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!

Forging my Future

Well, I’m finally done with the semester, although finals dragged on so long, it hardly feels like the holidays even sitting here in the airport. In elementary school; there comes a day when it’s ‘over,’ when one day you have to get up and go to class, and the next you don’t. But it’s been three weeks since I’ve had any classes, and yet I still have responsibilities; I may have no class, but I still have work, and even now I have my thesis to write. The borders begin to blur, and you’re not ever quite free. I’m not really enjoying that side of adulthood.

In any case, I am free for the most part. I woke up at five as always this morning, but I still managed to be in a hurry heading out the door, mainly because, having already packed my key, I managed to look myself out of my room for the first time since freshman year. I did finally make it, and on the way to the airport my Uber driver, who also works in real estate, explained the real estate market to me, which I, at least, found interesting.

Okay, I promised to talk about SWO (N). The letters mean Surface Warfare Officer, Nuclear designated. Which means I’ll work on ships (as opposed to planes or submarines) as a SWO, and on my second tour, I’ll be working on an Aircraft Carrier with a nuclear reactor. After I graduate and commission, I’ll go to about two months of general training, and then I’ll head to a normal tour of duty onboard my first ship, where I’ll learn about being an officer. Then, once I’ve qualified as a SWO, I’ll go to about a year of school for nuclear physics and reactors, and then I’ll go to the carrier, where I’ll learn how to oversee the operation of the reactor (which mainly consists in adjusting the engines to propulsion and running drills, and making sure nothing goes wrong). And then – who knows?

 That’s the future, but this is also a time for reflection on the past – the past semester and the past year. In the spring semester, I matured emotionally a great deal, notably in social skills, leadership skills, and knowing that appearances actually matter. In the fall semester, that slowed down a good bit and was replaced by an emphasis on physical development. I know how to do compound lifts now, I have a great deal more muscle and a great deal less fat, and fitness has become a solid way of life instead of a nagging voice in the back of my head.

I think this semester has primarily been less a time of growth and more a time of transition. All my life, I’ve been preparing – for what, I hardly knew. I always said I was well on my way, but where to, I didn’t know (which was very frustrating). I’ve built my knowledge, built my experience, built my resume, year after year, line after line, accomplishment after accomplishment, skill after skill, all to become an independent, adult individual, so that when the time came, I would be ready to take my place in the world.

Bear with me here; this may sound a little amorphous, but it’s very close to my heart. As long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to do great things, to make an impact on the world. Because after all I’ve seen and all I’ve read and all I’ve learned, I still believe in the intuitions I’ve had since I was a child. I believe there is such a thing as adventure, that there is such a thing as heroism, that there is such a thing as the fight between good and evil, and it’s going on even as we speak. That the good and the beautiful and the right exist, and they can be known, and they’re meant to be fought for – and perhaps they’re the only thing worth fighting for.

One of the first things the admiral asked me in my interview was what drives me. I told him – I’m driven by the need to fulfill my potential, to not waste a single drop of the precious talents and opportunities that have been given me. I hate wasting opportunities, even if they’re as simple as the tea I forgot to drink and had to pour out when I reached the security line this morning. I don’t want my life to be poured out as a drink offering to materialism or practicality. I don’t want to stop dreaming.

This is not to say that one can dream just anything and then go off and expect to do well in it. That’s why you need books and resumes and experience and education. That’s how it’s supposed to be. When I say ‘dream’ I don’t mean the shallow sort of daydream often termed ‘ambition’. I mean intuition, conviction, that life is good and of value and that we can do something that matters in this world. That’s not to say it doesn’t take preparation and planning and hard work. But I’ve put in twenty-one years of preparation, and there’s nothing I’d rather work towards. And I think – I think – it’s about time to really get started.

Pictures: I forgot to take any of me, but here are plenty of Harvard in the snow!

This might look like a windowsill and heater, but it's actually a drink-monitoring system. If I want to warm my tea up, I set it on top of the heater; if I need it cooler, I set it on the windowsill. It works out very well.

 I always sweep out my room at the end of the semester and realize it's no small wonder I've been sick and sneezy.

Celebration after my last final (which I think went well, by the way - I liked my essay, at least):

 My room this morning. I actually do miss it. I still don't really think of Harvard or Cambridge in general as home, but this little piece of it is. It'll keep, though.

Interviews and Important News

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.

 Washington DC:

 There's actually a sculpture here I was trying to take a picture of. It looks like a giant metal spider, if you can see it; I don't know if that was intentional or not.

 The Gallery. It was calming to wander around a national capital on my own; it's something I'm very comfortable and familiar with at this point, and I could even get around in English!

 This is possibly the bravest squirrel I have ever seen. This picture isn't zoomed in; I leaned down next to him and took it, and he didn't so much as twitch. Someone's been feeding him...

 You'll have to forgive my attempted selfies; the screen on my phone cracked directly over the front camera, so I had to take these the old-fashioned way.

 The Mall. I did walk the entire thing; that was my goal for the morning, and I finally made it.

 Here's the sign I was talking about:

Shout-out to my Roman History class and way it made me think back to Roman-Egyptian relations when I came to this obelisk.

 Go Navy!

 The other end of the Mall (I kept taking pictures; I could probably make a flip-book at this point.)

 I wasn't sure whether to smile or not... this is my awkward compromise.

Even with the leaves already fallen, the scenery was quite beautiful.

 Again, with the sunset at 3:30 in the afternoon:

A (Reading) Period of Turmoil

                Well, finals season is here again; I have finals in the very first and the very last slot of the semester, so I start tomorrow morning and don’t finish for nearly another two weeks. I know it’s December, and we even had a trifling amount of snow a few days ago, but my holiday spirit is nowhere to be found; it feels strange wishing people a Merry Christmas and seeing friends already heading off for vacation when I’m still in the middle of so much work and stress. At the moment, I’m only concentrated on the immediate future, and I can’t seem to get un-tensed, even on days when I technically have nothing scheduled. Hopefully once I get a couple of the harder hurdles out of the way, my Christmas mood will begin to emerge.

                My focus is getting narrower and narrower as various activities begin to finish up, though; the week has been a series of endings. In CI, we finished up our LIFE Group, and we also had our last FUEL session of the year. Next semester we’ll start transitioning in the worship team leader for after I’m gone, so this is the end of my solo run, as well as the series of experiments I was running with worship.

                We’ve sent out a survey to see what people thought of my ideas: foreign language worship, scripture readings, kids’ songs, old hymns, etc. This past week was a cappella – for O Come, O Come Emmanuel – which seemed to be a hit. So far, there haven’t been that many responses, but I’ve had quite a few comments over the course of the semester, positive and negative, so hopefully people will make the effort to let us know what worked and didn’t. I think my main legacy for worship team, though, will be adding a regular structure and schedule for practice times/songs/etc. But these are musings for the end of next semester.

                In ROTC, we had change of command, so I’m now officially not in charge of anything (although we had one person missing on Wednesday, so I still have to do one more absence report). It’s very nice not having any more emails with sudden things that need doing, at least for a while, but my mindset has also switched into proactive mood for ROTC now, so I’m finding problems and fixing them even when I’m not really in charge. That was one of the things I wanted to work on this semester, so I’m glad it’s happening. We’ll see what next semester brings.

                We also finished Naval Science class this morning; we all did presentations concerning an imaginary scenario in the Persian Gulf, and as a Middle Eastern Studies major, I was able to spend most of my time talking about the political relations in the Middle East (which you can keep on explaining for pretty much forever and still not reach the bottom of), which made me pretty happy. Also, our LT’s wife made coffee cake and muffins which definitely sped up the hour-and-a-half class.

                I also turned in my semester’s thesis work today – a final outline that’s half the minimum length of the thesis itself (I’m very fond of outlines) with a preliminary intro and conclusions; and a draft of one of the chapters. I wasn’t expecting the chapter to come as naturally as it did; it’s been a while since I was able to sit down and just spend all day putting an argument on paper, but it was very satisfying. I also took the final for my seminary course a few days ago, so that’s done for the semester – only my Harvard classes are left, and all of them involve finals.

                I did have time for a little fun over the past week. I met up with a friend at Starbucks just this morning before we parted ways for the holiday, and several days ago a couple friends and I had lunch with my Roman History professor (Harvard sponsors outings for professors and students), which involved a lot of laughter and good conversation (and steak!). And of course, there was lots of staying in and reading and drinking hot beverages, and walks around Fresh Pond thinking about life and the future, and those sorts of things.

                Well, I should probably finish this up and go back to studying for my final tomorrow. Good luck in you enterprises, and hopefully I’ll be a little less stressed the next time I write!

Pictures:

We've had our share of cold rain, but we've had sunny days, too!

 A beautiful day at Fresh Pond:

 It did snow a little bit (it was gone by afternoon).

 Still going strong on the workouts - hopefully I'll be able to reach my goals before I have to leave my free gym for a month.

 I don't really have a problem with this sign, but it's a little ironic when it mentions the "natural beauty" of the "wildflower meadow"...

 And it's standing in the middle of this:

 I'm sure it's lovely in the early spring and summer, though.

Finally, while these may seem like normal pictures to you, there has been a giant construction area here since around my freshman year; I can't actually remember being able to look across this park without having my view blocked by a fence or a bulldozer. They worked very hard for several years to put in... grass, apparently. But, I'm not complaining.

 Until next time!