Blister in the Sun

With the upcoming mid-term, I am a little bit nervous as well as pumped to see my first big sort of “test” here at Cornell. It has been a long time studying the philosophers and now its almost time to begin the examination tomorrow morning. I hope I won’t suffer any writer’s block tomorrow and will be able to write freely. Hope us the best of wishes.

Aside from that, today was pretty much one long hot day with an intense lecture on the philosopher John Locke. Even though it was extremely interesting to hear about Locke and his impacts on Western political thought especially in the Americas, I am struggling to keep myself from dozing due to the lack of sufficient sleep hours. Sleeping in such tough conditions is literally like sleeping with a few heaters in a desert. There is a heatwave hitting the coast and it will surely get worse than I have experienced so far this entire time. I woke up several times in the early morning; wiping off the sweat off my brows in a confined room with one fan propelling with all its might. Fortunately, I was able to stay up during both the lectures in day by Professor Kramnick.

The highlight of the day was our guest speaker whose name was Nelson Roth, an attorney with great background in cases spanning from lawsuits against Cornell University to homicides. One case he brought up was about a police officer named David Harding, in which he was arrested for planting fake evidence of fingerprints in certain big crime investigations. In both the cases where the victims were fatally assaulted, Harding justified his actions of using false fingerprints to put the suspects in jail in his belief to protect the public. I can sort of understand his intent to serve justice to those who are hiding behind the legal system, but some say he was excessive in his desire for vigilantism. He ended up putting some people like Shirley King behind bars for acts she did not commit at all. Nelson Roth was part of a BBC documentary of peculiar cases involving David Harding and his pursuit of justice.

Well, I will report to everyone how I do on the exam tomorrow. Till then, I am back to studying for it and enjoying some calzones.