Midterms and Mountains

Well, midterm season is here. This year, instead of having one every week, I have all of them in one week – three, to be exact. I’ve already taken one; the remaining two are on Thursday and Friday. The first one went alright, I think – it’s hard to judge with essays. I’m most worried about my First Nights midterm on Thursday – everyone was kind of surprised at how difficult it was expected to be – but I’m not terribly worried. I’m not sure if I ought to be more worried; it’s been so long since my classes counted toward my GPA…

In any case, classes are going alright. In Arabic we’re discussing the banning of books. On one side there are passionate arguments about freedom of speech and Orwellian terrors, and on the other side there are passionate arguments about hate speech and slander. But then, it’s always a balance: in Western Intellectual History we just finished studying Aristotle and the golden mean.

Outside of midterms, my major project of the week is writing my third philosophy paper for my seminar. Philosophy papers are much more difficult than most because they have to be so precise, both in defining their terms and in qualifying their reasoning process and thesis. In a scientific paper, you have to use the terms right, of course, but in philosophy everyone to an extent defines their own terms, so you can never simply say “self-awareness, not memory, is the prerequisite for personhood” without explicating every noun in the sentence – and books have been written attempting to define each of those particular nouns.

I did have a nice weekend. I spent a good part of it studying, of course, but I also hiked to the top of Mt. Monadnock on a trip organized by Pfoho (my dorm). It was more challenging than I expected; I was in tennis shoes, and there were some pretty slippery patches. Fallen leaves; gentle rain and snow; and a trail full of slick, steep rock are all very scenic separately, but they don’t combine very well. Still, I made it up and down with no major mishaps, and it was nice to be outside and active for the day. I’m pretty sore, though, especially adding in ROTC PT on Monday.

For logistical reasons we’re having ROTC lab on Tuesday instead of Wednesday this week, but due to a mix-up about the zipcar, I found myself with a bit of free time before we needed to leave, so I’m sipping some hot peppermint tea and writing this at 5:50 in the morning, back in my nice warm room. I’ve taken the added measure of filling my thermos with hot chocolate to sustain me through lab; I haven’t had much sleep lately, but hot beverages always improve my mood, and hot tea, especially, has been in plentiful supply.

ROTC itself is going well, as far as I can tell. This week we’re starting Fitness Reports, or FITREPS, which are semesterly performance evaluations (not to be confused with Situation Reports, or SITREPS, which are weekly updates written by each MIDN to let us know how they’re doing). The seniors have service selected now, meaning they know which part of the Navy (subs, aviation, surface warfare (SWO), special operations (SpecOps), or a few rare alternatives) they’ve been selected for. It’s kind of scary to think that next year, I’ll be in their shoes.

I’ve been spending most of my free time lately watching old Sherlock Holmes movies in German; it gives me a chance to practice while still relaxing, although it usually takes a bit of work to understand the complicated explanation that inevitably comes in the denouement. I’ve also found BBC’s Sherlock in German, since I’ve seen it in English way too many times. The movies go very well with the hot tea.

I’ve also moved to Isaiah in my Bible study and so been able to read it in the original Hebrew, although I always need the English translation on the side. I can understand quite a bit, and there’s always something new to learn. For instance, yesterday I learned the Hebrew words for viper and porcupine, as well as the (albeit archaic) Hebrew cognates for the Arabic words ‘power’ and ‘take.’ Ancient Hebrew is much more similar to Arabic than Modern Hebrew, much like Old English and German.

I’ve talked quite enough for one post, I think. Wish me luck on my midterms, and good luck to you if you have any. If you don’t, take an anti-vicarious pleasure in knowing that some of us are memorizing how many oboes there were in the first performance of Handel’s Messiah (there were four, if you’re wondering). Until next time!

Pictures: Thank you to all those who've taken pictures of and for me, both here and in previous blogs!

This is from the bottom of the mountain, not the peak. It was below freezing. And it's not even the end of October.

 I settled for a hoodie and T-shirt, which turned out to be about right for most of the way, although whenever we stopped climbing it got pretty chilly.

 Fall in New Hampshire!

 We kept thinking we'd reached the peak, but the mountain just kind of kept going up. It was gorgeous, though.

 I tried to take a picture of it snowing; I'm not sure if I succeeded or not. But take my word for it; it is snowing in this picture.

 Most of the trail looked like this; I stopped counting the number of near-slips I had.

 At the top!

This (on the horizon) is Boston from the top of a mountain 75 miles away - good luck spotting it in the zoomed-out photos!

 Ah, the feeling of accomplishment.