Touring and Testing

I’ve finished a third of my classes for the semester. The two that are over, though, were the two easiest ones, so there’s still awhile to go. Because of the way my classes are staggered, there’s not really a break in sight, but summer won’t be too much longer in coming.
It’s been a busy week. On Friday afternoon I was back in Boston for Change of Command practice. I haven’t missed this from JROTC, but we managed to get through the whole thing, so hopefully we’ll all have figured out what’s going on by tomorrow morning, when we have to execute. It was a busy weekend for ROTC. On Saturday, several of us from ROTC drove up to Groton for a submarine field trip. We left early in the morning and arrived a little before noon, then went on a tour of the USS Hartford. No pictures, for obvious reasons, but the tour was pretty neat.
We couldn’t see the classified areas, but we could see the living quarters and cafeteria and sonar controls and the like. No space was wasted anywhere; things were nearly packed in and double-purposed everywhere. In some places even the walkway was just a long, zigzagged cutout of metal fitted around whatever pipes and machinery were around it. If I had to use one word to describe my impression, it would have to be cramped, although it was probably even more so than usual, since I spent the whole time in the middle of a tour group. I’m glad I had the chance to go, though.
After the tour we had lunch and toured the USS Nautilus and the Museum also at the base. The USS Nautilus was the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine. A lot of what I just said still applies; just picture everything being a little more dated. By that time, though, everyone was wandering around half-asleep and only occasionally perking up as one of our Lieutenants explained something, so we figured it was about time to go. Most people slept on the two-hour ride back. I finished a book.
When we got back, I had enough time to grab dinner and change out of my Navy Working Uniform before heading out to the Under Construction concert to see my old a cappella group perform. I was pretty impressed with their performance (the sound system was working much better than last time, which helped) and I enjoyed going up to sing the alumni song and seeing all the alumni and still-current members again. I went to the reception briefly afterwards and talked to friends and bought their new CD.
On Sunday I went to church as usual, and on the way back Helen and I went to Bagelsaurus for breakfast. Every time we walk past, there’s a line out the door to the corner of the street, and we’d been wondering what was so amazing about these bagels, so when we walked by this time and there were only a few people lined up outside the door, we decided to go for it. I was like an Israeli bagel shop – bagels, cream cheese, and toppings, toasted – except that these had bacon and cheese combos.
I didn’t have ROTC yesterday morning, but this morning we had our final Professional Knowledge Exam (PKE) and Physical Readiness Test (PRT, not to be confused with the PFA, the Physical Fitness Assessment, which is in turn not to be confused with the CFA, the Candidate Fitness Assessment. Anyway…) After another lab and a few more Naval Science classes, I’ll be done with ROTC for the semester.
My to-do list has changed form; it used to be a lot of mid-sized tasks, and now it’s a combination of huge projects, exam preparation, and little errands that need to be run. Tomorrow is the last day of class, except for two of my four remaining classes, which have overtime. After that we have reading period, which gives us down time to prep for projects and exams, except for the two aforementioned classes, which have their final project/exam due in the middle of that. Then I have an exam during actual exam period, and then I have two papers due. And then finally, finally, summer starts, assuming I survive.
On a cheerier note, my class ring arrived in Texas today (sales tax considerations), so I’ll have that to look forward to when I get home. And I took my pictures for the senior yearbook yesterday. The trees outside are almost in bloom and I’m almost a senior – both seemed like they’d never happen, but they’ll be here before long. See you next week for one final update before summer!

Pictures:

We couldn't take any pictures on the modern sub, but here we are touring - thanks to our LT for taking this picture!

 You might not realize how momentous a change this picture signals, but the wood stair overlay has been removed, meaning that snow-and-ice season is officially (hopefully) over.

 And since it's now spring, you once again have to deal with my excitement about flowers (more coming):

My hand after Change of Command practice. This is why I don't like doing sword. It hurts. But it does give you something to twirl around while waiting for things to start.

 At the sub museum:

 Under Construction:

 This is a blurry picture of a bunny crossing the road. I thought it was photo-worthy.

 Bagelsaurus after church:

 This is in the science center. I don't understand the human propensity to congregate in stairwells and intersections, but it's pretty undeniable, and I'm guilty of it myself at times.

 Spring (from yesterday, when it wasn't raining):

Pins and Appointments

It dawned on me when I saw the course evaluation email in my inbox that at long last we’ve reached the last full week of classes. I’m not entirely sure how that happened; having a normal Spring Break for the first time since high school makes the semester seem much shorter. I’m not complaining, but the closer I edge to graduation, the more my anticipation of summer is balanced by a hesitation to move one year closer to being done.

It’s not that I want to stay here forever, you understand. But I haven’t yet reached that cusp of readiness where one feels confident about taking the next step even while a little wistful. When I graduated high school, I knew it was time to go. School-wise, I already had one foot out the door. But I’m hesitant to leave the educational system altogether just yet. Which is good, because I still have one more year to go.

After classes finish, there will still be reading period and then finals, so this semester’s blog isn’t finished just yet. There will probably be two more after this to wrap up and then recap the semester; I think I’ve developed a great deal in the past few months. In an unprecedented turn of events, for me at least, I still don’t know what I’m doing for the summer; the Navy hasn’t told me when my cruise is, and everything else has to be fit around that. Hopefully I’ll know soon and can give you a heads’ up.

So, what’s been happening? It’s been a busy week. The highlight was probably the SECNAV’s visit to the Kennedy School, for which the ROTC students who showed up had reserved seating close to the front. I couldn’t sit in front in uniform and snap selfies with my phone, but we did get a picture with him afterwards (thank you to the Navy photographer). He’s a Harvard alumni and spoke about Harvard’s relationship and the Navy, and there were questions afterwards, several of which were asked by our own MIDN.

The craziest day of the week was Friday; I spent it running all over Boston. I’ll spare you the details; just account for Murphy’s Law along the way. After class at MIT, I dropped my books back at Harvard before taking a taxi into Boston to get my military ID and then walking/taking a train back to Harvard. I had a quick lunch and then hopped in my Zipcar to head to ROTC Change of Command practice at BU. I had never actually driven in Boston proper before, and it was quite an experience, but I got there and back safely. There was a good deal of hassle in between, but I won’t go into it; I’ll just say I felt very accomplished at the end of the day.

Other important events of the week: it ostensibly got up into the 70s, not counting wind chill, in temperature yesterday, which was a first. It’s strange thinking that it’s almost summer when everyone’s still busy hoping it will soon be spring. On Sunday I went to another ROTC meeting and then helped out with Christian Impact at the pre-frosh* activities fair. We did our best to answer questions and tell them about the activities they were invited to before they headed on to their next stop.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, while trying to figure out what style to update my wardrobe into, I finally gave in and made a Pinterest account, which turns out to be an excellent way to relax browsing the internet without getting caught up in Netflix. Perhaps the best part of this discovery was being able to put a name to the furniture I picture in my future house. Instead of saying “kind of elvish-looking…” I can say “art nouveau.”

I don't think I’m a usual home planner. Most of the people on Pinterest seem to use furniture boards to daydream; I use them to plan. I’m not planning on implementing these plans for another decade or so, but hopefully I’ll have figured out a way by then to afford all of this. We’ll see what happens – for now, it’s probably best to just focus on the end of the semester.

*Students who've been accepted into Harvard but have not yet responded or enrolled.

Pictures: the trees are a little hesitant about budding, and I can hardly blame them. The last few times they've tried, it's snowed.

 Boston has its less urban spaces.

 And its more urban spaces (I was stopped when I took these pictures; I promise.)

 Waiting for class to start:

 Waiting for the SECNAV:

 Now that it's warmer, the Yard has started to fill up with tourists:

 Some of the braver trees:

 My second picture with a Secretary this semester - one of the perks of the Harvard/MIT combo. (I'm behind his left shoulder in the center of the picture.)

Rain or Shine

Monday mornings are always hard, especially when you’ve had a laid-back weekend and your first appointment is at 5:45 am. They become even harder when you wake up with an upset stomach and throw up first thing in the morning. I still went to ROTC (we were having a platoon competition), but I went back to bed afterwards and skipped my first two classes. I didn’t feel sick, and I wasn’t quite sure what was going on until I talked to my dad, who had the answer. Apparently, this is how stress affects me – not mentally or emotionally, but digestively; the same thing happened to him in college.

In any case, I wasn’t sick, so I went to my evening class anyway. If you were scheduled to tour Harvard Yard at 7 or 8 pm, you might think you would avoid the flurry of people hurrying from one class to another, but you would be wrong. When you live in your workplace, especially with internet, business hours don’t apply anymore. Sometimes you just have to say no to significant things in order to get to bed at a decent hour; fortunately, I don’t have to do that too often.

I spent most of the rest of yesterday writing my history essay. I tend to start with general patterns and theses (what I consider the more interesting part) in my essays and add the details in later. In Philosophy, this tends to work quite well, but in History, it means most of the paper gets written in what is supposedly the secondary stage. We’ll see how it works when I get to my thesis. I finished drafting the essay by mid-afternoon, and after that, my stomach returned to normal.

I did have a restful weekend. After finishing the first part of my history paper Saturday morning, I shifted into Sabbath mode and went on a long run outdoors. It was a little cold, but I warmed up after the first mile or so. My ears, though, just got chillier and chillier, and I’d worked up quite a headache by the time I got back; I have to remember to cover them the next time I run outside. I spent the rest of the day inside, reading and watching various apologetics videos. Most of them (they were lectures, one or two hours each) were from a speaker who came to FUEL last week from Cambridge University. I was able to speak with him afterwards, and the conversation was interesting if brief.

I also led worship at FUEL last week. It was a good week; Helen played piano for one of the songs, and we sang A Mighty Fortress is our God, which is one of my favorite hymns even if most college students haven’t heard it. It’s been an unexpected difficulty to figure out, between whoever of us are singing, just which songs are generally known and which aren’t. We don’t mind introducing new songs, but we’re not sure which ones are new.

In addition, I led LIFE group last week. We’re a very small group – usually four or five, counting leaders – so it’s very cozy. The study was introduced with a passage from Prince Caspian, which was like a breath of fresh air after all the academic reading I’ve been doing in recent days. I think it’s gotten to about that point in the year when I need to go and buy myself a paperback novel semi-spontaneously to revive my imaginative faculties.

The ROTC year is coming to a close, although that means we have a lot of planning to do for next semester. We’ve already started turnover with the new leadership and constructed reams of spreadsheets for the new year. A few more ROTC events are coming up – the SECNAV is speaking at Harvard tomorrow, for one – but I’ll let you know about them as they happen.

There’s one month left until finals are over and my parents get here. I’m only counting weeks, not days, so I still have a little equanimity left. You can tell it’s April; half the time you get miserably cold rain showers, like the one currently deluging outside my window, and half the time you get breathtakingly gorgeous weather, like we had yesterday. It’s pretty chilly either way, but you might get by with a sweater and no coat if it’s sunny out. You can also tell it’s Spring by the crowds of tourists piling into Harvard Yard, umbrellas and all.

I still haven’t decided whether the occasional gorgeous afternoon or budding tree is worth the cold rain and snow, but I think my time at Harvard will be more than worth it. Here’s to all of us starting another week of work!

Pictures:

It was cold and raining.

 And then it was gorgeous.

 From my run by the pond (my phone also took several gratuitous pictures of the ground):

 Another day of class at Harvard:

 And now it's cold and rainy again:

 Working away (the computer lab at the Science Center):

That Time

There is a general consensus on campus that it’s getting towards that time. That time nearly everyone shows up to class late – a little later every day. That time when midterms are still happening (I have one Friday) but final projects also have to be kept in mind. That time when regular schedules and sleep have become a fond dream that’s increasingly hard to remember. That time when you say you’re preparing for the final push, but the truth is you’ve been slowly slipping and the push just gets you back to where you were in the first place. When people ask you how you’re doing, you just say “oh, you know – it’s that time of semester,” and they nod and give a sympathetic laugh of understanding.

To be honest, a lot of these things don’t apply to me. I was late to a couple of things yesterday, but that’s mainly because it’s April, and it was snowing. It was snowing when I got up at five, and it stopped shortly before I went to bed at nine. ROTC was cancelled because of the weather, so I had more time, but I forgot how long it takes to put on boots and a heavy coat and trudge through the snow. Hopefully things will be back to normal today – well, whatever normal is.

My schedule and semester resolutions are still, for the most part, intact. I won’t say I haven’t broken any of them, but I’ve stayed pointed in about the right direction. I’m still sticking to my sleep schedule, although it takes a little longer to get up lately. I’m making progress in independent study; this morning I was doing interrogatives in Greek. I’ve slacked off on a few things, but I’m still checking off almost all the boxes on a regular basis.

The thing that’s changed most, the way I know it’s that time, isn’t whether I check the boxes, but why. At the beginning of the semester I did it because I was excited about it; I didn’t want to do anything else. Now I do it from obligation, because I’ve determined to do it and I know I should. I don’t have enough energy left to be excited – which is problematic, because working on various projects is generally what gives me my energy in the first place.

ROTC being cancelled gives me two days in a row to go through my normal morning routine, which has been helpful in regaining some of that excitement, especially since I had ROTC most of the weekend and so didn’t have time to rest fully then. We’ve now had our PQS (Personnel Qualification Standards) boards for the ROTC freshmen. PQS boards are kind of like the TAKS test; you can fail the first time and still be okay, but everyone gets extremely nervous about them in any case. Everyone in my platoon passed, though, so we’re more or less home free.

Besides ROTC, I went to church on Sunday as always. After the service they had their college student lunch, which involved pizza and a short discussion. It was nice to meet a few more people. The main event of my weekend, though, was the fact that on my way to ROTC on Saturday, I managed to parallel park an SUV in one move (without hitting anything) my first time driving it. I’ve had to parallel park properly only about twice since my driver’s test; there was a tremendous sense of accomplishment.

To wrap up, I thought I would overview a few of the different class formats we have here. If this were a normal Tuesday, it would start with Naval Science (ROTC), which mainly involves a lot of GI PowerPoints. Depending on the LT teaching, you will either have the PPTs read to you, or you will do some practice problems, or you’ll have drawings on the board to elaborate on the PPT.

After ROTC, I have History, which will also involve a PPT, but one without any words on it which includes only pictures and primary documents to supplement the lecture. The lecture will last the entire hour, with a few pauses for questions in between. Then I’ll go to Arabic, which as a language class is formatted much more like a middle school or high school class. We may do a couple of grammar exercises, and then we’ll discuss the topic of the week (oil in the Gulf States) with help from video clips or political cartoons in Arabic.

After Arabic I’ll go to my Atheism seminar, which is a two-hour long discussion broken up into comments on student presentations and some background information from the professor. As you can see, there’s quite a range of styles. All Harvard classes have a discussion section in addition to the normal class hours. I had my Atheism section yesterday – we’re beginning Freud. Being in college and not middle school, we ended up in an excited argument over whether psychoanalysis employed the scientific method properly.

As you can see, it’s going to be a long day, and I have a Bible study and Worship Team rehearsal after all that, both of which I’m leading, so I bid you a fond farewell. If you’re having a relaxed week, think of me; if it’s that time for you as well, good luck!

Pictures:

It was Spring.

I took this picture to show how far some of the MIT MIDN live from the ROTC building (where I'm standing) - that's their dorm behind me...

 The tour groups are starting to multiply...

 Parallel parked this and squeezed it into the corner spot when I got back - I was pretty proud.

 And then it was winter again.

I'm never sure where to look when I take these (I'm sure there's some reason they put full-length mirrors in all the dorm hallways.)

 But... it's April...

I've never tried uploading a video before - let me know if it works!