and have control. Which of course, only makes things worse. By the end of the day, I’d learned that sometimes the best thing to do is to calm down and just give up some of that control. Sometimes that works in life, too – what I think I need to do to make sure things are running smoothly only makes them worse, and it’s better if I just sit back for a while and let the wind take me where it will without worrying so much.

            I hope everyone had a wonderful Veterans’ Day, and I hope you have some free time to watch the concert at the link below. You can also find us on facebook at the second link. Until next week!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLChmBxANRX4JNYX6VQ7kg-kTzAoxeBtvJ

https://www.facebook.com/underconst

First Snow and Fighting Through

            Welcome to November, everyone! It’s finally gotten cold – we had our first snowfall this past Sunday, one I walked through on my way to church. It wasn’t much, but it was definitely snow, and I finally broke out the winter coat and boots. They served me well. It’s been pretty cold this week in general – it got down to freezing a couple of times. We’ve all taken to wearing our heavy-duty coats outside even when it’s not precipitating.

            Church itself was nice as well – the sermon was on Luke 2, which meant it was both a fresh look at a passage one normally only hears at Christmas time, and it brought back some pleasant memories, as does the Christmas music that has begun to float around campus. And for me, cold weather means Christmas must be close, so it’s almost time to start getting excited.

            Speaking of excitement, the main thing that happened this past weekend was my UC a cappella concert. Hopefully the recordings we made will be put together more quickly than they were last year, and I’ll be able to post the link. The concert went well, everyone did great on their solos and in the block, and we had a lot of fun. We also came together as a group, especially at the last few rehearsals.

            The last rehearsal before a concert is always a little special. We rehearse for as long as it takes, which usually means around 4-5 hours, and in the middle we stop when some of our alumni (read “old friends”) show up with pizza to help us celebrate. At the end of our time, we do “reconciliation”, when people can get together and work out any problems that might have built up over the years, so that we can go into the concert unified. I didn’t get to bed until around one-thirty Friday morning, and I had to sleep over with a friend from UC, since I had ROTC, but it was the happiest I’d been in a while.

            So that was the weekend; it was pretty busy, but it came between two particularly calm weeks, relatively speaking, so everything worked out. I have things scheduled for practically every weekend between now and Thanksgiving, but thankfully (no pun intended) there aren’t that many weeks left. I wake myself up nearly every morning by counting down the days. This has been a particularly difficult semester for me – not overwhelming, most of the time, but definitely draining. I’m burning out.

            Not in a dramatic sense, though. It’s like the battery in my laptop, that still lets me work without a problem, but drains power more and more quickly every time I use it and nearly constantly needs to be charged. Eventually it’s going to be used up. Eventually I’m going to be used up. But I’m fairly certain we both have enough juice left to get us through the rest of this semester.

            Yesterday things came to a head around 5:00. I was sitting in Widener stacks trying to do Arabic. The lights in the stacks are on motion sensors, so if you sit for long enough they all turn off, and that combined with time change left me sitting in relative darkness by 4:30. I couldn’t work. I’m not sure how many things caused the feeling in me, but after a while I found that, even having done very little, I just couldn’t bring myself to keep working. It’s hard to describe the feeling – I just had to get out of there.

            The dining halls open around five, so I headed down to get dinner en lou of finishing my work. On the way, though, I allowed myself to be sidetracked into a bookstore. It was a very good decision. I went from the cold white walls and metal shelves of the stacks to wooden bookshelves in a warm basement with jazz playing softly in the background, and I could feel myself physically and mentally thawing, regrouping, unbending.

            I browsed for a while and bought a five-dollar action novel, the first fiction I’ve read in quite a while just for the sake of reading, and then went to the dining hall, had dinner and a hot cup of tea, and just read for a while. It was much better than trying to cheer myself up with comfort food, and afterwards I found a comfy, wood-paneled, living-room resembling study room to finish my Arabic in. The assignment was much easier than it had looked.

            So that’s my life right now – I’m tired, and I’m losing motivation, but last night I snuggled under the covers with a novel, the way I haven’t in a long time, and I’ll make it through the rest of the semester. I’m worn out but still functional. And in three weeks, I’m going home!