Final Round

                Well, I’m finally back to posting, having just finished my first week of classes back at Harvard. Well, I say classes, but actually I’ve only had one real class – a seminar that meets once a week. Other than that, I’m writing my thesis, taking my final ROTC class (which hasn’t started yet), and taking two seminary courses online. I’m hoping this final semester of college will be less stressful than previous years. But before we get into that, let’s talk about break.

                I had a significantly shorter Christmas break this year, due to having the last final on the last day of last semester. But I still had plenty of time with family. The main highlight was the trip to Israel with my parents. I hadn’t been back since study abroad, and I didn’t get as much time as I’d like. I’m out of practice in Hebrew and Arabic, and how life works there in general, and as soon as I’d begun to remember, we were leaving again; we were only there a week.

                Still, it was good to be able to practice my Hebrew and Arabic (and German and Spanish) again, and we had a good time. We’ve all been to Israel multiple times, so we didn’t go to many of the well-known tourist sites. We stopped by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, of course, and browsed the bazaar. We also went back to Capernaum (which is two words in Hebrew and Arabic, by the way; it means “the village of Nahum”) and Caesarea, which are two of my favorite places.

                Capernaum is just very peaceful; you can just sit on the shore and listen to the waves. It’s always raining when we go to Caesarea, but the rain on the rock is gorgeous; I never knew orange and blue could look so pretty together. And of course, being Israel, there aren’t a ton of regulations for the ruins, you can clamber all over them if you wish – which we did (Well, my dad and I, anyway). The nicest part about its being January and cold and rainy, was that we had the ruins practically to ourselves; there wasn’t another human being in sight, which was amazing.

                We also went to some new places, mostly in the Golan heights. There were old forts and castles and lookout posts, with secret tunnels and winding staircases and mountain overlooks; we had a lot of fun. The part that wasn’t fun was the driving; I ended up being navigator, and trying to figure out where we were going, while dealing with the rain and the crazy traffic, was very stressful. But we found everything and made it home safely (as soon as we pulled in the driveway, my dad kind of collapsed with a fever; we’re both very goal-oriented people).

                So my dad was sick, and my mom had already been sick, and my last week at home was kind of a blur. Perhaps as a consequence of that, in addition to not having a bunch of lectures to attend, I don’t really feel like I’ve come back to school or started something new. I’m in college, but it’s like I can’t sense the time of year: it doesn’t feel like I’m starting or ending or struggling through anything; I’m just in limbo. We’ll see if that keeps up.

                I have been fairly busy over the past few days. My thesis, of course, needs to be finished soon, and while I’ve drafted most of the chapters, there’s still a lot to do. That will most likely be taking up this weekend, since I couldn’t bring myself to do much on it this week. I also started taking kickboxing at a gym over near MIT, so I own a pair of boxing gloves for the first time in my life. It’s very exhausting, and it still makes me very uncomfortable (I hate having to learn how to do things in public), but I also really like it, and everyone is very friendly.

                I also have another few side projects going; if I start to make progress, hopefully I’ll be able to tell you more about them then. For now, that’s about all I have; the rest of my time has been spent trying to bring myself to do work and watching Netflix. But not to worry; I’m sure all this free time won’t last very long.

Pictures: I took about 300 over break, so this is just the highlights...

Back in Jerusalem!

 Looking out over the city:

 The first hotel we stayed in had a two-floor suite; we got rather spoiled.

 Looking over Megiddo:

 You have to love the illustration.

 So many beautiful views...

Crossing over Jordan...

 ...isn't as impressive as it sounds in the songs

 Aren't they lovely? :)

 The Galilee:

 I'd just like to point out how many more people there are on one side of the baggage claim than on the other; goodness forbid we have to wait another 45 seconds to get our luggage.

 And yes, I know, I'm definitely on the impatient, crowded side of the line. ;)

 Just had to put my room back together again, and I'm home!