The End of Semester Post

So today's December 7, exactly one week before I close the book on semester three here and head home for the winter. Ithaca seems finally to have remembered its geographical limitations and the weather is finally behaving properly: presently it is 14 degrees Fahrenheit and a heavy snow earlier today blanketed the hill in a glistening white blanket.

Now, I'm not one to complain about good weather; God knows I like a 65-degree day in late November as much as anyone else. But honestly, there's something that I find innately good about Winter, especially here in the frozen north. Ithaca is remarkably beautiful in the snow, and all one needs to do to enjoy it is to bundle up and go outside. I wish I had a better camera with me here, but I feel that these are some of the fondest memories that I will take away from this college on a hill.

Finals have been going well; as well as can be expected from Cornell at any rate. My most difficult finals, International Relations and Greek were concluded this week. At the cost of three separate all-night study sessions, I now can put them in the past with a certain peace of mind, and concentrate on the two more tests I have coming up, Astronomy and Computer Science.

Overall, it has been a semester of ups and downs. I have had to take time to totally reconsider my plans for the future, which was a deeply challenging thing to do. At the same time, however, despite all the Big Red Tape and the sleep deprivation, I think this is the first semester at Cornell that I've really enjoyed. For all its problems, Collegetown is a good place to live (not necessarily to sleep); I feel much more connected to campus now that I'm not in the next town over (i.e. North Campus). Much of this I have to attribute to my fantastic friends here. I don't know if any of them will ever read this (I suspect they might, if I've managed to get Facebook to import my blog properly), but if they do, I send my greatest thanks for putting up with me and making life a little bit easier.

Next semester is going to be awesome. I'm compet'ing for the web editor position at the Sun, and academically I'm really excited about my schedule of classes. It'll be great to be home for Christmas, as it always is. But it's also very nice to have something to look forward to upon returning to Ithaca. I close with this quote from Kavafis, which I've posted on my Facebook profile because I think it's fantastic:

Κι αν πτωχική την βρεις, η Ιθάκη δε σε γέλασε.
Έτσι σοφός που έγινες, με τόση πείρα,
ήδη θα το κατάλαβες οι Ιθάκες τι σημαίνουν.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithacas mean

Have a great break, everyone! See you in 2007!

NASA Makes Plans for Permanent Moon Base

NASA is moving along in pushing humanity to the stars with its plans for a new moon base.

Scott Horowitz, NASA’s associate administrator for exploration, said crews of four astronauts would make weeklong missions to the Moon starting around 2020. As more equipment was set up, human stays would eventually grow to 180 days, permanent staffing by 2024. By 2027, officials said, a pressurized roving vehicle on the surface would take people on expeditions far from the base.

This is cool stuff-- in our lifetimes, there will be what amounts to a small city on the moon. Sign me up, I'd like to go!