I am several orders of magnitude less stressed than I was
last time I wrote, for two main reasons. First, my hardest final is over; I
took my final logic exam on Saturday, and it was not only as hard as I feared,
but even a little easier than I was expecting (although I’m never quite sure
how I did in that class, so I won’t be sure until grades come out). I still
have almost a week before I head home, but I only have two more finals, and
they’re both my General Education requirements (which means they’re intro-level
courses), so I’m not too worried.
The other nice thing about humanities courses is that often
you have review sheets: know what these three-hundred words mean, know how to
write a solid essay on the course themes, and you’ll be okay. Which is tedious,
but not particularly worrisome. In contrast, in something like logic, you just
have to generally ‘know the course material’ and be able to demonstrate it,
which is unnervingly broad, although I still do decently most of the time.
In any case, on to my larger news: the second, and primary,
reason I am now less stressed is that I passed my interviews to be a Surface
Warfare Officer (Nuclear)! The interview process consist of flying up to DC, to
the headquarters of the Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program, for two technical
interviews (three if you’re on the border) and a character interview with the four-start
admiral in charge of the program. I had been studying for the technical
interviews on and off all semester, and needless to say, I was a little worked
up about it; this could decide the next 5-6 years of my life.
I flew into DC on Monday morning and spent a few hours
touring before exhaustedly heading to the hotel when check-in opened at 4. I
hadn’t been to DC since middle school, so I walked the Mall, saw the monuments,
and went to a couple of the Smithsonians. Somehow, I ended up having an
extremely long day in only about six hours. It took an hour to finally get out
of the airport, between weather, and luggage, and shuttles, and drop off my
luggage at the hotel. Then I attempted to follow one of the bellhop’s directions
to the Mall, wandered around for a long time, and finally gave up and took an
Uber. By the time I actually started touring, I was already tired.
I did, however, have a good time touring in DC. I didn’t
know Thomas Cole’s Seasons of Life series was in the National Gallery of Art,
but I was very happy when I unexpectedly discovered it. Although I probably
didn’t look much like an art patron; the lady at the desk asked me which kind
of art I wanted to view (I usually just wander around until I think I’ve
covered most of it), and I blanked and said something to the effect of ‘older
stuff.’ She gave me a look and then listed every exhibit in the museum, and I
kind of just stood and nodded.
I also visited the Museum of Natural History. One sign
caught my eye; it asked “what does it mean to be human?” and then listed
several physical characteristics – ie walking on two legs, etc. I was, to put
it mildly, unimpressed with their philosophical prowess. I much preferred one
of the quotes on the World War II memorial about the battle of Midway which
indicated that the human spirit, far from being defined by scientific facts, is
the very thing that allows us to defy those facts and overcome even when the
odds were against us. But I digress.
In any case, it was a long day, between the unrelenting
adrenalin of the entire past week, my lack of sleep the night before, and
walking around all day. I finally hit a wall and stopped for dinner – only to
realize halfway through that it was only 2:30 in the afternoon. Eventually I
called my parents and then called an uber on my phone to take me back to the
hotel – just in the nick of time, because my phone ran out of battery right
after I’d called the cab. Fortunately, he showed up anyway, to my relief. I
didn’t need another adventure at the moment.
Okay, obviously this post is going to run long, so bear with
me. I studied a little, tried out their pool (unheated, and awkward with just
me and the lifeguard watching me swim), took a hot bath, and headed to bed. The
next morning I and another MIDN from my unit headed off to the interviews.
The technical interviews weren’t that bad; I didn’t wow
anyone, but I did decently (as far as I know, they never tell you). They were a
little unsure what to do with the philosophy major who’d only taken about eight
technical courses, but I could answer the questions. After the technical
interviews the twenty or so of us who were interviewing headed out for lunch
and then chatted for a couple of hours until the admiral could see us. I got
into about an hour-long discussion about whether there was proof for the
existence of God, which actually calmed me down quite a bit. And then we were
taken up to a series of waiting rooms and were shown in one-by-one to see the
admiral. That interview was by far the best. I think the admiral liked the guts
of the philosophy major who wanted to learn nuclear physics.
They tell you directly afterwards if you’re in or not, and
then you sign the paperwork and you’re free to go. By this time it was around
five in the afternoon (we’d started at seven that morning), and we went out for
a while with an alumni of our unit who was working at Naval Reactors before I
headed back to the hotel and the other MIDN (he made it in as well, by the way)
headed to the airport. I had a much more relaxed evening and flew back
yesterday morning.
I was planning on explaining what, exactly, it means to be a
SWO (N) (I’ve gotten a lot of question and my, I really like parenthesis
today), but this post is already several paragraphs longer than usual, so I’ll
explain it next time – which will come next Tuesday and will be my last post of
the semester. Thanks for sticking with me all the way through this post, and I’ll
see you next week (some of you literally)!
Pictures:
This is still Boston; I missed more snow while I was gone.
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