Yesterday was great - I ended up getting  out 2 hours of drill to attend three conferences - one was with the Chief Counselor   for USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development), one was with Gen. Charles Jacoby, Commander NORTHCOM and NORAD, and the third was with the CEO of Save the Children, one of the largest non-profit NGO's in the world. All three conferences were tailored to crisis relief and response. They were all really neat.
Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the last meeting that day - a lecture by Henry Kissinger (fmr. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor).
All  of our uniforms we need for summer deployment came in yesterday, and even though I'm not going on summer deployment I got multiple new pairs of coveralls, Navy Working Uniforms (think blue camouflage), and new khakis. My closet is now full of uniforms and uniform components.
Today I'm working a conference for the Middle Eastern Studies Council, and then am heading back to study for my calculus exam on Thursday.
This coming Friday I am going on a tour of the Sikorsky aircraft plant in Stratford CT where all of the U.S. Army Blackhawks, U.S. Navy Seahawks, U.S.C.G. Jawhawks, and U.S.A.F. Pavehawks are produced. It should be pretty neat. I've driven by there a few times and it's neat to see all the blackhawks out on the tarmac.
But the best news of late? It's finally nice weather up here. I haven't had to wear a coat in three days. No snow on the ground, and I can go on walks without getting chilly. I saw a bloom on a tree yesterday (yep, only one bloom on one tree, but that means more are on the way!).

This week has been hectic preparing for my second calculus exam next week. This weekend I've also got some interesting things to do: Friday afternoon I am attending a videoconference at Yale school of management with Gen. Charles Jacoby, Commander of NORTHCOM; Friday evening I'm meeting with my tutor for multivariable calculus (calculus isn't that intuitive this semester, so I got a tutor through the Math department to give me a bit more instruction); Saturday I'm working a conference for the Middle Eastern Studies department until 3, and then right after that I'm headed to the grand opening of the William Howard Taft mansion - I'm a fellow in the William Buckley program at Yale, a community of conservative thought here, and the program bought President Taft's mansion earlier this year and we are finally having the grand opening Saturday. 

I spotted these strange carvings in the archway of Yale Law School this afternoon while on an afternoon stroll:

I'm back from spring break! I enjoyed two weeks of warm weather, fun at UGA, time with family, and lots of biscuits. I returned to campus today to find the snow has all melted!!!! This is reason to shout out with joy, trust me. Unfortunately, we have some more "Devil's Dandruff" forecasted for this week, but no big deal.

I have two weeks of very heavy work, then it's easy cruising until finals. 40 days and counting until the end of the year. It'll be 40 chilly but fun days!

I have found that the best way to bond with Northerners is over frustration... let me explain: This afternoon I was waiting at Laguardia Airport for my shuttle to New Haven to arrive. It was about an hour late, and there was another 40ish year old man sitting near me that had been there as long as I had. As people came and left, our ticket numbers continually were not called. I finally asked one of the workers for a status update to know how much longer it would be, and my new 40ish year old friend said (in a VERY thick northern accent) " Yeah, how much longer will it be? Come on, me and him have been waiting for over an hour! A little late isn't bad, but over an hour? Come on!" From then we chatted it up over how ridiculous it was that the driver was so late. I just kind of went along with him because it was funny seeing him get so worked up over this.

I also found out today that my phone (and props to AT&T) gets service, and 4G data connection, at cruising altitude(about 34,000 ft on this flight) on a plane! I was able to text for a very long time on the plane today before I finally lost service. So much fun. I had never texted from inside a cloud before.

Now I'm on the downhill slide to Spring Break... only a few more days until I head home and enjoy nice warm weather. The windchill this morning was 1 degree Fahrenheit. It is not fun walking a mile to class with a 1 degree windchill. Haha, it's good I haven't had a haircut since December because if I had my buzzcut up here in this weather it'd be even worse. I'm just praying that at the end of spring break it'll be nicer weather and the trees will be in bloom.

I got an email a few days ago from the middle eastern studies council here at Yale, and it turns out they're hiring me to run their conferences since my boss referred me to them. So I'm now dually employed by the european studies council and the middle eastern studies council at Yale. It'll be nice to get an extra paycheck.

I'll resume blogging once I return from spring break, around 24 March.

Today me, two other midshipmen and my suitemate went to Newport, Rhode Island to get some stuff on base at the exchange and then we went over on the other side of the water to see some scenic areas of Newport. Here's a bunch of pictures, you can skip looking at them or scroll through them (I find them all to be worth at least skimming through) :

Below is me and two other Midshipmen in front of CV-60, the USS Saratoga at the Naval base. It's pretty rusty and sad looking now, but it was one of the first supercarriers ever when it was commissioned.

USS Saratoga below

Newport was a quaint town/city to go through

And below are the historic mansions we passed along ocean's drive in Newport. They're all very neat.

This is the famous forty steps in Newport:

More really nice old mansions we drove by:

This drive would've been so much fun in a sports car...it looks like something out of a commercial.

The gardeners are so good at this house that they trained the ivy to grow in exact diamonds like that... that is just ivy.

And here are some panoramas I attempted to quickly take at various places. some of them didn't turn out perfect, but nonetheless they're cool.