A Taste of College Life

I think sleep depravity finally caught up with me today. It's weird too because quite a few of my friends were feeling the same way - I went to bed (relatively) early last night, completely exhausted. This morning was weirdly difficult too because I consider myself a morning person. I literally got out of bed, put in my contact lenses, brushed my teeth and walked out the door 10 minutes before I was supposed to meet Simon for breakfast. Also, I didn't drink coffee this morning, which is neither here nor there but I feel like that probably could have made a difference. 

The majority of the class this morning was devoted to more on writing research papers - specifically on how to credit sources Chicago style. From where I stand now, it looks as though the most challenging part of writing the bibliography is going to be figuring out how to format it in Word. I've never had to cite sources in footnotes before, so this should be interesting, and I'm sure it will be useful to know how to do for future assignments. That's something that I like to keep in mind whenever writing this paper seems daunting. Half of this class is focused on the how-to's of research paper writing. Having that knowledge behind me will definitely give me an edge in the future, in class these coming years probably, and definitely in college. It'll be great even to just have my paper on file for reference, especially if (and I'm sure it will) the topic of Truman and the atomic bomb ever comes up in APUSH. 

I mostly did research during the second class period today. I skimmed a book whose author's general opinion was that the claim that dropping the bomb would save thousands of lives on both sides was unrealistic and unwarranted. That, among several other reasons, is beginning to influence my own opinion on the matter. I think I agree that Truman's decision to drop the bomb did not rely as heavily on preventing losses as the public was initially led to believe. Atomic diplomacy and economic reasons also fed into Truman's final "okay." 

After class, Simon, Emily and I decided to take a day off from city life, so we studied together for a bit. Afterwards Emily and I went for a run and later that night I finished the Dark Knight with Simon and Claire. Unfortunately, Claire and I were a bit late to dinner, so John Jay was already closed and we couldn't get dinner there. But that's okay, because we still had leftover Chinese from a couple nights ago, and we put that handy microwave down the hall to use. I felt that I truly experienced college life today, because I also conveniently left my ID in my room and was thus forced to improvise and make my own eating utensil out of the metal handles on the Chinese takeout boxes (two birds with one stone - they had to come out anyway in order to microwave the boxes). We ate and (struggled to eat) and watched the Dark Knight, and socialized until my roommates came back. Hopefully I will be better rested for tomorrow!