Defense and Dinner

                Well, it’s been quite a week, from my thesis defense on Monday to a financial aid banquet last night. At the end of this month, I’ll have my final Harvard class and then head home for a while before graduation (I don’t have finals, so I’m going home for finals period – more details later). And then – off to the Navy! But for now, let’s just focus on the past week.

                My thesis defense was first thing Monday morning, so I had the weekend to prepare. Of course, I also had all those papers due, but I managed to finish most of them, as I mentioned last week, and get them turned in, without too much trouble. I headed over to the room and managed to get there 15 minutes early, which meant that I just wandered around a pretty-much empty building for a quarter of an hour hoping I was in the right place. Which, as it turns out, I was. My oral defense involved my NELC adviser, a dean here at Harvard, my philosophy adviser, a visiting assistant professor here (it’s really amazing how many ranks they have for professors), and a second reader from NELC, a grad student.

                What this ended up meaning was that Dr. Harris, my NELC adviser, was the only person who really knew what was going on. I hadn’t been prepped, and the other two readers hadn’t conducted a thesis defense before, so it was kind of informal be default, because Dr. Harris had to keep explaining what we were doing. I gave a short presentation of the thesis (which I’d luckily prepared beforehand, just in case), and then they asked various questions. Some of them were for clarification, some of them were follow-ups on my research, and some of them were modifications; there weren’t really many direct challenges to what I was saying. The defense was only an hour long – less when you count the time it took to set up – so we couldn’t cover all of it, but it was quite enjoyable (they didn’t tell me until afterwards that the defense is half of the thesis grade – it would probably have been less enjoyable if I’d known that at the time).

                And then it was over. I left for a few minutes while they talked, and then I came back in, and they told me the thesis was magna cum laude – which is an A. And suddenly, I was done with this paper I’d been working on since last summer. I took the rest of the day off to celebrate. The only thing about having my thesis defense on a Monday, though, was that it made me really, really unhappy when I had to head to ROTC at 5:30 on Tuesday morning. ROTC also went pretty well this week, though. I managed to get a perfect score on my inspection at the drill lab on Wednesday, without having stressed about it beforehand, and the seniors made a decent showing at drill, which was impressive considering we’d had no practice all semester and didn’t even know where we were standing until a few minutes before we started.

                And of course, there was the banquet last night. It’s the last month of classes for seniors, so everyone wants to invite us to things, and we’re feeling nostalgic, so we keep saying yes to them. With the result that I now have a long string of social engagements I wasn’t really planning on, but that I’m sure I’ll enjoy. Last night the financial aid program at Harvard hosted juniors and seniors who are on financial aid so that we could meet their fundraisers and sponsors. I chatted with other students and then was seated next to one of the donors, who worked on Wall Street and turned out to have done a lot of work in Texas. The dinner was on par with the formal dinners at Cambridge when I was there over the summer; it was held in Annenberg Hall (the freshman dining hall, but also one of the most imposing buildings on campus) and included a four-course meal. It’s rather awkward attending a formal dinner as someone who doesn’t drink wine or coffee – I had four glasses, and three of them just kind of sat there. In any case, I had a good time.

                So those were the main events of my week; I have just enough events every day that I never quite relax, but not enough to make me want to go out and do work, so I’m sort of in limbo. I’m kind of looking forward to the end, but I’m also beginning to realize that all the projects I’d hoped to finish this semester just aren’t going to get done. But I’ll save my final reflections for a few more weeks. Until next time!

Pictures: 

More snow/rain:

 I went walking after finishing my thesis defense; it was by far the most beautiful day of the week.

 And then it was not so beautiful...

April Sho - er, Snowstorms

In Boston, April showers don’t bring flowers. They bring more snow and occasionally sleet. So I am having a lovely morning in bed reviewing my thesis before my defense on Monday. The first half of the week was a little crazy, but it’s slowly winding to a close.

I found out at the end of last week about all these papers I had coming due. One was postponed; one I turned in only to find out it had been postponed (but I was done, so it didn’t matter), and the two book reports I finished over the past three days. For the first half of the week, every time I wasn’t in class or in a meeting, I was chugging through these papers. But they ended up taking less time than I feared, so I ended up with some free time on the tail end of things, which is always nice.

Kickboxing and lifting are both going well, although I admit I haven’t been eating terribly well lately. When you’ve been stuck churning out papers for the last day-and-a-half, there’s nothing so cheering as being able to take a break for food – and nothing so disappointing as to remember that you’re only getting sliced turkey and salad yet again. And there were fudge brownies…

I did, in fact, get up, work out, shower, and get breakfast before climbing back into bed this morning. It wasn’t the most restful of nights. I skipped my workout yesterday, which messed up my sleep schedule and kept me up until maybe eleven. And then, at 2:30 this morning, a group of guys started banging on my door. I started to get up and open the door to let them know they had the wrong room (fyi, my name is on the door), but before I got there, it was clear from their conversation they were just going around banging on random people’s doors to see what would happen. Needless to say, I was not impressed, and didn’t answer. Fortunately, people who go around banging on stranger’s doors at 2:30 am aren’t known for their patience. And then I eventually drifted back to sleep until my alarm went off at five.

It took quite a bit of convincing to get out of bed and head down to exercise, but I finally said to myself (out loud) oh, stop being a sissy and go work out. I felt much, much better afterwards. It was an excellent start to the day. When I work out I’m happier all day and sleep better at night, and I actually enjoy the workout itself. And yet somehow, I don’t know why, I have to fight a battle to get myself to work out. Just kidding: I do know why. I just wrote a paper on the nature of evil and mankind’s impulse toward self-destruction (read: sin nature) for my Augustine class. Just wanted to point out that everything is connected, at least when you’re a philosophy major.

And besides all that, if you somehow missed it, I also wrote a blog post which I ended up submitting to the Harvard Crimson as an op-ed. The response was very encouraging. Other than that, not much else has happened here. On Wednesday we ran drill lab again, but because all the schools in ROTC are rotating Spring Breaks, none of the MIT people were there, meaning that we only had about five people to drill with. It worked out. I met a couple of friends for tea (they had coffee) and managed to make it to FUEL on Wednesday night. Oh, and on Wednesday I managed to go to Fresh Pond and get a run in before the snow started.

There are still a few highlights before the semester ends – ROTC still has events, a friend is coming to visit, and of course, my thesis defense and finals. But things are coming to a close. I suppose this week mirrors my entire undergraduate career – the first half was crazy, but the pace has moderated a bit right at the end. Here’s hoping it stays that way, because once Navy life starts, things are going to get crazy for a while again!

Pictures:

There's me inside:

 My run outdoors on Wednesday:

 Walking to a meeting on Thursday:

 Aaaand the reason I haven't really been outside since then:

 It snows and rains interchangeably, so the snow melts and gets washed away and you're just left with a lot of mud.

On to the End

Now that I’ve started kickboxing, I don’t know how I thought I could learn it without human partners to practice with. Even now, I’m slightly afraid that if I ever actually get in a fight, I’ll forget I’m going for the guy’s head and aim for his hands instead, I’m so used to punching people’s gloves. I am beginning to get the hang of it, though; the movements come more naturally now, and I’m no longer the newest person in the class, which is always nice.

I feel a little bad that all the experienced people have to practice with me, but they’re all very supportive, and because I’m southpaw (left-handed), they end up being reasonably challenged as well a lot of the time. It’s actually much easier to practice with someone who knows what he’s doing; when I practice with beginners, I generally end up hitting or getting hit in the wrong spot (my ankles are not happy). I’m glad I finally started, though; it’s a great stress reliever, and since Spring Break I’ve been pretty stressed.

I hit the ground running when I arrived back on Monday night, and I didn’t slow down until mid-morning Thursday. In between thesis meetings, ROTC, assignments, more meetings, graduation paperwork, kickboxing, and still more meetings, life has been pretty crazy. Thursday morning after ROTC I finally crashed, but yesterday I discovered that a couple of my papers were due significantly earlier than I thought, which means that I have no fewer than four major papers and my thesis defense due before the end of next week. So we all know what I’ll be doing this weekend. It’ll get done.

I had quite a bit of ROTC this week, including this morning. I helped teach drill for lab, which I actually really enjoy (I don’t enjoy being taught drill nearly as much; I get very frustrated). PT was moved to Thursday, but class was still on Tuesday, so I had to get up for ROTC three mornings instead of two, but it wasn’t bad. For PT we were playing a sort of game instead of just working out, which was cool. And this Saturday morning we had ranking boards to determine the merit rankings of the juniors in the company – cheery way to start the weekend, but at least it kind of put me in the mood for work.

Life really hasn’t been that exciting, despite the rush. I’m focusing mainly on all the papers I have to write. I’m not nearly as centered on fitness as I was last semester, but I’m still in pretty good shape. I never go more than a couple of days without working out, despite the busy schedule; the real struggle is remembering to eat right. I don’t know what it is about stress that makes salad seem so distasteful, but somehow, all I tend to want it chocolate. Oh, well. I’ll get there.

You see, last semester, when I still didn’t know where, exactly, my life was going, I spent a lot of time on fitness; it was my project. Now, though, all that energy is going into my blog and YouTube (yes, this is my subtle reminder to check out this week’s post if you haven’t yet: https://www.rightsideup.blog/selfless-or-selfish/). Internet/social media advertising is still unknown territory for me, but I think I’m making some inroads – not least of which is my new Facebook page, Lauren Mandaville – Blogger, which you should also like and follow…

Honestly, there’s not much more to say about this week. Weather has been weird lately; it snowed yesterday, but it was warmer and raining this morning. You can never tell what temperature it’s going to be before you walk out the door. In general, it’s still pretty wintry, so if you’re coming, bring your coat. Wait a few weeks and hopefully, I’ll be posting pictures that look more like Spring. Until then, I think that’s all I have. Now I have to go and attempt to write two decent papers in two days – wish me luck! 

On the way back from kickboxing. It's snowing in these pictures. You'll just have to take my word for it.

 And then it rained... and then it misted... I guess it's improving.

 One of the lovely things about Spring Break was getting to go shopping for tea with my mom to refill my nearly-empty tea tin. (And yes, that is another full tea tin next to it. To say that I drink a lot of tea is an understatement.)

 My lovely calendar of snark, a Christmas present from Bekah. Time is flying by!

 Kickboxing (the real stuff, not the cardio kind) is fantastic. And yes, I store my gloves on top of the microwave. It's a small room, okay?

One Last Lap

I just finished rereading my blog post from after Thanksgiving freshman year, the first time I went back to college by myself after a break. It’s still hard to say goodbye, but that’s a good thing, right? Don’t get me wrong; it’s different now. I’m different. Especially now that I’ve made my room my space, and spent more time in it, and now that I’m working primarily on the things I’m interested in and plan to do in the future, my dorm room feels like home – although I still don’t fit very well with Cambridge as a whole.

And now it’s almost over – a few short months and, once again, everything will change. I know, I always wax nostalgic and moody in airports, and this is my back-to-school blog, so you know it’s going to be a little depressed. It’s a little strange, because I’m still looking ahead, looking toward the future, but nearly all I can see is endings. I’ve been a student for going on 17 years now, pretty much as long as I can remember. And now, suddenly, I won’t be anymore; it will be a new environment, new people, new responsibilities. I have certainly become better at dealing with new things over the course of college; newness is, in itself, not so new to me anymore, and I’m more comfortable being uncomfortable. But that doesn’t mean I like it.

Okay, okay, saving that for another time. It was a fairly relaxing week; I slept late, took the dog running (we went about four miles this morning) and watched Netflix. My dad and I went to an amusement park. I like roller coasters, but outside of this past week, the only day of my life I’d actually ridden them was a choir trip to Fiesta Texas in high school (with Amelia, if you’re reading this). Although I had been catapulted off the deck of an aircraft carrier in the meantime. I’d forgotten quite how fast they went, but I was mainly concentrating on not letting go of my phone. We went on the parachute drop afterwards and found it much tamer (we rode it three times) before returning to the roller coaster for a final go-round.

We did a few other things over the break. We went to the park and star-gazed, and we drew on the sidewalk with chalk we bought for Christmas stockings but kept forgetting to use. My mother and I went shopping and browsed a thrift store for random items I didn’t know I needed until I saw them. A couple of my friends were sweet enough to invite me over (and make food!). I worked on my other blog quite a bit and started a facebook page (which is called “Lauren Mandaville – Blogger”, and which you should like/follow if you haven’t yet – subtle, I know).

I didn’t do much of anything school-related. I have a couple of papers due when I get back, and of course my thesis defense, but I’ll have time to prepare for those when I’m back in my dorm room with all my books. My seminary classes were also having Spring Break this week, as it turns out, which is good, since I forgot to bring my books home with me in any case. I haven’t been as on top of things this semester; it comes from being a senior and having a sudden drop in activity level.

In any case, it’s been a good week-and-a-half. It was nice to be able to take advantage of my class schedule and grab a few extra days’ rest before heading back. My sleep schedule has completely flipped to staying and getting up late, but I have ROTC today and Wednesday to jolt me back on track. A couple more months and I’ll head hope for Reading Period and Finals Period (hopefully) before heading back to Harvard for graduation, and then off with the Navy.

And there’s one more important bit of news: my parents bought me a car! It’s my graduation present, but they gave it to me early (hard to explain the new car in the driveway otherwise). It’s a very, very nice car – see the picture below. Its name is Bree. We finally had to name our cars, because my dad now has my old car, and so our old monikers of ‘your car’ and ‘my car’ ended up just making us hopelessly confused, until we had to resort to pointing.

Well, that’s about all my news for now. It’s been a pretty eventful semester, big-picture wise, even though it’s been fairly calm on a day-to-day basis, outside of the tail end of my thesis composition. Be sure to check out my other blog tomorrow at www.rightsideup.blog! Until next week!

Pictures: It seems that when I'm home, most pictures will feature the dog.

 He would be a champ at Twister; he practices by trying to get one paw in each of the waterbowls at the same time.

 We found a friend at the dog park.

 We crashed a dog birthday party, and it was luau-themed, so they were nice enough to give him a bandanna.

 My car!

 I took this picture while out running this morning, so it was taken in selfie mode, upside-down, while the phone was still strapped to my arm. I thought it turned out pretty well, considering, but the real thing was better.

 And we're back in MA. This is the Charles River at sunset.

 And of course we couldn't skip the roller coaster (photo credit to my dad on this one).

Putting on the Brakes

Well, my thesis is turned in, Spring Break has started, and I’m back at home with my parents and the dog. Because I only have scheduled classes on Tuesday and Wednesday, I was able to return home on Thursday, so I have an extra-long last Spring Break. The end is coming up quick, but right now, I’m just enjoying the moment: watching movies, taking the dog running, and working on my other blog (be sure to check out my posts from this week!)

Alright, I promised I would explain what my thesis was about. When one of my college interviewers asked me what I would write my thesis on, if I could choose anything, I said “philosophy, because it connects everything.” And true to form, my thesis covers as many topics as I could fit in. I’m completing a Joint Concentration (Double Major) in Philosophy and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC, aka Middle Eastern Studies), so my thesis needed to combine the two of them. But the “Studies” part of Middle Eastern Studies covers a pretty wide range in and of itself of sociology, anthropology, history, foreign language, economics, government, etc. Besides which, as a future Naval officer, I was writing my thesis focusing on US involvement in the Middle East, which also included military policy and International Law in the mix.

So a lot of my thesis was just trying to pull all of that together, and make it somewhat reflect the image I had in my head (I nearly always have my epiphanies in images, which makes them extremely hard to explain.) All of this to say that to be honest, I still haven’t found a way to explain what my thesis is about. But I’m going to try.

There are two ways to look at my thesis – from specific to general, and from general to specific. Let’s start from specific. My specific focus is the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) and US policy with regard to ISIS. DDE is a set of guidelines developed to determine when collateral damage (particularly civilian deaths) is acceptable in wartime. The “double effect” referred to is the unintended bad effect that accompanies the desirable effect. So I was looking at Israeli policy with regard to DDE and terrorism and trying to determine a set of guidelines for the US.

However, in order to determine guidelines, we have to ask the larger question: how do we go about deciding what’s ethical in wartime? This isn’t only a question for the US; it’s a question for International Law. We don’t all have one ethical system or worldview; how do we agree on ethics? The popular opinion today is that worldview doesn’t matter – religion, philosophy, and etc. don’t matter. We all pretty much agree on what’s right and wrong; religion and culture are just window-dressing we add on afterwards.

In my opinion, this is backwards. Out moralities come from our beliefs about the world. Without God, I have no reason for believing that there is a right or a wrong; if we believe in different gods or different religions, we are going to come to different conclusions about things like abortion, homosexuality, and (as it turns out) the Doctrine of Double Effect. So we can’t legislate these internationally; we can’t agree on them, and we can’t force other countries to agree with us on them. So we have to let each culture work from its own assumptions about the universe to come up with its own guidelines.

Then we return to the specifics and try to figure out, given the United States’ assumptions about the purpose of government and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, what sorts of collateral damage are acceptable. This, ostensibly, was the purpose of my thesis, but I was much more interested in the larger point I’ve pointed out above. It’s not a very popular view in academia at the moment, but it’s more popular in the philosophy and cultural studies departments than elsewhere, as one would expect.

Okay, so that’s my 95-page thesis summed up very generally in a few paragraphs – hopefully it made sense. I’ll find out if the longer version did when I have my oral examination board in a couple weeks. I hope everyone has a lovely Spring Break – check out my blog! – and I’ll see many of you soon!

The ice on Fresh Pond is just a memory now.

 My thesis! In triplicate:

Every year about this time, the Harvard SHARC (Sexual Health and Relationship Counselors) hang condoms and lubricant on my door. Yay college.

 I just really like taking pictures of Fresh Pond.

 The climate's a little different in Texas, but I love them both.

 Breakfast at IHOP with my parents!

 Tikvah is still as adorable as ever.

 He wanted to drive.

 We tried to take a selfie, but he's very easily distracted.

 Playing hide-and-seek at the dog park:

Thesis Throes

Hi everyone! I don’t want to swamp you with too many blog posts too close together, so I’m going to post these on Saturday mornings instead of Friday mornings from now on. If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out my new website at www.rightsideup.blog – posts on Tuesdays and Thursdays! But for now, time to catch up on two weeks of news.

Not a terrible lot has happened. Spring Break is not this coming week, but the week after that, which means that my thesis is due this coming week (aaahhh!). So that’s been a large part of the last few days and will probably be about all of the next couple of days. I’ve been having trouble contacting two of my three readers (graders), so I’m just now getting a lot of their feedback, which means I’m much more rushed than I usually am leading up to these, but I have plenty of hot tea and a weekend to finish, so hopefully this marathon will end well.

Speaking of marathons, I did go running a few days ago around Fresh Pond. It was chilly, but I warmed up soon enough, and I realized I’m much more in shape than the last time I went running there; I was barely winded. We’re getting into that ambiguous part of spring where it’s either just warm enough to survive in short sleeves or just cool enough to survive in a jacket, depending on the day. Somehow, I always guess wrong, but my run took care of the cold everywhere except my ears. I’m still enjoying weightlifting as well. I did kickboxing yesterday and managed to hurt my ankle (both of them, actually), and I’ve been a little under the weather lately, but it’s not slowing me down too much.

What else has happened? We had our Joint Service Ball (Army, Navy, and Air Force from our side of the river – MIT as opposed to BU) last night. It was at a hotel just a few minutes away from my dorm, which was very exciting – nothing ever happens near my dorm; I always have to take a taxi. The guest speaker was the former Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, which was pretty cool (he’s a Harvard Law School grad). All the seniors were announced with our service assignments, and afterwards we went over to someone’s room at Harvard and hung out a while. It was our last Military Ball at Harvard, and we had a pretty good time.

That’s really about all that’s happened; I’ve mainly been consumed with my thesis, a few more minor written assignments, starting my website (hint hint!) and a good bit of Netflix thrown in for good measure. I would explain my thesis to you, but according to my advisors, I still haven’t figured out how to do that clearly, so I’ll wait until next week and spent most of my pre-Spring Break post laying it out for you.

I am over 90% done with my college career – isn’t that strange? I’m not exactly entering real life – the Navy is kind of a world of its own – but I’m definitely preparing to start something new. People keep asking me if I’m excited, but honestly, I’m not really sure. For one thing, nothing is going to happen for a while yet; I’m sure I’ll be able to muster up the appropriate level of stress when the time comes. For another thing, I’m usually excited when I’m about to begin things, and while I’m sure there will be plenty of projects to begin later, the idea that I’m going into the Navy is so old by now it’s a matter of course.

Finally, I’m kind of nervous about moving out into the world (as I suppose I should be). I’ve been doing just about the same thing for the past 16 years of my life, and now I’m entering a completely new environment where I need to perform well. It’s a tad stressful. But I suppose that’s what makes it fun. Until next week, then – wish me luck on my thesis!

Pictures:

Still working out!

 This is an ad for my church, as well as one of my favorite quotes, on the wall of the T station:

 You can generally tell the state of my life by the state of my bed - in this case, both are still reasonably organized, but slightly out of control.

 Fresh Pond on a gorgeous spring (technically, still winter) morning:

 I was walking across the Yard when it hit me again just how lucky I am to be at this place.

 Joint Service Military Ball (or JSMB, because acronyms):