Tour Guides and Goodbyes

I waited to post this because I wanted to be able to give a full account of the weekend’s activities, and also because I haven’t had time until now. I’ve had a very busy weekend; Katie came (she’s in most of the pictures) and we made forays into Cambridge, Boston, and even the rest of Massachusetts. I’ll get to that in a second, but I also attended a couple other events during the week, so let me tell you about them first.

Firstly, we had the Veritas Forum on Wednesday, where several campus groups host a discussion between a respected Christian intellectual and a respected atheist intellectual. The topic this year was “Can Scientists Believe in Miracles,” which was somewhat complicated by the fact that there were different definitions of miracles wandering around, but still extremely interesting. I ended the night with a lot of thoughts, but most of them were put on hold by the events of the next few days.

Later on, on Saturday, I also went to ROTC dining-in, a heavily alcoholic event for the seniors and staff which allows us to recap our experiences over the years, have a nice meal, and begin to interact with the officers in a more informal setting. Surprisingly, the event itself was held in the Quad, right next to my dorm (nothing is ever held anywhere near my dorm, for reference), which allowed me to drop by for an hour before heading back to my plans with Katie. Which I will now recount.

We had a very busy few days. We did the Freedom Trail and tour of Harvard last time she came, so now we were doing slightly out-of-the-way destinations. She arrived Thursday afternoon, and we did a lot of talking about the past and the future, walked around some, and went to a very nice dinner on Grafton Street. We were both pretty tired by that evening, but we still talked a while before heading to bed. She slept in the next morning while I worked out, and then we headed off to start another day.

On Friday, we started by heading to Fresh Pond. I’d been hoping the flowers and sun would be out, but it was cold and drizzly. Still, we made our way around the Pond and had some good conversation, and she wore my winter coat and I wore my spring coat. After that we headed to MIT’s Central Square so I could go to kickboxing, and she agreed to come along for the adventure. I know she didn’t have the best of times – I didn’t like it at first, either; it seems like you can’t get anything right. Now, of course, I’m on the other side of two months practice, and I actually got to knock my partner over a couple of times. I said goodbye to my instructor, and he said I was doing well, which after two months of constant corrections was very good to hear. So, in short, I had a phenomenal time; I’m going to miss that place more than most others in Cambridge.

After kickboxing we went back to Harvard to shower, then headed into Boston to see the Skywalk Observatory and grab dinner. There wasn’t much to observe from the Skywalk – it was pretty much just fog – but we went in anyway and wandered around for a while. Anything can be fun when you have a friend and an almost-empty floor to wander around in. Maybe someday I can come back and see Boston from the top.

On Saturday we spent our time on a bus tour to Lexington and Concord (and Cambridge, but we didn’t pay much attention to that part). Both places claimed to have the ‘shot heard round the world,’ but we enjoyed seeing where the battles took place, cold and drizzly though it was. We spent a good bit of time in the gift shops as well; I was particularly amused that a British tea company who once had its cargo dumped in a knock-off Boston Tea Party is now selling its tea at several times the price as historically significant. You never know what might turn in your favor.

And, finally, Sunday. Katie did get up to watch me work out on Sunday morning, so both of us were a little tired during church, but we enjoyed going together for the first time in forever. Afterwards we had lunch, looked around Harvard, walked by the Charles River, got ice cream, went shopping for Harvard paraphernalia (she had gifts to buy, and I was in a fit of nostalgia, so we spent quite a bit), and then rushed back to the Quad to head to the airport.

Sunday, at last, the weather was sunny and warm and beautiful, and the flowers were blooming, just in time to say goodbye and realize that this is likely the last time I’ll be seeing many of the places we walked through. Things have gone by so quickly, and I have so many things to worry about, I haven’t really stopped to consider that this is my last week at Harvard (outside of a few days at graduation).

That also means I only have a few weeks of blogs left. I called this blog Deadlines and Dorm Rooms, and while I’m sure the former will never go away, the latter is almost over. You’ll have to switch over to reading my other blog if you want to keep up with me. A lot of things are ending, but there are also a lot of things beginning – I’ll tell you more about them in coming weeks. And now, it’s time to start my final week at Harvard.

PS – I just realized I posted my last blog before Easter. I did also have a wonderful Easter; I woke up, studied my Bible, watched the sunrise, went to church, and had a lovely lunch and day of rest afterwards!

Pictures:

It's days like this when I know I'll miss Cambridge.

 Cookout with Christian Impact last Saturday - hotdogs and sunburn; summer is coming!

 Sunrise Easter morning:

 Headed to church Easter Sunday:

 Church:

 Veritas Forum. The powerpoint is the results of a poll asking the people in the room if they believe miracles are possible - the yes's have it by a landslide, but then again, most (though not all) of the hosts are Christian organizations.

 And yes, you get all my excited pictures of flowers along with everything else.

 Katie curled up comfortably with a cup of tea:

 Coming back from kickboxing:

 And then there are days in Cambridge like this:

 On the bus!

 Lexington:

 Lexington Battleground Monument/burial place of the first casualties (by some counts) of the American Revolution:

 Concord Bridge:

 We ran into an Earth Day rally on our way back to Cambridge and were a little overwhelmed - don't know if you can tell from this picture, but there are hundreds upon hundreds of people.

 Getting ready for dining in - wasn't quite sure how I felt about it...

 Headed to church together:

 More flowers!

Easter Expectations

I've been so wrapped up in anticipating Easter, I almost forgot I needed to write this. Nothing in particular is happening, event-wise, except that, well, God came down to earth and rose from the dead – hardly a minor event, even if Christmas does get all the fame and fortune. But in any case, how was my week?

Well, it was actually fairly event-full. I was really stressed for a lot of last semester, so I said ‘no’ to a lot of things this semester, but then found that not doing anything also stressed me out, in a different way. Besides which, I’m nostalgic about all these things I didn’t take advantage of while I was here. So I’m doing various things now, none of them overly important, and I’m pretty happy.

For one, I published an article in the Baptist Standard; you should go check it out, if you haven’t yet. And I published a new video on my YouTube, so if you haven’t looked at that in a while, you should do that, too! I also helped run a ROTC war games lab. “War games” sounds like it should involve running around in the dirt with the Marines yelling at us, but it actually refers to international relations discussions. I.e. “You’re on watch directing the ship, and a Russian cruiser is heading toward you on an intercept course. What do you do?”

If you’re wondering, usually the answer is usually “be ready, but stay calm, and don’t shoot unless attacked.” We’re always learning about the weaponry aboard the ships, so we have to balance that out by regularly reminding everyone that we don’t actually want to use the weaponry except as a last resort; let’s not start WWIII because you were nervous about an intercept course. Also, keep an eye out for submarines, or whoever is in charge of the scenario will probably invent a sneak-attack and *cough* sink your battleship.

On Thursday I went to the seniors’ going-away party for one of our lieutenants (they only stay for two years, and we only stay for four, so we’re constantly saying goodbye to someone). It was at nine o’clock at night at an Asian restaurant – very far from my normal eating habits – but to my surprise, I actually enjoyed the food, and I (mostly) remembered how to use chopsticks from back in Taiwan freshman year. On the way back, I ended up having a substantive philosophy conversation with my Uber driver. I actually thought we were getting somewhere, but he finished by telling me that Jesus was probably a Buddhist and ‘whatever you believe, that’s what’s true,’ so I guess we didn’t really connect after all.

I went to Good Friday services last night – I’ll have a blog post up involving that soon (on my other blog), so keep an eye out for that. The service was candlelit, which I appreciated atmosphere-wise, but which made it rather hard to sit through an hour-and-a-half service and a full sermon on a Friday night. And of course I’ll head to church on Sunday; fortunately, it’s finally warm enough to wear a skirt, so I can pull those out again. And today I’m heading to the Christian Impact baseball tailgate for a little while before finishing my work for the next few days, so I can spend Easter reflecting and recalibrating my perspective.

What else have I been spending my time on? I finally got back to studying Greek; I’ve gotten much, much less done that I planned, but at least I’ve finished my initial read of the textbook and found some texts to practice with. And I’ve been working out. A lot. Most days this week I’ve actually had two workouts – either weightlifting, or ROTC, and then kickboxing in the afternoon. I’m really sore, but it’s a good sort of sore, and I think I’m in about as good or better shape as I was last semester, which is my benchmark. We did have our final fitness test (the one that counts) for ROTC on Tuesday, and I managed to get my mile-and-a-half run down to 10:33, which is about what it was last semester and far better than it’s been at any other point in my life, so that was satisfying.

And that’s been about my week. It feels good to get out and do things, although a part of me always wants to stay in and can’t relax fully if I’m going somewhere later. For Easter, though, all the bustling will be set aside – another reason I’m looking forward to it. He is Risen!- four years at Harvard, and I'm more certain than ever. (If you want to know why, I will, of course, inevitably refer you to my blog...)

Pictures:

Sunny days are here again. No flowers yet, though. Hopefully some will appear before I leave.

 I just think it's kind of funny that we had to name the days without a special adjective "___day in Holy Week," just to be clear. Then again, my sense of humor is strange sometimes.

Kickboxing can be rather hard on the calves. But it was definitely worth it to have fun with spinning kicks.

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.