Falling into Place

                It’s been another enjoyable week in Massachusetts – a belated happy first day of Fall! On Sunday night I could see the lunar eclipse out my window, but I went outside to get a closer look. It was beautiful, although I still don’t understand why people broke into spontaneous applause from time to time. It’s not like the shadow was suddenly over the moon; it was maybe a degree over from where it was five minutes before.

                Then again, we celebrate birthdays and graduations and new years, and they don’t change anything drastically. But things change, nevertheless, until you look up and you can’t see the moon – ‘and learn, too late, they grieved it on its way’… But enough of that.

                With the change in season has come the beginning of the foliage New England is so famous for, as well as slightly cooler weather – jackets are now needed, at least for those of us who go out before sunrise or return home after sunset. Football season’s also started; we had our first game on Saturday against Brown. We won. Most of my time, though was spent with others from ROTC, passing out the thousands of free programs (that was not hyperbole) Harvard prints out for people. Thousands for free programs, but not one red penny for air conditioning – figures.

                Anyway, we had a good time, although it was the craziest time I’ve had yet handing out programs. Everyone was coming in through one entrance, so it was particularly hectic, and as people became increasingly drunk, they got ruder when they didn’t want the programs. But it all turned out alright.

                I had lunch at church again on Sunday – this time it was a grad-undergrad lunch – and there was a nice discussion about church and community. There were people at our table from all over the United States and the world, something I’ve come to appreciate about Boston. The homemade food was also appreciated.

                What else has happened this week? In my music class we’re studying Handel’s Messiah, so that’s stuck in my head, not that I’m complaining. My parents have been traveling, so I haven’t been able to talk to them for a while, which has made me more homesick than I expected, but that will soon be remedied, and in the interval I received a care package from one of my friends from Hebrew University that made my day. And finally, I just received my transcript from my summer at Cambridge, and I made all A’s, so that was encouraging.

                I thought I would end this post with a language-learning update. So, in alphabetical order:

Arabic: It’s going alright. I have class almost every day, but having more work means I do the work more superficially than I might with less of a time crunch. The grammar and I get along, but at some point I need to step back and make sure I memorize the vocabulary thoroughly this time.

English: I mean, it’s going pretty well. I did learn the word ‘adventitious’ this week (it means by chance or from an external source).

German: Apparently I have a weird accent in German – to be expected, since I’m largely self-taught. We’ll see where it ends up. I’m running into all sorts of fun words – yesterday’s was Menschenhandel, or human trafficking (lit. people-trading). Today’s is Morgenröte – the red of morning, or the dawn.

By the way, if you’re looking to practice reading in a foreign language, and you’re tired of news, fanfiction is great – you can find it for whatever TV show/movie you find interesting, it’s free, it can be good quality and idiomatic, and it’s in all languages. Just a tip.

Hebrew/Spanish – I’m putting these together, because I haven’t used either lately, outside of overhearing Spanish on the street or accidentally mixing up the Hebrew and Arabic vocabulary in class. Luckily, most of the people in my Arabic class also take Hebrew, so they still understand.

And now I’ve gotten myself into a ruminating nostalgic mood. Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing… But thank you for taking these few to read my blog. Good luck passing the ‘lazy leaden-stepping hours’ until next week – see you then!

Pictures:

Sometimes things just look pretty, and I have to take pictures of them...

 England doesn't have the only Cambridge with  bridges over pretty rivers.

 A selfie with the empty boxes from the football game (each held 63 copies). Like I said, not an exaggeration.

 Entering the Quad:

 Cambridge Common:

 This is the ceiling of Sanders Theater. Always remember to look up!

 The entrance to Memorial Hall.

Waiting for the eclipse...

 The full eclipse:

Exciting Events

                My apologies for being so late this week – I completely forgot I needed to write this, and Tuesday and Wednesday are my busiest days, so I haven’t had time until now. Still, I’m here now, and lots of exciting things have happened for me to tell you about.

                The most exciting event was the Medal of Honor ceremony held at Harvard this past Friday. About 64 of the 79 living Medal of Honor recipients gathered at Memorial Church at Harvard to memorialize recipients who have now passed on – fitting, as the church was built to memorialize Harvard student and alumni who fell during World War One. I was part of the color guard (the Navy flag, of course) for the occasion, which took the larger part of the day and mostly involved standing at attention in the heat.

                After the ceremony itself, though, we had the honor of leading the recipients to the Harvard Faculty Club for the following luncheon and joining them for lunch. It was a fantastic experience to sit with and talk to more Medal of Honor recipients than most of my ROTC instructors have met in their lives. I was very glad I participated, even though I had to go back to my dorm and crash for several hours afterwards.

                I also attended a luncheon at church this past weekend, where I was able to meet some new people and have very good homemade spaghetti and brownies. In addition, yesterday night I went to a forum at the church. I’m getting more involved with church this semester, now that I have more time to get involved in. I also have more time to meet with friends for meals or just to talk, which I also did several times this week.

                I attended another forum as well, or at least part of one, last Wednesday night at Harvard, dealing with Just War theory, which was very interesting and also allowed me to reconnect with a couple of fellow philosophy majors/minors whom I hadn’t seen in nearly a year.

                As you can see, the week has been a little hectic, but it’s been fun, and I’ve done quite a bit. In addition to all these extra events, my music class was treated to a live performance of Montiverdi’s L’Orfeo, using as close to the original instruments as the Music Department could manage.

                It was amazing, but it looked kind of eccentric – on one side you had the regular string players from the Harvard Chamber Orchestra, and on the other side were the geeky professor types who had learned how to play Renaissance instruments. It came together beautifully. Now we’ve moved on to Handel’s Messiah, which is also quite exciting.

                I’ve gotten used to driving in Boston, at least earlier in the morning when I have someone helping me figure out where to go. The zipcar* parking space, though, is right up on the edge of a parking garage, and when an SUV parks next to you and a truck parks behind you – well, it took a few wiggles to get in the space, but I managed. It takes a lot of stress off now that I can arrange my own transportation.

                Like I said, I’ve been a little ‘off’ with work over the past few days, but I think I’m about back on track; nothing major went wrong. I got full points on my Arabic quiz from Tuesday, thankfully, and once I turn in my philosophy essay for tomorrow I’ll be done with the week’s major assignments. Everything is humming along like a fairly well-oiled machine. It’s strange after so long being out of the country to just be in the US, studying like a normal person, but it’s also pleasant and relaxing. Happy holidays to all my Jewish and Muslim friends, and a good week to everyone!

*zipcar is a company that has cars parked around campus; you can reserve one for any length of time so long as you put it back where you found it. Since we use them for ROTC events only, Harvard pays for the rentals.

Pictures:

From the first time I made it into this parking space:

 One of the Law School buildings:

 My classes:

 An advertisement for my church on the subway, using one of my favorite CS Lewis quotes:

 My bookshelf is beginning to overflow:

Getting ready to perform L'Orfeo Act II in Sanders Theater:

 All dressed up and ready for the Medal of Honor ceremony (we're wearing color guard harnesses):

Engineering and Persevering

                Confession: persevering is a lovely rhyme with engineering, but I haven't done a terrible amount of either of them thus far. This semester hasn’t been as relaxed as last semester or the summer, but it’s definitely less onerous than last fall. I get enough sleep, I have time for independent study, and I’m still managing to take 20 hours of class.

                This weekend was a good example of that lack of stress. I started out by writing an essay for one of my classes – essays are fairly enjoyable when I have something I want to say, which I did. After that, I had nothing pressing, so I just went out and walked through Cambridge for about 45 minutes. It’s cooled down to mid-October Texas temperatures, and the weather was nice.

                It was strange to see Cambridge covered in greenery and gardens; I usually picture it all in gray and white. After my walk I went back to work and did my readings and Naval Science p-set. It was a very relaxed, but still productive weekend. Hopefully the trend will continue.

                Last Wednesday I started ROTC, which is going fairly well. I’ve signed my contract now, so it’s official – and I get paid, at least a little bit. I get along with the new lieutenant, who’ll be my ROTC advisor for the next two years, which is nice. Most of the lieutenants rotate back out after two years in the unit, so the staff turnover is pretty high, and it’s always kind of a lottery to see who you’ll get.

                I’m especially glad I get along with the lieutenant because he’s also our Naval Engineering instructor, and that is going to require a lot of explaining. We had our first real class on Monday. Of the three readings, I understood one without any trouble, and two were nearly incomprehensible. I felt better, though, when I discovered that the MIT engineering majors found the reading equally opaque. Part of the difficulty is that the navy, being that of the United States, doesn’t use the metric system, so that when you’ve finished your normal physics class in joules and kelvin, you suddenly have to start thinking in British thermal units and Rankine.

                ROTC overall is getting more enjoyable as the years pass; I understand the system better, and I’m in charge of more. At the moment I’m the Mustering PO for my platoon, which means I’m the link between the squad leaders (in charge of 3-5 people in our unit) and the platoon commander (in charge of 3 squads in our unit). Also, life is much better now that I have officially driven in Boston. My first trial went smoothly; the next one is tomorrow morning.

                Classes are beginning to pick up – at the moment, topics range from the physiological significance of the soul to an Italian opera to Nietzsche to Socrates to thermodynamic (one of them doesn’t really fit, I know). It’s always nice studying things one likes; one tends to find more energy to do them, although with the sun setting fairly early, it’s hard to convince myself that there are still several hours of work to be done when it’s 6:00 and dark outside.

                What am I doing with my free time? Last weekend was spent immersed in German, as a result of which I was excellent in my German class and not so great in my Arabic. Today it was the other way around; it’s a pendulum. My time and energy has shifted over temporarily from German to apologetics and philosophy – I needed to get a few issues cleared up – but I’m looking to get back into German soon, with maybe a foray or two into creative writing. It’s nice being able to choose what to do with my free time instead of trying to figure out how to get all the requirements done.

Wednesday is my busy day, so I’ll have to leave you now. Until next week!

One of my classes - sometimes I have to just stop and remind myself that I study at Harvard.

 Sanders Theater (another class)

 The Center for Governmental and International Studies (CGIS, pronounced see-jis):

 Annenberg:

 It's so green!

 The mandatory John Harvard statue picture:

 The inside of Annenberg (the freshman dining hall, but they let the rest of us in for breakfast). It was packed.

Starting the Semester

It’s hard to believe I’ve been here a week already, but I have. Part of the confusion comes because of the Labor Day holiday – that’s right; we had Monday off on the second week of school. The only other holidays this semester are Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. I think we could really use a more centrally-located day off, but it was nice to be able to start work slowly.  I have my classes figured out, although I still haven’t actually begun attending all of them, and ROTC starts bright and early at 6:00 am tomorrow morning at MIT. We’re off and running.*

I’m actually taking six classes this semester. I usually take five because of ROTC, but this semester I have two classes that only meet once a week, and one of them is only one credit hour,** so it’s manageable – possibly more so than my workload last fall. In addition, outside of ROTC, I’m only taking classes related to my major or that I’m interested in, which makes life more interesting and also easier.

So what, exactly, am I taking? Well, of course there’s ROTC; this semester we’re taking Naval Engineering. We’ll see how that goes; we don’t start class until Friday. I’m still taking Arabic; I’m in third-year by now, but it’s still four days a week. On the bright side, the atmosphere is friendly and so far, not too much work. I’m also taking part in a small (aka four-person) German philosophy reading group which meets once a week – this is the one credit hour course – and seems very enjoyable. We haven’t decided exactly what to read yet, but we read some Nietzsche today, which was neat.

My other once-a-week course is a philosophy tutorial on Identity, which is required for my major. I haven’t been to it yet. I also haven’t been to my Intellectual History of the Western World class, but it’s a history class, and all the readings are philosophy, so we’re bound to get along. And finally, I’m taking a class that studies and analyzes five pieces of classical music in the context of their initial performances. I’m looking forward to what should be an interesting and not-too-onerous semester.

As far as Harvard goes, it’s still hot outside – well, more inside than outside, really; the buildings were built to retain heat, and they’re very good at it. It’s too hot to sleep on cloth, so my usual method right now is to stretch out on the linoleum floor and then, when I wake up sometime early in the morning and it’s finally cooled off, to finally crawl onto the bed and sleep on top of the sheets for the rest of the time. It works, but a ceiling fan would be nice.

Aside from that, though, life is going pretty well here. I went to church on Sunday and started my Christian Impact LIFE Group today (they had Italian Ice; it was great!). I’m reconnecting with friends. My main worries right now concern ROTC; first of all, there’s of course the waking up, but in addition to that, after two years of avoiding it, I’m going to have to drive in Boston/drive in snow/remember how to parallel park. It’s the only practical way to reach MIT that early in the morning, and Harvard pays for Zipcars that we can use for ROTC events. Anyway, I’ll keep you updated.

So that’s life around here. I realized a little while ago that I’ve now taking classes at seven different colleges: TLU, Middlebury, Harvard, MIT, Marquette (Jordan), Hebrew University, and Cambridge. It makes getting transcripts kind of a pain, but it’s been fun. As seven is the number of completion (and I’ve used up most of my study abroad credit), I think I’ll be staying put for awhile.

*Not to be confused with ‘up and running,’ which may or may not be the case. This is why prepositions are one of the worst parts of language-learning.

**Harvard, as of this semester, has finally switched to giving a half-credit for each semester course to giving four credit hours for each course.

Pictures: I’d forgotten how much harder it gets to remember to take pictures when you’re not touring every weekend, but here are some of the highlights.

This is the Activities Fair in the Quad - it was quite the hubbub.

 There's an apple tree across the street from my dorm. It's not quite as epic as Stonehenge, but it made me happy.

 On my way to church - the streets were nearly empty; it was nice.

 The view from the Science Center Library:

 Harvard Square:

 One of the rooms in Memorial Church, which we used for my Christian Impact small group earlier today:

 Cutting through the park on my way back to the dorm. We don't have as many ornate buildings as Europe, but we, too, have statues in parks and fancy architecture.

Back from ‘Break’

                Well, it’s back to school yet again. Usually I write a blog on the plane, and then another one a week in, but this is a little different, for a few reasons.

                First, I spent the entirety of both plane rides attempting or managing to nap. I had a wonderful summer, but not a very restful one. I don’t usually sleep before transatlantic flights to avoid jet lag, which works pretty well but means you’re exhausted in the conventional way when you arrive. I had less than a day's sleep between my second-to-last day at Cambridge and my arrival with my parents in North Carolina a few days later. And while we had a lovely time in North Carolina, I had just recovered when it was time to fly back to Texas for a few days and then wake up at 3:30 to head back to Boston. So I just didn’t have the energy to write; I’m still recovering to some extent.

                Secondly, I’ve been too busy to write since I’ve been here. This is my third day back – the first day of classes – and I’ve been going nearly nonstop. I’ve unpacked, gone shopping, run errands, gotten my Wifi fixed, planned for the semester, met with advisors, gotten paperwork signed, and so on and so forth. It’s been rather hectic, and still is, to an extent. The beginning always is; hopefully things will feel a little more normal after this.

                I am hoping that this semester will be a little calmer than former semesters – I still feel a little weary thinking about last fall. However, this time around I don’t have any math or science classes; I’m studying things almost solely because I want to, which should make it easier. Also, after a great deal of consideration, I’m dropping a cappella. It’s just too many hours too late at night, and I have too many other things I want to devote my time to. So we’ll see what happens.

                I will probably try to return to posting on Tuesdays for the semester, but I haven’t gotten my class schedule completely figured out – I’ll let you know when I have – so that’s still up in the air. It will be more regular than this summer, though, I promise! Also, ROTC doesn’t start until next week, so news on that will have to wait.

                To return to my original organizational scheme, though, there’s one other reason I haven’t written a blog until now. Usually when I go back to school, it’s painful to leave, and I deal with that pain by reflecting on and writing about it. But this time I was too busy to process what was happening when I came home or when I left, so I didn’t have thoughts to write down. Consequently, this blog is about logistics and not emotional upheaval.

                Still, I have a few thoughts, as I always do. I have cautiously high hopes for this semester. Hopefully, with fewer outside commitments and a narrower focus, I’ll have a less stressful and more productive time than I had last fall. I'm also less stressed for more philosophical reasons. Studying abroad, and living a little differently, has given me a better perspective, an outside perspective perhaps, on school.

                Academia is, in a sense, a manufactured world inside the real one. Students do work with no purpose other than to be graded, with grades that serve no purpose other than to advance one to the next level of coursework. Of course, the learning is real, but often it’s parallel to yet independent of the actual grading system. The value of all the work done here is almost entirely constructed. And yet we worry so much about the numbers on our transcript, some people have had mental breakdowns. We're trained to worry about them; when you're little, school is the only life you know. It's full time. It's only when you get older, when you have to start worrying about real life, that you notice how constructed things are.

                Not that manufactured worlds are necessarily bad things. We all live in them, to one extent or another. The military is the same way; it’s really of no metaphysical significance whether your nametag is over your right or left breast pocket. And there's also etiquette; does it really matter if the fork is on the left? But we must come up with ways to order our world, and so we make rules. It’s a healthy way to live, so long as we remember which things are going to last and don’t get too worked up about the things that won’t.

                And with that thought, I really need to do my Arabic homework before tomorrow, so I will leave you to your musings. Have a lovely week!

Pictures: 

North Carolina was gorgeous, as always.

 Texas!

 Aaaand back to Harvard

 First day of School:

 They put full-length mirrors in the dorm hallways - haven't figured out why yet.

 My dorm room is a little bigger this year. I like it – although air conditioning/a ceiling fan would be appreciated.

 The view from my window onto the Radcliffe Quadrangle (the Quad):