Recalculating...

It’s snowing again. It’s been snowing all morning, and it’s going to snow all day. It looks very tranquil and scenic through the window when you’re curled up in your bed on a Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon, but on Monday morning it just looks cold. Still, at least something’s happening. They don’t cancel class if you’re tired of looking at ever-dirtier piles of slush, but they might if it snows enough.

I’m particularly attached to my bed and hot chocolate this week; I always get more attached to my creature comforts when I’m feeling down. Not that anything particularly depressing has happened this week – I think the back-to-school blues are just hitting me a little late this semester.

I think this is perhaps the most annoying time of semester for me, actually. After I get my main class schedule nailed down, suddenly there are sections meeting at unwieldy times and meetings to be fit in and ROTC classes to be worked around, and all the neatly-scheduled time you thought you had is suddenly split into useless chunks or gone altogether. It’s only natural, but it frustrates me nonetheless, although I’ve by now reconciled myself to the workload that appears to be coming.

I’ve also been staying snuggled cozily in my room because I was slightly sick for Friday and Saturday. I spent the weekend with hot tea and hot soup and studying in bed, and by Sunday the danger had passed, but it meant I didn’t get much time outside between Friday’s snow and today’s. I took lots of pictures out the window, though.

I did go out once on Friday evening; my music class from last semester worked in coordination with the Boston Symphony Youth Orchestra to get us free tickets to a concert in Symphony Hall (at the very back row of the highest balcony, as far to the side as you can be, but after all, you don’t go to a symphony to see it). I had to dash at the end in order to grab a taxi home and get some sleep, but I had a good time, and it was nice to go into Boston, if only for a couple of hours.

And of course the weekend also included a brisk walk to church on Sunday, followed by the walk back to my dorm and then a combination of walking and public transportation to go to a ROTC meeting and back. I’m getting plenty of use out of my boots, and today I finally gave in and pulled my full, heavy winter coat out of the closet, and I was very glad I did. Why do people build cities where it snows?

Most of my weekend, though, was spent inside, studying for classes and doing some independent study in German and Greek. I finished reading A Study in Scarlet in German, so I’ve read a novel in German now, without too much trouble.  I met with a few friends over the course of the week/end as well, but most of my time was spent trying to find time in my suddenly-packed schedule to do my homework. It took me until this morning to be quite sure I had enough time to finish everything (I can’t rest quite easy unless I have my to-do list at least nominally planned a week in advance).

I am still getting up at five in the morning; it’s beginning to seem natural, so long as I go to bed on time, which thus far I’ve managed. I don’t have nearly as much time to recharge as I did the first week, though, since ROTC schedules over my time in the morning. Still, despite my reluctance to venture into the snow this morning, things seemed to have settled into a routine, if not the routine I was hoping for a week ago this time. 

Pictures:
One of the house common rooms:

 Care package from home!

 And then there was snow.

 Symphony Hall:

 Thankful for my coat:

Five O'Clock in the Morning and All's Well

It didn’t take long for the school year to get up and running, and I’m well on my way to a (hopefully) productive and fairly enjoyable semester. I mentioned previously that I was implementing a rather complicated new year’s resolution, but I didn’t want to say any more about it until I was more confident it would work. So far, though, it’s functioned very well, so I’ll go into a little more detail.

The most noticeable part of my resolution is the fact that I now go to bed by nine and wake up at five every day. Most of my friends don’t understand how I do this, and it looks kind of extreme written on the page, but I’d wager that I’m actually getting more sleep than most people in the college. I have a regular sleep schedule, for the first time since high school, and it’s actually very restful.

But why five am? The original reason is that I have ROTC four mornings out of five and have to get up early anyway, so I might as well just plan for it and have a sleep schedule. As it turns out, though, at least for now, I really like getting up early, despite not being a morning person. I do it even when I could sleep in, and especially when I don’t have ROTC.

For one thing, if you’re trying to quietly meditate on philosophy or study German, five in the morning is much quieter than one in the morning, as far as the college campus is concerned. For another, your morning study will almost never be interrupted by phone calls or scheduled over for other things (excluding ROTC, of course). I have my free time in the mornings, and by the time I’ve done my Bible study and done some independent study and worked out, I’m about ready to face the world and start the work day. And then I work all day, but I’m done by nine pm. It’s a good system, if I can keep it up.

It’s possible I’m saying so much about my sleep schedule because not much else has happened yet. ROTC has started up – we had our first workout yesterday morning – and I have more responsibility this semester than ever, which makes me very happy, but also very busy with meetings and emails and etc.

Our first activity for ROTC started last week, but MIT doesn’t start classes until today, so our lab only included Harvard and Tufts. I very much enjoyed just being able to walk to lab instead of drive, especially now that all the snow has melted. The main part of ROTC, and my ROTC classes, haven’t actually started yet, though, so I can talk more about that next week.

I did figure out, after a lot of vacillation, what my final class at Harvard will be. I’m taking “Ethics of Atheism,” which is actually in the German department, and studies the ethical theories Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud (in English). In the lecture last week, the professor spent the better part of two hours defining “ethics” and “atheism.” I can’t say his definitions were terribly clear to me, but it looks to be an interesting class.

Directly after my class on atheism, I have my weekly Bible study meeting, which I’m looking forward to starting today. I’m also continuing my participation in the worship team with Christian Impact, which also starts today (everything seems to start today). Tuesdays are my busy afternoons, but they’re also the one day I don’t have ROTC in the morning, so it balances out.

What else has been happening? In Arabic we’re discussing conspiracy theories in order to practice new vocabulary and grammar structures. The first week of Arabic wasn’t my finest hour, but things are improving, although my extra study of Arabic and my independent study of German tend to get in each other’s way. On the bright side, the words are pretty easy to tell apart.

Overall, I’ve had a very industrious past week; we’ll see if I have time or energy to maintain this level of productivity once the rest of my classes start and I have to concentrate on the quotidian. Still, new projects and responsibilities give me energy, and I have quite a few going right now, so maybe I’ll make it through without falling off the wagon entirely. Have a lovely week, and best of luck to all our New Year’s resolutions!

Pictures: I'm having problems with my computer, so I couldn't manage to get many uploaded this week. Sorry!

Textbooks: also known as passive-aggressive book placement 101

 One of the dining halls in the River Houses.

 I went to walk by the lake this weekend. A good part of it was frozen.

Starting off Strong

Usually when I come back to school, it feels like I never left, but this time was different. Granted, this is the first time in a long time I’ve been in the same place two semesters in a row, but somehow, my room didn’t feel familiar. I remembered that I’d done things in it, but I felt disconnected from those experiences. And of course, upon coming back to school, I needed to have a space I could feel connected with and call my own. So I set about redecorating.

You can compare the results with the pictures of my room from earlier blogs. I discovered a way to attach all the summer scarves I won’t be needing to the wall, and decorated accordingly. I took everything out of each and every box, drawer and shelf, and then set about reordering it all. I was quite pleased with the result.

I’m also pretty happy with my schedule this year, although I have a few things that have yet to be scheduled. Because I’m taking two NS classes, I have ROTC pretty much every morning, but on all but one day, I’m done with my other classes by 1:00, and I have space in between ROTC and my Harvard classes to work out and get ready for the day, which adds a novel regularity to the week. ROTC hasn’t started yet, though, so we’ll see if the theory works in practice next week.

At the moment*, the only class I’ve actually started is Arabic, although I’m heading to my other two Harvard classes in about half-an-hour. Arabic class did feel like I’d never left – you had the same teacher giving the same format of lesson to the same students, with the same amount of homework as always. I won’t say I loved it, but it went fine. After this semester, I’ll be done with my formal study of Arabic, if all goes well.

I’m also continuing my German class from last semester, if I can fit it in. For NS, which starts next week, I have Naval Weapons and Navigation, so we’ll see how those go. As far as the Middle East goes, I’m taking History of the Modern Middle East, which is actually in the History department, but counts for concentration credit.** I’m taking one more class, but it’s still in flux, so I’ll let you know how that goes next week.

I’m still planning on doing a joint concentration in Philosophy and Middle Eastern Studies. My relationship with philosophy went through a rough patch last semester due to my Personal Identity tutorial. For one thing, all the course’s basic assumptions about the world ran almost directly contrary to all my basic assumptions about the world, which made it difficult to get anything done, because nearly everything that I was interested in was then outside the scope of the class.

For another thing, philosophy, at least of the Anglo-American variety, is – well, nit-picky. About everything. You must always be defining things, listing assumptions, explaining what you’re not arguing, heading off misunderstandings, and giving long adjectival phrases to clarify everything, and for a while I’d given up hope of actually getting anything done in the forest when you always have to be working leaf by leaf.

However, lately I’ve been reading quite a bit of Christian philosophy which does say something meaningful, and is as annoyed as I am with these problems, so things are looking better. I will probably never be a philosophy professor, but I’m still excited about being a philosophy undergrad. If one takes the broad definition of philosophy – thinking carefully about what the world is and who we are in it – then I can think of few better things on which to spend my time.

Philosophy is a powerful tool, and I’ve been using mine to re-shape the way I see the semester. I’m attempting to constantly remind myself to see both ROTC and my classes as, first and foremost, areas for personal growth and development, for the glory of God, and not as imposed duties (although there’s a good helping of that as well). And as long as I remember that, I’m excited about what the semester will bring.

*As of writing, not as of posting; I've had other classes now, but they'll keep until next week.

**concentration=a major at Harvard

Pictures:

My redecorated room:

 The view from my window:

 The mandatory back-to-school selfies:

 My dorm:

The philosophy building at Harvard. As the story goes, they asked William James what to carve over the entrance, and he said it should be Protagorus' "Man is the measure of all things." When the building was finished, he showed up and found they'd instead carved "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?"

 My first assignment of the semester/calendar year:

The sheer number of language textbooks on my shelf (and this is leaving out my Spanish and Hebrew books at home) begins to make me nervous.

Plans and Planes

Well, here I am again on a plane to Boston. This time it’s only for seven weeks – I’ll be coming home for Spring Break for the first time in my college career – but that isn’t going to make Boston any warmer. But I’m not there yet; I’ll talk about that when I start my weekly blogs. This is supposed to be about my break, and there’s a lot to tell; the holiday included not only a great time with family, but also a quick trip to Nicaragua.

It’s been about a month since I left Harvard. December (and Christmas) was wonderful; I saw my grandparents and aunts and cousins and ate a great deal more than I should have and had long talks with my parents about practically everything.  It was warm in Boston and cold in Texas when I headed home, but now things have returned to the order of nature, so it’s going to be boots, coats, and gloves when I get back.

About two weeks ago I headed to Nicaragua with my dad on a short trip to visit a lady from our church who runs a girl’s home there. I’d never been further south than Mexico, so it was a very neat experience, especially since I was doing the translating and had the opportunity to practice my Spanish. We spent a very pleasant three days there; pictures are below.

Nicaragua is about what you’d expect if you combined a general idea of Central America with your idea of a third world country. You’ll find crowded open markets, rows of brightly-colored cinder block houses, narrow streets, stray dogs, and lots of Spanish. After dashing around Europe this summer, where everyone immediately switches to English if your accent is a little off, it was very refreshing to be in a country where you actually need to know the language.

The first day was the most tiring. We arrived at the home at about 2:30 am (same time zone as Texas) and got a little sleep before getting up to look around the property and go shopping in town. I played with the girls for a little while – not my forte – and translated the Bible study that night. After everyone figured out that I actually did speak Spanish, things went more smoothly, which was good, since the next night they had a party for us, which involved a lot more Spanish but was quite enjoyable. The third day we did a ridiculous amount of sightseeing, including an active volcano, and bought souvenirs, and then it was time to head home.

And of course, now I’m off again. I’ve gotten quite a bit done over the holiday – I’ve completed a semester’s worth of Classical Greek, done a lot of creative writing, finished most of the Norse Eddas, and read a book or three. I don’t feel particularly rested after the break, but I didn’t feel particularly tired after last semester, so I guess it evens out.

My schedule is looking fairly regular this coming semester, but I’ll write more about that on Tuesday, when I write my first official semester post. I have two ROTC classes, so it’s going to be an early-to-bed-early-to-rise sort of semester, but that isn’t a bad thing.

My first year-and-a-half of college were difficult; their memory evokes an atmosphere of ‘always winter never Christmas.” The two semesters after that, I learned how to relax, but now it’s time to start taking charge of the free space in my schedule, not by scheduling more things, but by delving deeper into the things I’m already doing.

Being me, I’ve developed and refined a three-page document listing my overall life goals and how they play out specifically this semester. (This has actually expanded to a file that includes several subsidiary documents.) This sort of plan is nothing new for me, but this one in particular is more thought-out than those of prior years. This time, I’m not just going back to school. I’m making a concentrated, thoughtful effort to grow as a person. We’ll see if it works – here’s to all our New Year’s resolutions!

Pictures (thank you to my dad for taking many of these):

Nicaragua:

 With a few of the girls.

 Sightseeing:

 I miss her when I'm gone. Somehow, she gets cuter as she gets older.

 Christmas dinner, complete with the chicken fried steak and Blue Bell!

 *cough* Texas:

 Massachusetts:

 Why do people live here again?

 Home sweet home.

Ready to start another semester. Here it goes!