scholastic rigor is our wine...

...but it's watered down, because we're underage.

In keeping with the golden rule of economics, I generally quit a task once marginal cost has exceeded marginal benefit. Yeah, the mundanity of electromagnetism has long ago balanced out my desire to skip a GIR. Time to browse Facebook and explore Flickr.

But as our esteemed teacher once claimed, the consumer's evaluations of utility are always held to be rational. As he once related to us in the Parable of the Irrational Fashionista, there was once a fresh young college graduate with an underpaying job and an overwhelming hunger for designer handbags. She was psychologically ravaged by her daily dilemma: to accessorize or to eat, but like a true economist, she carefully weighted the personal marginal utilities of purses and sustenance against each other and each day, chose the former until she was forced to go homeless, attended only by her harem of handbags.

"But that's insane!" cried the shocked students. "How can it be considered economically wise to emphasize luxury goods over basic needs?"

"No, my children," said our wise mentor, wagging his head, "The consumer's needs are always considered right."

Clearly I need to reevaluate my priorities.

Yes, 8.02 bores me to death. But I can pass it, and a week or two of tedium trumps a semester any day.

Besides, I really don't need to see every Facebook status message and every ultrawideangle HDR landscape on the internet.

...Right. That's why I'm blogging right now.

(YES I AM SPENDING HALF MY SUMMER STUDYING FOR ASES ONO ONO ONO)

(I HAVE FUN IN THE EVENINGS AND SLEEP ALOT THOUGH)

getting out there

MIT makes the news! (picture) In a fashion column, no less!

...and this time, not random people bashing the piano drop.

secrets secrets are --FUN!

hehehe... kudos to the whoever's behind this.

Brilliant.

Ups and Downs

Ups!

1. Today is (inter)National Poke Ben Jones Day! So if you read this and you haven't poked him on FB yet, do it!
2. Only 15 more days of real class!
   
3. Find out about Interphase soon. *Crosses fingers*

Downs

1. The chat is dying.
2. I still have 15 more days of real class.

C'est la vie and que sera sera sera. So no worries.

<3.

CPW.

To follow suit or not?
I guess not. I want to say hi. CPW was awesome. I'm more bruised up than I expected and fell down more than I wanted, but when you are that exhausted, things happen. So basically, everyone seems to already know my weekend, so I don't think I need to go through all of it again. Oh, I played Rockband for the first time at CPW. GO ME.

CPW!

Okay I'll follow Najah's lead and post my account of CPW too I guess :)

Note: this will probably not be as short as Najah's lol.

Thursday
Airport at 9 am. Mommy gets stuck in security for a while. (She didn't go w/ me btw, just wanted me to board safely). Sat bored on plane for an hour cuz there were fuel probs. Landed at 1. Registered. Had lunch at Subway (TechCASH!). Met up w/ chat ppl and went to see Omar's hack. Free ice cream at Burton Connor. Campus tour. Met up with host and went back to sorority for dinner. Biology Open House. Prefrosh icebreaker and festival. Party on roof of Baker (eh). Went back home and watched Rush House w/ host at Phi Sigma Kappa (really nice btw). Sleep at 2.

Friday
Up at 9ish (missed President's Welcome thing, oops). Shuttle back to Cambridge, make-your-own-waffles at Next House I think (except they ran out of batter so I scraped the bowl). Shopping at the Coop (student center one). Intro to Bio class with Julia. Gourmet lunch at ATO/ other lunch at Kappa Sigma. Eat-your-way-through-the-Jewish-year with Julia. Chilled at student center w/ chat ppl. Watched half of a Demo Parliamentary Debate round. UROP tour at Whitehead Biomedical Center. Tour at Baker? Info session about dining/TechCASH. Make-your-own-pizza and sundaes at Next with Tina. Ballroom dancing lessons! (fun fun fun). Meet the Bloggers. Jacks + Citrus. Chilled at BC/Simmons/student center. Shuttle back to Alpha Phi/fb-ed on host's computer. Sleep at 4.

Saturday
Up at 10ish. Shuttle to Cambridge. Crepes and pancakes at McCormick. Random brunch/tour of New House. Tour/smoothies at MacGregor. Tour/omelette/ball pit fun at Simmons. Activities fair (I signed up for Ballroom Dance team, Taekwando, Society of Women Engineers, Biochemistry Undergraduate Student Association or something like that, some Chinese clubs, Parli Debate, and still want to do orchestra and Dance Troupe). Make-your-own-truffles at Random Hall (got sort of lost lol). Bubble tea / tour of McCormick. Chilled at student center w/ chat ppl. Wii tournament at Simmons w/ Jeff, Rachel, Cameron, Tim (I just watched). Shuttle back to Boston for dinner. Pasta Bar w/ host at Phi Delts or something (quite yummy). Shuttle back to Cambridge. Battle of the Bands, but too much metal so left early. Shuttle back to Boston for Phi Kappa Sigma Karaoke Party (ahhh soo fun! sang No Air by Jordin Sparks. except I got lost initially and went to Phi Sigma Kappa instead and saw cage dancing and ran out. Shuttle back to Cambridge (omg, so much shuttle-ing). Underground CTF yeeahh. Midnight buffet at Kappa Sigma (mmm). Watched POTC II at Simmons. Crashed at Next House and had fun lying on top of ledges :P. Sleep at 5

Sunday
Wake up at 7, shuttle back to Boston to pack. Except I fell asleep again and woke up around 10. Shuttle back to Cambridge. Check-out. Breakfast at Baker. Left MIT (*tear*). Shuttle to airport at 11. Super bored because flight was at 2 and i forgot to bring ipod/book. Back home by 5.

Monday
Skipped school to sleep/catch up on stuff hehe except I woke up at 3pm and didn't really get any homework done.

Ahh such a fun weekend, I didn't realize how much I'd miss it until I got back home, back to school and homework and immature high school people. :(

I guess for me, MIT was everything I expected it to be (and more?) but MIT's not the one I really needed to visit anyway... Need to visit Stanford in 2 weeks and I suppose I should give it a chance... ah well...

I'm currently procrastinating on lots of homework by making this blog entry lol.

~Marie

CPW

Since it seems like no one else is going to post...

Let's see. I'll make this as short and sweet as possible.

Thursday.
Airport. Brother picks me up. Drops me off. Meet my host. She was amazing! Meet up with chat people. Run around. Go to a class. Meet up with more chat people. Have ice cream and stuff. Minority student dinner. Some might say it had a negative influence on me. I'd like to say it made me have a different view of the world and MIT. Do other crazy random stuff during the day. Prefrosh icebreaker and festival. There was a step show. That was amazing. Festival a bit crowded but there was bubble tea. Yum. Party at Baker. Lack of party at Skullhouse. 3-5am. Well... I had some bad tacos ;). Sleep.

Friday.
Up and and about. Doing stuff. What stuff. Who knows? Intro to Urban Studies and Planning Department. That was fun. Go to a class. Supposed to go to Jummah yet Omar never shows up to go with me. Academics / Arts fair and athletic fair. a.k.a. free stuff! Ballroom dancing. I had to quit cause they made us change partners and I couldn't handle the germs of people who I didn't know for more than 5 min. Bouncy ball drop & meet the bloggers. Jack took me to baker, but then again not really. Sleeping in the penthouse. pancakes at new house.

Saturday.

Breakfast at new house. Door tours. Boba fest! Meat at random. This was actually the first time that I saw people I knew eat non-well done meat. CPW closing remarks and variety show. Games at McCormick. Parties. Frat parties are boring, well boring in the sense that the party added no fun to the mix. It was the people I was with that made it fun. Underground CTF! Fun fun fun. Sleep.

Sunday.

Goodbye to my loves! Random fun. The most depressing plane ride of my life! Looking forward to the next four years!

That was my cpw! It was overly amazing. And it was kind of just like WOOSH! MIT is now my lover for life.

Photos are here:

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 other

Things to do at CPW

MIT12 CPW Schedule.
We'll wait a few min before we leave to Party Hop. Call someone if you miss us so we can tell you where we are.

Thursday
6:30 - Salsa lessons (simmons)
8:00pm - Meet at Anna's (Student Center)
8:20pm - Walk over CPW Student Welcome (Building W33)
9:30pm - Go to CPW Festival
10:30pm - Meet up to being the party hopping!

Friday
3:00pm - P@KC
6:00pm - Learn to Ballroom dance (New House)
11:30pm - Meet up to party hop @ the student center

Saturday
11:00pm - Meet up to party hop @ the student center


This is a list of invites that people have recieved from students already at MIT:

Go visit:

The Theta Chi (OX) Frat House.
Fred's room: Senior House room 254 (please speak to him first so he knows that you will be stopping in)

mit is stalking me

Before this weekend, my past 6 weekends have had some connection to MIT. WHAT? Yes. 6 straight weekends.

Week 1: I was going to watch a swim meet at Harvard. I got distracted, took a wrong turn, and to make a long story short, I got lost around the BU/Fenway area. I got back on Storrow Drive in the wrong direction thinking I was going to be lost for a good 3 hours, when I saw the DOME across the river. I found my way to the dome and to MIT, where I became oriented again and was at the Harvard pool within 15 minutes.
Week 2: I went to watch a swim meet at MIT / visit a friend.
Week 3: I had my overnight!
Week 4: I had a swim meet at Harvard, but my friend and I arrived an hour early and got hungry. MIT had food and free parking, so we ate lunch at the Subway in the student center. We also saw a friend/current MIT student and tried to say hello, but failed. We also came back for dinner at the Bertucci's off Mass Ave.
Week 5: PILLOW FIGHT! With Boston-area MIT '12s and Snively '11 and Michelle '11. Again, I took advantage of the free parking.
Week 6: 21! With more Boston-area MIT '12s and Snively '11.

A majority of this weekend, #7, was spent in Fort Lauderdale, so I was thinking my streak would finally come to an end.
BUT WAIT
Today I boarded the airplane home around 12. And you know once you get on the plane you have to stand in the aisle a bit and wait for people to put their luggage away and get settled. So I was standing there and All of a sudden I overhear this in the rows next to me:
Old Man & Wife: Talking about how Florida is nice, but glad to come back to boston.
Young Guy: Oh, are you guys from Boston?
Old Man: Yeah, are you?
Young Guy: No, but I go to MIT.
Old Man: Hey! I'm an MIT Alum! Class of '79!
Young Guy: Oh cool! I'm a physics major. What about you?
Old Man: Aero/Astro ...astrophysics talk
Young Guy: Yeah, I almost did Aero/Astro... more astrophysics talk
Me: *thinking* WHAAAAT?!? Is this really happening?!?!

But before I could introduce myself the aisle cleared out in front of me and I was yelled at to proceed to my seat, which was disappointing. But guess what, that makes a week 7! AND a week 8!
Week 7: MIT student and alum on the airplane from Florida.
Week 8: Three letters: C. P. W. Oh, and exclamation points: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:D peace homeskillets

5 Days!

So today, I missed my first day of school since 5th grade. Why? Because I was really really sick and I'm missing school for CPW anyway. On to the important stuff...

CPW is only 5 days away! The schedule is PACKED. I don't think it would be physically possible to attend every single event. I think it's clear that everyone is really excited. Free food + free stuff + a ton of events + amazing people = a weekend that is sure to be overly amazing.

All I can say is that I can't wait. It's so close and yet so far!

Love you all! Bye!

never gonna let you down

Sleep is nice. Without it, my brain becomes a horrible boggy swamp through which only the most persistent of thoughts may crawl, gasping, to the muddy roiling shores of my consciousness. So naturally I try to get at least 6 hours of sleep a day. More is better. Wednesdays are my savior, because I get double first free then extra help and saunter into school at 9:30 or so instead of 7:50 like usual.

Today, thanks to the extraordinarily pleasant non-anally-violating goodness of a diffeq test that is worth approximately 30% of my semester grade, I decided to get plenty of extra sleep and came in at about 9:25 am, slightly ahead of time so that I could review section 3.6 once more before the big crunch. The hallways were deserted. Must be an alternate schedule. And then I remembered: THE MIT LOGS ARE PERFORMING THIS WEEK. I dropped my backpack, ran to the gym, and sat in the very back so as not to attract unwanted attention from cranky decaffeinated teachers eager to hand out detentions. Hm, bad idea. I could barely see the tops of their heads milling around in front of the stage. They were still introducing themselves ("W, mechanical engineering." "X, computer engineering." "Y, nuclear engineering!" [faint cheers from the audience] "Z, ROCKET SCIENCE!" [the crowd goes wild]) and I was sort of awkwardly sitting there way way in the very back corner of the gym, craning my neck over the taller Asians' heads while trying to pick out the face of Sham's stalkee as I'd promised.

And then they sang and it was beautiful. I'm not going to attempt to confine the pure auditory bliss to the feeble constructs of the English language. Except that we got rickrolled unexpectedly, and for once, it was pretty good.

When they moved on from eargasms to Q&A, Harker went straight to the point. The Logs didn't answer the question about their high school GPAs. Most of them did, however, raise their hands when some girl in the front asked if they were single. (Go for it, MIT12.) Then we all descended upon the stage in a fangirling blizzard of excitement and purchased their CDs. I exchanged like three lines of conversation with a probably half-asian Log, by which point I was still reeling from their intense aura of awesomeness but had also realized that no, I could not possibly do them all, not even for the sake of the MIT12 chat. Thus I leave this arduous task to you, fellow 12ers.

See you at CPW.

Okay, if a Log actually reads this, a lot of it is sarcasm, I'm not that creepy.

3 minutes and 3 seconds of your time

A short one from me today... something to distract you from 1. how disappointing your finaid is 2. counting down to CPW.

When I first saw this video, I couldn't think of a better place to talk about it. Granted, it probably isn't impressive to many of you, but don't forget I'm a bio kid. :) Anyway, now I really want to take apart my game boy starwars game, because it definitely has one of those motors that goes off when you crash into the walls or other pod racers... haha.

Countdown to...
"21" --2 days
CPW --15 days
graduation --66 days (whaaaat?!)

A Bigger Party

Now that all the RD people are starting to come, everything's gotten a lot more exciting. I finally got my financial aid package over the weekend and admitted student gatherings are just around the corner (anyone going to the NYC one?). And CPW isn't too far away either.

I think it's finally hit me that in a few months, I'm gonna be done with high school. Guys. We're going to college.

HI.

I haven't been here since this blog started. So what have I been doing? Absolutely nothing! No, I lie. I've still been doing my normal stuff.

But otherwise, congrats to you RDers. CPW is going to be a lot of fun. Um, I ran out of things for me to say. Suggest something so I can write about it.

Hmmm....

I don't really have anything to say. I'm really excited about CPW though. The Schedule looks great. Hope to see you all there!

I think I'll end it here.

Bye!

the attendance policy vs. the most fabulous weekend ever

“I am SO over you, high school!”

Even now, as I have been accepted to college and am in little danger of failing my classes, I can’t escape!!! Not even one day for CPW!? It doesn’t help that recently the CPW schedule became much more interesting, because now I get to see all the fun things I’m going to miss Thursday until 7:00 PM and Friday between the hours of 1:00 AM to 3:00 PM (and that three o’clock number is being optimistic, assuming that I will be pushing 75 on the highway and I get lucky with traffic lights):

Some of the Fun Things I Will Miss on Thursday/Friday
-Classes
-FOOD everywhere! And it’s free!
-Two separate ice cream parties!?!? No fair!
-EAsT camPUS tour (out of curiosity)
-A capella serenaded dinner
-Bubble wrap hallway (how random! …oh, hold on. haha!)
-Chopstick eating contest (I might get lucky on this one)
-“Spontaneous lectures” at odd hours in the morning
-Capture the Flag at 1AM
-Waffle Breakfast (!!!)
-Classes
-Graffiti!
-Several BBQ’s, my favorite food group
-Did I mention FREE FOOD? L
-Ultimate pick up game

Boo. The moral of the story is that I wish I didn’t live so close, so that “travel” would be a more legitimate excuse to miss school. So all of you who are fortunate enough to live in Far, Far Away: enjoy every fabulous second of CPW you get! Lucky kids.
“Hey, yeah I won’t be here on Friday cause I’m going somewhere. I need the day to travel.”
“Where are you going?”
“A thing for MIT admitted students.”
“Is it at MIT? Like, in Cambridge?”
“Maybe.”
“Isn’t that just 20 minutes down the highway?”
>>This is where I need to get creative.
“Well, actually you know how there’s a lot of engineers there? For a class project, they picked up the whole campus and moved it to Vancouver for the weekend. Isn’t engineering fabulous?”
“Wow! Yes! Okay we’ll count Friday as an excused absence!”
“SCORE!”

Random non-MIT picture today... my bad. Don't lie, this is why you all remember the name "Avogardro" no matter how long ago your last chem class was!
Leave it to Trader Joe's to sell something like this. Needless to say, it was delicious.

"The List"

Screen Names - Real Names/Facebook Links
In alphabetical order for your convenience!

(If you would like your SN/ Name/Facebook added leave a comment or IM Pochacco666999 (Najah) )
('11 doesn't necessarily mean they are in the class of '11 it just means they are already at MIT :P)

aditi14929 (gtalk) - Aditi
Alexskryabin – Kevin
alphawolf6969 – Steven
alroo12 - Ale
amandah27 - Amanda
ambryllien – Becky B
arabesquelolita - Vivi
ardnassak411
armorsmith42 - Andrew
attilitus - Tim
axiomadaescolha – Will part 2
aznfishonprozac
BaLLiNStaLKeR – Matt G
Bananafryer
beccavas16 - Becca
bookgirl102990 - Nan
calvinfourth - Calvin
cheddarcatcher - AJ
citricavalanche – Sam XY
conversacomigo - Stephcrazycanook42
creepygargoyle - Dhruv
d07riv
dazzlingdina234
dga ballllla
DnasTheGreat - David
Doyoulovekiwis - Kayla
Dreems of Winter - Raina
Eskimocherokee - Mike
ethuilas - Rutu
everythinginvsbl
foll0myfootsteps – Donald Guy
frednirv632 – Fred ‘11
Frozen Moosehead - Michelle
God of Electrons – Will, The Original
GyrotheDragon - Katie
hawkinsmit12 – Daniel (Hawkins)
i meant to win - Gina
ieatbabyduckies - Rachel
iobiojibkid - Shannon
jaungchiu - Jason
jbwldcr
jeanbrazil – Jean
jeniscool8d
JxDxCx8890
keys40k
kingoforigin - Alex (lex)
kissmeimagreek - Sappho
knightofni88
lakshmi2290
LaLaLoo6 – Lauren
lazytrackrunner
littleklutz247 - Karen
LittleUnit113 - Cameron
littleyanners - Yanran Chen
lslyv102 - Lesley
luciaprincess2
luv2ch33r08
miccapicca - Micca
minglu1234 - Ming
monsterkw - Cathy
Musicianistic - Yan
Mythili Iyer
N is for NEHA - Neha
njtitans16 – Ernie
Nohcnonk – Eli
Notspelledright – Chris (Chrixx)
oharder2breatheo - Meghan
OldCityRambler - Healy
omarramo12 – Omar (Moar)
omegacredarius – Chris Mills (Chris3)
Ordinarydaysx
Oscarsdumpster
ospreyoars227 - Chip
pagefiler
pamannmon - Pam
PhilotheaZS
Psykid90 – Chris, The Original
Pwafflesprinkles – Marie
Rainynightstarz – Yuzhi (Uz)
Risenage – Kevin
rms27025 - Di
rmv7213 - Robbie (Our Favorite FSU student)
rockernswimmer - Alina
S p e n s i n o
Sammyorbarry – Keshav (Barry)
Scottymorr – Scott ‘11
seeplusplusrules - Andy
shamzillaXD – Shamarah
skswimmin - Alli
SomeBoredSchizo - Stephen
sooxee
speaker td - Joy
sportsaholic989 – Alisha
Steve Biski
SuperSam372 – Sam XX (Sorry Sam!)
surfdude421 - Sean
TekkenGrl13 - Katie
THEJ1990 - Janice
ThePeanutGa11ery
Theyjuststared - Marty
timanthasan
tinashsu314 - Tina
twilights07 - Alex
uhhxgrr
ummmmuhhh64
unmasked14 - Justin
VgMAnGUs
Viridaelassa - Yoonjoo
vulcancountry5 - Matt
Westing Game 738
Windingminds – Karen ‘11
Winnietheluo - Winston
WuTheFWasThat - Jeff
Xchocolatthundax – Arthur (Arty)
Yonderrwindow
Zanyzambiazach - Zach

for the zillionth time

I already wrote on the MIT 2012 facbook wall, and said it in MIT12, so yet again,

“OMG CONGRATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” to everyone!

Now that this whole thing is over (a few months ago or 2 days ago), we can all take a deep breath and chillax. Like, until the end of senior year. Well, not so much that we get rescinded! :D But seriously, its been a great journey. I just thought of that Semisonic song… “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” We’re going to college guys!!! Woo!

Anyway, now that MIT12 is crazy busy, at least for the past two days, I figured I’d transfer some energy over here to the blog. Word on the street is I’m doing all my homework right now so that I can be on MIT12 tonight without having to worry about it. Yes, I'm that lame.

Sorry for the disjointedness and poor grammar… I’m sitting at home right now out of school with the flu’s annoying little brother, eating saltines and sprite with my calculus homework ominously staring me in the face… I’m a bit of a scatterbrain right now.

**Edit
Happy Evacuation (coughStPatrick's) day! Don’t go too wild… remember, it’s not the weekend anymore. :P
Happy St. Patty's day every year except 1940, 2008, and 2160!!
Thanks Snively...

Picture: from MIT's Technology Review
P.S. TR is amazing. Those of you who haven't poked around there yet, I highly suggest using it to be a s^3 (second semester senior) i.e. procrasinate. It's also just great reading in general. I read this article this morning on the most promising technologies of the year...very neat stuff.

Mile 26

Ok sorry guys this is long and serious (most of the time)...

1. Happy pi day! I hope your ratio of fun : crap was at least = pi!

2. Some thoughts on the college admissions process, MIT, and the meaning of life (no, really!):

Applying to college is like running a marathon. Your preparation starts months, in our case years, ahead for this one race. We’ve slaved through high school for three and half years, subjected ourselves to tests than run four, even five hours, spent sleepless nights on commonapp.org during deadline week. All for a couple of form letters that barely fill a standard sheet of paper. “But Alli, it’s not just the letter, ____ is my dream!” …or, “But Alli, finishing the Boston Marathon is my dream!”

Take a step back. Why are you applying to college? No, not because you want to go there. Why do you want to further your education? College only lasts four years, an hour in a week of life. What counts is what you do with your education. Many kids our age just don’t have the opportunity to go to college at all. We should leap at any higher education we can get, MIT or otherwise, because we have access to it and therefore it is our responsibility to put it to good use. I, for example, want to go to college to make a difference in the world. Is MIT going to make that difference for me? Had I been rejected, would I have abandoned my dream of changing the world? Absolutely not! Changing the world depends on whether I have the conviction to follow through with my dream, not if I spend a mere four years at a cool school.

Continuing with the analogy, why are you running the Boston Marathon? If I ever ran (ha ha), it would be to raise awareness and support for Habitat for Humanity, since I do a lot of work with my local branch. Now, if I go halfway and pass out, or at the very end some race official, for whatever reason, pulled my aside and told me not to finish the race, will I disown HfH and never volunteer there again? Um, no.

Turns out that all our preparation wasn’t actually for college applications (think of those as an added bonus), but for ourselves. We found dreams, inspiration, and motivation. We laid the foundation to do great things wherever we go. “Doesn’t that fit the spirit of MIT? I’d fit in perfectly!” But that isn’t the spirit of MIT, that’s the spirit of YOU!

So here we are, mile 26. We feel like we’ve been in this race forever. We know exactly where the finish line is and we are all capable of reaching it. If you finish, congrats! If a random dude pulls you over to the side two seconds before you break the ribbon, takes your chip and chucks it in the Charles River, thereby preventing you from finishing, you’ve got every right to be angry and slap the guy in the face. And either way, don’t lose sight of why you wanted to run in the first place.

Let me finish with quotes. I like quotes!
“Don’t let today’s disappointments cast a shadow on tomorrow’s dreams.”
-?
“Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.”
-JFK

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!!

warning! science!

Hey hey. Bonjour from beautiful Essex County, MA. Our monstrous piles of snow have almost completely melted and our citizens are enjoying a sight they haven't seen in months: grass! Granted, it's all dead and nasty, but that's beside the point. Spring is in the air! Easter is in a week and a half! CVS is selling easter candy! CPW is in 28 days! All's good in the hood.

To help those waiting for... the D word, I found some strange/fun/random science. Which we all will enjoy because, duh, we applied to MIT.

>Some human test subjects checking out mentos, pop rocks, and coke. Have you ever heard the myth of the little boy exploding to death because he downed an entire pack of pop rocks and chased it with a two liter bottle of coke? No? It's okay, its probably just me. This was proven false, yet the playground-rumormachine was well underway among kids ages 4 to 13. General Foods spent thousands of dollars sending letters to schools and running newspaper ads reassuring Soccer Moms of America that if their kid happens to swallow a packet of pop rocks and chug a can of soda (gross), no, little Timmy/Suzie will NOT explode. You're probably not thinking right now, 'Okay, so what would happen?" They have EVERYTHING on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRccwJenuC4 "So far, no death."

>No write up on this one, but its wicked cool. Bionic Contact Lenses

Picture: Reading Room under the dome (taken during my visit)

3.15.08

That's when regular decisions come out. Hopefully all our RA chat friends will be accepted. Good luck to all those waiting for decisions and I hope you have a lot of work to do this week so that you have something to help you keep your mind off of it (though that's practically impossible :D)

Once again good luck!

bye!

RD?

So apparently there are rumors going around that RD might be march 22nd rather than the 15th. If anyone has solid evidence of the date that regular decisions will come out please let me know ASAP.

-Thanks.

RD

Hey you guys, I just realized that after next Saturday (the 15th), there will be a huge rush of new people coming into MIT12! Eee! lol it's gonna be crazy

38 days until CPW!

Lotsa Stuff

Hi peeps, thought we needed an update. So, according to my Facebook countdown application, there are 42 days til CPW!! eeheehee. I remember that when I first added CPW onto there, it was like 120 days or something lol

In other MIT-related news, we've had lots of new people come into the MIT12 chat recently. Perhaps we should introduce them to this blog ^^

Hum. So today I accidentally locked my keys in the car... like I was in a rush in the morning, after I parked at school, I grabbed a bunch of things and set my keys down on the car seat instead of my purse and so when I got to school, I freaked out and thought I lost my keys lol. But yeah, someone had to drop me off at my violin lesson and my mommy came to school and opened the car for me. Interesting day.

Yesterday was a snow day! :D 4th one of the year lol. Too bad we don't get snow days in college.

Ooh, ComingHome is in a week and a half! :) So excited. and Science Olympiad Regionals are this weekend, yikes.

Ok I'm out.

intravenous turkey refuse

(crossposted from my personal blog)

When I first discovered MIT, I got myself hooked on the MITblogs right away. Like an IV drip straight to the vein (although aren't they all? I guess you could miss), they nourished me with the life-giving anecdotes upon which stalkers feed. Their subtly sarcastic humor pulled me through the churning whitewaters of high school. When I had to stay up until 2 am to finish an APUSH essay that I started reading the prompt for at my usual bedtime, the MITbloggers coincidentally pulled all-nighters that night for their thesis papers or whatever, and then I would feel better about never having actually pulled an all-nighter because I would probably get my fair share of those in college. When I was all depressed about that B-prus test in Engrish, the MITbloggers assured me that life was okay, because they were getting C's on their midterms and even though MIT was way harder than high school I wasn't a loser at life. When I spent sleepless nights worrying whether MIT would defer me or just reject me outright, Ben Jones ranted uncontrollably about his overwhelming love for the applicant pool and its awesomeness, and I felt better inside.

Oh, MITblogs. I love them all, but Mitra and Sam were my favorites to read, and considering that they were pretty obviously dating, well, that just made them more awesome.

But all good things must come to an end. As mournfully chronicled by the MIT'12 chatroom, Sam made his Last MIT Blog Post Ever earlier this week. We modulo Sham would have cried, had it not been for our cultish secret: we know about his new blog.

Don't worry, Sam Maurer. We're watching you.

(Not really. But I mean, I don't know what the others are doing, so no guarantees.)

women

so these both made me angry at first. after a while though, i realized that i wasn't angry at the comics, because they are to some extent an accurate representation of our society today, and that i was in actuality upset with society.

i feel we have obviously come a long way, as a gender, especially considering the population i am blogging to (mit girlies & men); but... any

thoughts?

Some say love, it is a razor...

THAT LEAVES YOUR SOUL TO BLEED

But instead we'll listen to the music of logs (and spheres)

A few months ago, being the dork that I am, I made this little caffeine molecule thing for my phone:


And yesterday, I received a valentine embossed with its sister molecule, theobromine:


I don't know of any other school that spoils its prefrosh like this -- the individually hand signed cards, the nerdy poetry, the telethons, the frickin' cool tubes with confetti and posters. It's little things like this that make MIT that much more amazing. C'mon 12ers. Let's go be awesome and never turn back.

Guilt trip

My brain must be guilt tripping me for never being on MIT12 anymore. Last night I had this dream that it was our first day at MIT and lots of people I don't really like from my school were somehow going to MIT and I got a creepy roommate. I remember going to Anna's and looking for you guys in search of someone to hang out with but the people from my high school kept coming in and eventually I realized I'd missed my first class. When I saw the first p-set it was quantum physics or something and then I just kind of freaked out and went back to my room, where I discovered that my roommate was yet another person from my high school.

Moral of the story: Don't neglect the chat.

FOMF

At my school........................ we do FOMF! What is FOMF, you ask? Well:

FOMF stands for Friends of Millard Fillmore (the most obscure US president). It is a weekend long community trivia hunt, intended to foster learning and research skills in high school students. This year it was from Feb 1 - 3 (Friday thru Sunday)... yes, it is always on Super Bowl Weekend, every year. The idea of FOMF is that schools compete against each other to see who can answer the most trivia questions correctly.

My school had 10 captains. I was one of two Operations Captains. We had 2 Proofreading Captains, 1 Tech Captain, 2 Office Captains, 1 Bring-In Captain, 1 Wall Captain, and 1 Library Captain. (most of us were sick or got sick over fomf weekend. but we still perservered!) Together, we managed 200+ people (students, parents, teachers, alumni), and all worked together to figure out the answers to the 80 trivia questions. We then worked on getting our answers documented. We would only receive credit for our answers if they were typed up perfectly and were documented by two reliable (books, newspapers, magazines, DVD's, etc... ANYTHING except the Internet basically) sources. This meant that we were rushing out to libraries and bookstores, photocopying pages like mad, because these photocopies were our proofs.

I personally spent hours upon hours arranging sponsorships from major food chain stores, arranging parent volunteers and chaperones, doing all the paperwork for extra credit forms for students and overnight stay forms for hardcore fomfers, and finally, my most important job: checking incoming proofs from students. This was a mindblearingly tiring job. My eyes tired from staring and highlighting photocopies of books... I slept over both nights, spending about 60 hours at school... I went 36 hours without showering (ew! I know! but it was for a Cause!)... ran around Stanford library and burning my eyes out at the microfiche... I drove like a mofo to Noah's Bagels to grab food donations... I yelled (not at specific people, just general announcements and such) until my lungs burned out and my voice died (and I'm not a superaggressive person...) - unfortunately before adjudication. I couldn't be a lawyer, but I skipped school Monday to help our school's two lawyers prepare...

it was an intense weekend!

(and it's NOT over. still so much paperwork... gah)

Joy

More of the same...

Hello, peeps....Mmmm...Peeps...

Not much is happening on my end, 2nd semester started a week or so ago; not much of a change from last semester, except I have Macro instead of Mirco, Physics C (I) instead of Multi and Astro instead of Govt. Theres something that happens when you get accepted, biological maybe?, that makes you unable to concentrate or care much.

So...uh....

Good night

- Will

Thought We Needed An Update ^^

Ummm yeah, what's with everyone not posting for like *checks* a week?? lol and you guys should go post in your own private blogs too, like moi.

Anyways, how's second semester senior year going? I thought it would be so much funner but it turns out I still have to sit through classes and do homework even though it doesn't count for anything in particular. Lame. And I still haven't done any of those things on my list, except for going to breakfast at IHOP today with my friends because we had a 2-hr delay. Except some people didn't show up because they wanted to sleep >.< lol

We might have a snow/rain/ice/cold day tomorrow *does snow dance* especially since today in science research, we upper levels had a free day again and spent it looking up weather reports online :P

What else... you MIT12-ers who haven't been in the chat lately, get on!! I think 10-11 EST is the most active lol

Also, I can't wait for CPW!! The schedule from last year is freakin amazing, I want them to post up a schedule like that for this year so I can map/plan out what I'm going to do while I'm at MIT hehe

Yeah. That's all. I'll post again tomorrow if we have a snow day and gloat. Jk. Or not.

Yet another reason why I can't wait to get out of here

I understand that getting into MIT early is a huge deal, and I guess it's pretty impressive, but sometimes I almost wish I hadn't told anyone about it.

At first it was kind of cool and novel that people associated me with MIT, but now it's getting old. When someone can't figure out a calc problem the standard answer, "Go ask MIT." It's not because I'm especially good at math (to be honest, I'm probably in the bottom half of my calc class), but because somehow since I'm going to MIT it means I must have suddenly become a freaking genius.

Any time I ask a silly question or mess something up, because I'm not quite perfect yet, I get snarky MIT comments and I know they're meant to be funny, but it's just annoying now. It would be nice if people could step back and realize that I still have a real name other than MIT (although on a sort of cool note, my name is Michelle Ilana so if I ever get married to someone whose last name starts with a T, my name really will be MIT. My physics class has already taken note of this fact and tried to pair me up with every person with a T last name).

Yes, MIT is impressive and prestigious, but I'm still the same person that I was in November before I got accepted. I'm not suddenly more brilliant, more socially awkward, or less of a person.

I can't wait until CPW and then next year, when nobody will say, "Hey MIT, how'd you miss that question?" because we'll all be MIT and it won't be alien or impressive, it will just be life.

ghost town

I was finishing up a cute, fast little gearbox cad around 6 pm or so today, when all my compatriots suddenly ran off to the other building to play with the IR sensor on our test drive platform. The angry growls of the German metal men blasting through our speakers were paused, the clatter of aluminum and procrastination was hushed, even the constant whirring of overworked laptops ceased as they completed their renders and fell into a half-watchful sleep. Ghost town. Not to mention my school is the perfect setting for an FPS. Long dark corridors with evenly placed skylights that cast shadows as often as light, not to mention the new building, with its half-finished concrete walls and puddles of rain and scattered pipes, blanketed by layers of fog in the morning. It's creepy.

Enter MIT12, where Zen is no longer a challenge and people have acquired social lives (or maybe just homework). Actually, the low population at this time is probably just due to the high concentration of ESTers (eastern time, not RC=O-OR) who frequent MIT12. But yes, ghost town is eerie. COME BACK PLX

Mystery Hunt!

I know that several of the official bloggers over at the admissions page have been blogging about mystery hunt, but I just wanted to add in that I'm having a great time with the hunt. Originally I was hoping to take the bus to Boston for the weekend and stay with a friend who lives at Random, but that didn't really work out, so I'm puzzling remotely. This means that although I'm part of the Random Hall team (A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Suez) I'm working from my computer at home in New Jersey. I'm not planning on showing quite the dedication and insomnia that I would be if I were actually at MIT, but I couldn't turn down a weekend of puzzles (especially since I really need to be studying for midterms, which are next week).

I don't want to give anything away about any of the puzzles, but it is so satisfying to be the first one to figure something out about of clue. I haven't contributed too much yet (and the main puzzle I'm working on hasn't yet been solved) but it's so cool. I can't wait until next year when I'll actually be at MIT for IAP.

It's finally over.

This morning I took my last midterm of my high school career. I made it out alive! I never thought that I would get to this point in my life. It always seemed so far away. Now all that's left is my senior project, 4 AP tests, and an english final that I'm pretty sure I'll do well on because the teacher thinks that I'm "deep." Let's hope that during my AP exams I don't do what last years seniors did during their math AP exam which was sleep. I feel so relieved. I thought I might care that I'd fail most of my midterms but it all turned out ok in the end. Got to love the curves. (I wonder how many chat people thought "That's what she said." after reading that.) Senior year has been good so far and it is kind of sad that it is half way over. I mean, I'm ready to graduate but still. I think that's all I have to say :D.

My plans for this weekend: Sleep and go to Staples to buy a 5 subject notebook because I'm only brining one note book to school for the rest of the year in this bag! I've been waiting so long for this time and now that it's here I don't really know what to do.


Well that's all! I just wanted to say that I was done with midterms :D

Bye!

EA telethon

So around 7:15 tonight the phone rings at my house. Since nobody ever calls for me I ignored it and let one of my parents pick up. I soon discovered that today is the EA telethon and I actually had a phone call. I resisted asking whether or not MIT will really rescind me if I do miserably in physics this semester and/or fail my midterm and just chatted for a few minutes.

I love that MIT cares enough to do stuff like send us tubes, holiday cards, and have students call us. This isn't even the first MIT student to contact me. The bloggers are friendly and I keep getting messaged on facebook from people trying to recruit me for the Hillel (this is what I get for having a very Jewish-sounding last name and looking stereotypically Jewish). I wish it would be CPW already!

AHH

YAY EXAMS ARE OVER! hehehehe it's now officially second semester, which means lots of MIT2012, reading, sleeping, watching tv, and not caring about homework! :)

Eh. Got in A in physics, 91.3 when the cut-off for H was 92. Boo oh well.

Hum. I really want to take a nap but I have a violin lesson in 1.5 hours and I need to practice and then fri/sat is our Sylvania Speech & Debate tournament, the biggest tournament of the year. Fun fun.

Oh yes. Any suggestions on what to argue for this topic? heh:

In a democracy, civil disobedience is an appropriate weapon in the fight for justice.

Joy's amazing post

To do list:

1. various hws (i luv my probability/lin alg class & my eng class and i hate my ochem class... my other classes are mediocre)

2. make (actually, probably watch/prod/annoy my friend as he makes) a really awesome acrylic magnetic clear rubix cubey at said friend's house

3. read Neil Gaiman & Terry Prachett's Good Omens

4. go to in-n-out & enjoy. (T_T why doesn't Cambridge have in-n-outs?)

5. dress shopping at an outlet :D

6. ice skating

7. fomf

8. sleep

9. [try not to] have nightmares about cpw & paralysis...

10. ignore rensselaer & princeton's persistent emails (something like 3 per day) that I have not applied yet.

It's the end of the chat as we know it

I had nothing to do this afternoon and my calc homework was giving me problems so I decided to go on the MIT12 chat since I haven't been on in a while. I entered the chat expecting the usual chaos and confusion but I was greeted by an ominous silence (and not because my speakers are turned off). Alina was only other person in the chat. This has never happened to me before so I was forced to conclude that one of several things had happened. Either (a) everyone was having computer problems, (b) the entire world except for New Jersey had been spontaneously combusted or, (c) the prefrosh had gotten lives. Faced with these three options, I immediately deduced that my state was the only remaining in the country.

I waited around for a minute and soon Jeff and Ale joined, convincing me that there must be some other reason, probably hiding in the 4th dimension, for the momentary collapse of the MIT12 chat.

What's up with the Weather?

Right now, when it should be blizzarding outside, making roads impassable so I can have a snow day, it is pouring rain and thundering!!! Rain in January!! Sixty degrees in January!!!

Just last week, we had a huge blizzard that even dwarfed my own awesomeness (I know, I was surprised too!). Even though it happened to come when there was no school already, it was a blast to drive through it (I mentioned this in an earlier post). Fortunately, I now have a picture to show you just how ridiculously awesome this storm was. Now to fully understand what I treked through, imagine those roads you see with the 1 foot partitions of snow completely filled with snow. Go crazy, just imagine snow everywhere, coming down, coming up, coming from the side. Imagine that the road just blends in with the 1 foot high surrounding of snow. Now once you have that image (possibly video if you see snow coming down) floating in the dark place called your imagination, you have a good picture of what my trusty Honda CR-V and I braved and survived.



That picture was taken just a few days ago. Right now, as I look out my window and see endless rain attempting to penetrate it, there is no snow left. Yes, the weather has killed the snow. Rather than being cold outside, the weather has decided to throw a curve ball full of warm air. What's even weirder is that this happens every January here!! There is always a few days in January with sixty degree weather. The seasons should be: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, More Summer, Even More Winter. The only reason I'm ranting is because I'm pissed at the thunder that keeps distracting me and the rain that's rumbling at the window a few inches from my ear.

~Anyway, rant ends here~

Great! The storm is picking up...AGAIN!!! err sorry, moving on. So I've got finals next week, but like I said earlier, I'm still excited since my bio exam is all multiple choice (/me goes and does a victory dance). Once finals are out of the way, I'll be in my final semester, entering the final leg of this journey we call high school.

G'day everyone! Enjoy More Summer, it will be ending soon!

the rest of the Donald Story

Well, I promised a better intro after my AP Gov was done and not only is my AP Gov done, but so is my AP English, and AP Psych, and theres been a day of school so now I have new versions of all of it.

ANYWAY, first I would like to say that I have a habit of starting sentences that change topics with anyway, and sometimes other sentences. My Honors English 10 teacher got really mad about and would practically yell whenever I did so. Ergo, when my friends and I made a relatively horrendous but infinitely entertaining Flash version of the Illiad, I was the narrator and every sentence the narrator said began with anyway. (btw, if you would like to see this flash version, which is, as stated, highly entertaining, you can check it out here)

Anyway, so ... why might I have this anywaying habbit. I suspect it has to do with the way I think. I've been playing around with computers for a long time, and it's seeped into the way I think, speak, and write. Now, don't worry .. I won't come up to you and sing

#include <stdio.h>
main(t,_,a)char *a;{return!0<t?t<3?main(-79,-13,a+main(-87,1-_,
main(-86,0,a+1)+a)):1,t<_?main(t+1,_,a):3,main(-94,-27+t,a)&&t==2?_<13?
main(2,_+1,"%s %d %d\n"):9:16:t<0?t<-72?main(_,t,
"@n'+,#'/*{}w+/w#cdnr/+,{}r/*de}+,/*{*+,/w{%+,/w#q#n+,/#{l,+,/n{n+,/+#n+,/#\
;#q#n+,/+k#;*+,/'r :'d*'3,}{w+K w'K:'+}e#';dq#'l \
q#'+d'K#!/+k#;q#'r}eKK#}w'r}eKK{nl]'/#;#q#n'){)#}w'){){nl]'/+#n';d}rw' i;# \
){nl]!/n{n#'; r{#w'r nc{nl]'/#{l,+'K {rw' iK{;[{nl]'/w#q#n'wk nw' \
iwk{KK{nl]!/w{%'l##w#' i; :{nl]'/*{q#'ld;r'}{nlwb!/*de}'c \
;;{nl'-{}rw]'/+,}##'*}#nc,',#nw]'/+kd'+e}+;#'rdq#w! nr'/ ') }+}{rl#'{n' ')# \
}'+}##(!!/")
:t<-50?_==*a?putchar(31[a]):main(-65,_,a+1):main((*a=='/')+t,_,a+1)
:0<t?main(2,2,"%s"):*a=='/'||main(0,main(-61,*a,
"!ek;dc i@bK'(q)-[w]*%n+r3#l,{}:\nuwloca-O;m .vpbks,fxntdCeghiry"),a+1);}

instead of the twelve days of Christmas (yes, that is what that program outputs (try compiling and running it!) (and no I didn't write it)). However, what I did at the end of that sentence is sort of what I'm talking about—when I write I will put tangents in parentheses and will often nest them a few deep. In person, I hear, this gets more annoying because I will move through topics of a conversation and nest tangents deeper and deeper, then finish what I was talking about popping up the stack of my conversation, finishing things in reverse order and expect people to understand. I also use computer metaphors. I think the anyways are just a way of my segmenting my thoughts and indicating to myself and others that I am creating a new topic.

In any case (another way of saying anyway), why would you care? Honestly, my linguistic habits are probably of no concern to you and if you've made it this far, I salute you. (You may find out that in real life I will occasionally, or often, actually salute you .. which is weird cause I have no interest in the military whatsoever .. since I'm a pacifist) ANYWAY, what I was trying to also get across is that I'm a Course VI person .. a very Course VI person. I'm also likely an East Campus type person, but we will see as CPW and Orientation progress how I fit in there.

Since this is getting exceedingly, excessively, exorbitantly (, redundantly) long, I too show now utilize the bullet list form .. though some I my bullets might drag on a bit. Here we go:

• I also am currently my school valedictorian, but will only be salutatorian by the end of the year :-(
• I too like the word über, and thanks to my wonderful MacBook keyboard (Apple still believes in the concept of an AltGr key .. if not exactly), I can make the umlaut appear, AS IT SHOULD!!
• On that note, my laptop is a MacBook, my desktop is Daul Booted XP and Xubuntu (linux). I'd like to get a bigger laptop HDD so I could tri-boot it.
• s shocking as it might seem, I am not completely and totally just a nerd. I have friends and participate in quite a few "cocurricular" activities, most notably Chorus, Theater, and in the past, Boy Scouts (I am an Eagle Scout). I also like doing many things in the union of nerdocity and mainstream, like play Rock Band and DDR (I am good up through any 8 footer, 9s its iffy), see movies, and read (though I have a tendency to read more nonfiction of recent, like language manuals, books on early Christian history (though I am not a Christian really), philosophy stuff, its all very interesting.. but I do enjoy fiction too)
• I'd like to learn Japanese, Arabic, Mandarin, Greek, and Korean.. I probably won't achieve this in my lifetime.
• I'm relatively liberal, I don't really know who I'm supporting in the election though. I like some things in the Paul camp, but not others. Obama seems alright... I'll decide latter.

Umm .. how long could I go on? Very. Alas, homework calls. If you have any questions for me, let me know.

Peace,
~Donald Guy

Everybody else is doing it

So, I figured that, since I had no idea what to blog about, because I've never had a blog before in my life, I'd write a little intro about me!

I am Katie, xx, MI, 8. I am also known as Ale xx and Saucy. Here are some facts about me:

• I'm a pretty weird person. Right now I have bright red hair. I like to paint my fingernails strange colors. And I love brightly colored socks.
• I am an uber physics nerd.
• I like the word uber. I also say lol way too much. And I have the dorkiest screen name in the world.
• I am from Flint, MI and I love Vernors, Halo Burger and Koegel's hot dogs, none of which they have in Massachusetts or most of the rest of the country.
• I say "pop." I do not and will never say "soda." So ha!
• I love the cold weather, thus I am extremely ANGRY that it's 60 degrees here today. I want snow!
• I am still undecided in the presidential election. Weird, huh? (But it doesn't matter because I won't be able to vote anyway.)
• My favorite book is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. If you have not read it, you should.
• I collect state quarters and foreign language dictionaries.
• I really am sane and halfway intelligent, though I doubt sometimes that it shows.

Um, I think that's it. I cannot wait for CPW because every day I think I like you crazy people more and more, and we really need to meet. But for now the chat is a great excuse to not do homework, chores, and other things that bore me. Yay!

Second Semester Senior Year

Dude, you guys have made like 5 posts since I last checked this thing, which was around midnight last night lol

Anyway, school's dragging on and final exams are in exactly a week (I made a study schedule last night.. it's insane.. I always make them and never follow them. I can't even find my 1st quarter papers and stuff ahhhh). So I thought I'd cheer myself (and maybe all you other seniors) up by making a list of what I'm going to do starting 10 days from now when second semester starts!!! We get a 4 day weekend after exams too, because of Martin Luther King Day, although I will probably be helping out at the Sylvania Speech and Debate Invitational.

1. Read lots and lots of books
2. Hang out with friends every weekend
3. Play Guitar Hero a lot
4. Play DDR a lot
5. Play SIMS2 a lot
6. Learn how to cook
7. Learn programming (eh...)
8. Go to IHOP with friends on 2-hr delay days (yeah, that's just something we've always planned to do but never could because we value sleep more than each other's company)
9. Go to sleep at 10pm each night
10. Um.. do scholarship applications? Boo
11. Make fun of sister because she still has another year to go
12. Start running club with friends (exercise in general)
13. Watch French movies
...and most importantly...
14. CHAT ON MIT12!! Yay lol

But not to worry, I'll still do my homework and stuff. I don't think I've ever not done a homework assignment in my life (I've forgotten them at home sometimes though =/) I might not study as much for tests though. frozen GPAs rock (gah, just gotta pull off all my H's this quarter and exams to stay 1st). In AP Lit, we have to make a Chapbook of like 20 of our own original poems but no one really cares anymore. Eh.. being me, I'll probably still want to pull off all my H's 3rd and 4th quarter just because... (btw, H = 94-100 in AP and honors classes)

As for events, there's CPW and spring break and prom and Cedar Point Physics day to look forward to :)

Oh well. Keep your spirits up people because second semester senior year is rapidly approaching!! Hehe

Still On Break

Good Morning MIT'12 Prefroshes and random readers,

Guess what? I'm still alive, and on break! Yay teacher inservice! So...instead of doing homework, a presentation in Biology, a couple of review sections in Statistics, some reading journal entries for Lit, and writing a final exam essay for my online Govt class, I'm bothering you guys. Heh, it's a pretty light load compared to what some of you have to do. So procrastination is fun :) Daytime tv on the other hand, is not. I have a Martha Stewart rerun on. Now a Rudy Guiliani ad, hehe fear mongering is fun!

Well...since everyone else did an intro and err...my first posts all my posts will make me seem like a lunatic, at best. So...this intro will paint me in a positive light?

Will, I am or William. I am not Sam. I do not like green eggs and ham. Green ham either comes from glow-in-the-dark florescent pigs or ham soaked in green dye. Green eggs...hmm..I dunno. Green Chickens?

Well, I'm a native Floridian, currently living in Bradenton i.e. boring suburb/small city. I go to a boring stereotypical high school, kinda like the High School movies but I'm the nerd in the background who isn't invited to the "awesome" party that ends up getting the protagonist thrown into either prison, Mexico or Harvard sometimes worse...CALTECH.

I am um...not interesting. I am Asian, politically independent, and uh...sort of a slacker? I read every once and a while, preferably dystopia novels, comedies, and satires. I watch too much tv for my own good.

...

Now, to end the post with a random simile. Winter vacation is like a waffle. There are cells to keep the syrupy viscus goodness that is fun. They're usually found frozen but some are made on the iron of spontaneity. Occasionally you'll find a Belgian one in there. But in comparison, it doesn't compare to the pancake that is summer vacation.

PS. I didn't have breakfast :/

Sean (called Maximus by most): The Truth

For those of you out there who thought that Sean's post was serious (and I really hope that there are very few of you). You should know the truth. His new goal in life is to make me hate him (so then he could gain joy from annoying me but he's not doing a very good job at this). So when I posted about how I was happy that the chat was saved he felt the need to say that he was the one who saved it. Therefore, though he tries really hard to be one, Sean is not that much of a weirdo to go outside in the snow wearing only tube socks.

On a side note you should also know while about 8560% of the stuff that he says on any topic is a lie / joke. 99.9(with a little line over it)% of the stuff that he says about me is a lie so don't trust anything that he says about me. I'm not in the KGB and I don't work for the IRA either.

Seniorit...y

Finals begin in two days. I am almost a second semester senior. MIT likes me (at least that’s what the tube said). Does that mean…I can stop doing schoolwork? Gasp!

Despite my alleged superiority, defined by an ability to pull passing grades without simultaneously pulling all-nighters, and the justification to laugh at the plebes who haven’t gotten into college yet, I don’t want to give up all semblance of academic effort just yet. Because I think I’m getting my lowest grade ever in a class right now. AHH PANIC

For me, there is always that one class that, no matter how legitimately I study for it (so surfing Facebook with the textbook open doesn’t count), the desirable grade remains elusive. Maybe the teacher is unreasonable, the test questions are ambiguous, or the material just won’t stick in the brain, but the test grades are sorely lacking.

I’m pretty sure my grade is only where it is, and not lower, because of the saving grace of homework. But oh snap, finals get their own category in the gradebook. So if I don’t study a bit, I’ll probably end up with, well, something that college would frown upon. (This isn’t CollegeConfidential; I’m not crying because I just got my first A-. No kidding.)

And, well, even if I were to forgo studying, my sleep quota has plenty of backup diet options.

(This post overdramatizes reality a little because I just wanted an excuse to use that long tag there.)

True Confessions

Since I'm normally addicted to blogging I feel a little guilty that I haven't posted yet. Basic introduction, since we love our roll calls: I'm Michelle (xx, duh), living in the best state in the country (Jersey!) and hoping to major in course 1E, which is environmental engineering for people who haven't memorized the course numbers like Sham has. Reasons why I'm super cool:

1. I really like whole grain bread.
2. My favorite number is 35.
3. Sean says I smell like maple syrup (let's ignore the fact that he hasn't ever met me in real life)
4. I sing really loudly when I drive, loudly enough that people can hear me when they're walking by.
5. I have a terrible voice.
6. I try to rationalize that the MIT12 chat is a form of social activity.
7. I adore word games and books (probably more than science and definitely more than math)
8. I hike, a lot.
9. I have no number nine but I really don't like even numbers so I felt compelled to add another item to this list.

So you're reading and I can see you saying right now, "But Michelle, how could #7 be true? You're supposed to love MIT!" And the answer is that I do, I love it so much that the only other school I finished applying to was a state school and I'm turning down full tuition there. So why MIT, then? Why when "books" is probably the most common tag on my personal blog entries and I shudder at the word "physics" do I choose MIT? Basically, because however much I love literature, I realize that I would never be happy studying it my whole life because (a) I'm sick of writing papers about it and (b) studying subjects that could potentially change the way we live forever is a lot more exciting.

So here I am, I've been outed; I don't know any computer programming languages, I'm awful at physics, and until last year I couldn't stand math, but somehow I love everything about MIT and I'm beyond excited to become a student.


(now I'm just waiting for the hate mail to pour in)

a list.

I'm Shamarah and I'd like to introduce myself, in an itemized fashion :)

1. The "froshface" title was my idea and I'm really happy that it was chosen
2. I'm the girl who memorized course numbers way back in August
3. Najah and I share a brain and a love for New House
4. Rachel and I share a love for The Logs and, to a lesser but still pretty large extent, Sam Maurer
5. I'm a seven sister (GET WITH IT OR GET LOST. *THUG STANCE*)
6. I have a thug stance
7. Paninis, lol
8. I'm from Florida
9. I love MIT - a lot
10. School starts tomorrow for me :(
11. MIT12 is hilarious and is now my favorite AIM chatroom ever, and I'll be very sad to have to stop going there as often since I'll have homework to do and, you know, a life to live

That's about it. Stay cool, everyone!

And So it Lives On: The Truth

I remember that long cold December night.

I was in Vermont, seeking solace from my self-imposed loneliness in the depths of the internet. I powered up my laptop, and headed out into the winter blizzard, the only place where I could find free wifi (thank you Johnson's, your unprotected network saved me $9.95). As I sat outside in the horrendous conditions (heavy snowfall, negative ten degrees, zero visibility), warmed by nothing but my overheating laptop battery and my favorite pair of tube socks, I contemplated what to do next. Suddenly, as if inspired by the muses of Athena, I determined that I should go converse with my friends in the Mit12 chat. I clicked the iChat icon, watched it do its little cute warm up dance and eagerly waited as it loaded. Go to chat, MIT12. It was empty! Nobody was there! A solitary tear fell across my face, freezing somewhere between my right eyeball and the bottom of my nose. I was heartbroken. As I looked up to the skies as to let out a shriek of agony I saw a star blink and fade away (actually it was a satellite). This starallite gave me hope and inspired a new resolve. I was going to revive the chat. So I sat there for hours upon hours, talking to myself and to my alter ego. Having long political debates and countless arguments on topics ranging from women, to love, to physics, to homeless people, to global warming, to fast food, etc. Finally, at the first crack of dawn, someone else signs on. I log off, and check out. Fainting in the snow, wearing nothing but tube socks.

The preceding was a true (read as fictional) account of how I saved the chat.

Anyways I am Maximus (sometimes known as Sean) and I approve this message.

And so it lives on...

When the chat started we were all on winter break so we knew what might happen. The reality was that when we got back to school / the other part of our lives the chat might die. But I am glad to say that although it does have it's weak moments (quite a few more than it had over break), it is still alive and well. The chat saved me from complete and total boredom over break so I was going to be really sad to see it go away but now I'm happy that it's not.


Bye!

I hope all of you who are still on winter break are enjoying your last few days!

十一 (jū ichi)

Thats 11 in Japanese.. to return to the number meme

Yo! It is I, Donald Guy, famous commenter of the MIT Admission Blogs... okay .. so I have no actual fame, but in MIT12 world (a fun place, by all accounts) .. I am .. or at least was..

6:09:29 PM Rutu: wait, donald, did you facebook me?
...
6:09:34 PM Sam, XX: gasp.
6:09:35 PM Donald Guy: no
6:09:37 PM Shamarah: what
6:09:38 PM Sam, XX: is donald guy in this chat?!?!?
...
6:09:40 PM Donald Guy: yes
6:09:41 PM Yoon: yes
6:09:42 PM Jeff : yeah
6:09:43 PM Shamarah: SEE? he's famous
6:09:44 PM Donald Guy: that would be I
6:09:44 PM Sam, XX: shut up.
6:09:46 PM Sam, XX: SHUT UP

This did wonders for my ego.. but other than Maximus (Sean) and Ale's occasional worshiping of me, my fame has abated ...

Anyway, enough about me and my ego. So, why am I here? Becuase like Rachel, I have maniacal plans/hope of being an MIT Admissions blogger.. so .. I am blogging .. it was my new years resolution.. (I wonder if these ellipses are bothering certain chat people?). ANYWAY, I will write a more substantive entry after I do my AP Gov homework.. if that happens.

Peace out y'all,
~Donald

P.S. I don't speak Japanese.. but I'd like to learn it

Me Happy

During the past two weeks (aka the vast hole of nothing in my schedule that people call winter break) I have been churning out programs on the USACO training site in a bid to stick it to the man and rack up as many extra credit points as possible. See, in my AP CS class we get extra credit for every program we do. Most people do nothing and so that is why the teacher has that rule. I, however, have taken advantage of the system and currently have 42 extra credit points. I could literally fail every exam and end up with a passing grade, if not an A.

Now, over break, I have done six programs, which will rack me up somewhere around another 12 points before the semester ends. How's that for screwing over the grade system?

As you can see from the title of this post, I'm happy, but not about a having a guaranteed A in AP CS or because I'm Omar. Rather, it is because of a little message I got when I submitted my last program for testing. Normally, it takes me a while before I pass all tests on a program. See the picture below (notice the 38 submissions...i know, it's not pretty).



For this past program though, I got it on one try and received a message that is better than my mother's love. Check it out:



Even though this message probably came from some slave robot that is being forced to test everybody's programs, it still makes me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. It's the simple things in life people, the simple things...

Will versus the Chat

If you join the chat at some point, I or the chat will gain points. Here are the rules so I won't have to restate them in the future.

I gain points by "killing" the chat. "Killing" is the act of deterring a response from other chatters, with an interval of 20 secs or larger. I do not need to purposely sabotage the chat, I just happen to naturally kill it.

The chat gains points by confusing me. It's a difficult... moderately difficult... easy task. Speak computer speak...then you win.

The current score if you want to know is, 28 - 27. TAKE THAT CHAT! :)

So what is the purpose of this "game"? Well...nothing. I get bored easily and it is a ego boost?

I play this game with a lot of things. Will versus Insects (3-34), Will versus Sliding Glass doors(0-22), and Will versus TV commercial (43-54).

To end the post, I have to write about Canada.


Canada's up there. Almost Santa Claus up, but a little less. They have no penguins but, they have Hockey Players which is a decent trade off. They have a parliamentary government? Their Prime Minister is...Gorden Brown? Sarkozy? Stephen Harper, a "conservative". Canadian conservative = American Democrat? They don't have MIT so that's a -100. They have universal health care, so that's a +10. They have polar bears +/- 50 points. They have hockey and lots of beer, +50.

If you need more information about Canada, ask Stephen Colbert.

Good Night, and Good Luck.

a categorical imperative, but not really.

It was great to see all the alumni at school yesterday, but wow, so many of them have changed. In the words of my esteemed co-pres: “Everyone looks like a pimp, a stoner, or exactly the same.” I looked around, and lo and behold, it was true. But I guess you can stuff anyone into a mental category if you try.

MIT12 is addictive. The regulars are, in fact, so addictive to talk to that I’m afraid when we finally meet in person they’ll be like malformed cephalopagic Siamese triplets with one enormous functional superbrain or they’ll secretly take hourly IV infusions of LSD in order to maintain their interestingness, because no way are they normal kids. Of course, we already knew that. (The last part.)

Yet as time ticks later and later into the night, and we get more and more tired, it seems like our primal instincts kick in and turn the chat toward angsty thwarted teenage romance (hah, got it semantically correct that time) as I oh so astutely noted. Or perhaps it was just yesterday that that happened.

It’s good to know that most of us illustrious MIT12ers, brilliant and charismatic and stunning though we may be, are human inside. Like, we can play Mersenne zen and use pickup lines like “Let me be DNA helicase and unzip your genes” and use MIT course numbers all the time to confuse people, yet still not be ashamed to admit that Asian chicks are HOT (inorite?) or discuss our secret, burning love for Sam Maurer. Because blog updates from Sam Maurer are like ambrosia from the heavens.

You know, I thought I’d be writing a lot of brilliant blog entries after I got into MIT. And fill my blog with bloggy goodness, so that the world might know of my daily exploits, and I’d become rich and famous and get paid to tour the world and blog, and of course become an MIT admissions blogger. Wishful thinking. But seriously, which posts belong in MIT2012, and which ones in my personal blog? This one clearly belongs here, but that’ll be something to mull over in the future. Or I’ll just take the easy way out and double-post.

ttyl.

Siete

Sorry, this post is going to start out on a depressing note: I've discovered today that getting into college doesn't mean I'll have it easy. it's still the same old homework I should be doing but can't, and still the same old worrying about grades so that my MIT acceptance doesn't get rescinded. heh.

On the bright side, I think this suffering is making me look forward even more to CPW and to college. But even now as I type this, the chat seems to be slowly dying. Can we keep MIT12 alive until CPW? Until September? I think we can! We can't let something like going back to school separate us. We'll procrastinate on homework together, lose sleep together, and have a lot of fun. You guys are all amazing and CPW can't come too soon. (Well, maybe we should wait for Sean and Alex to get accepted first :P). So who's with me? MIT12 must live on!

Sei sesso.

Hi. I'm not sure what is supposed to be written in here, but the MIT12 chat is a lot of fun. Right now, I need to get a start on my homework, but I just wanted to say that after being an Italian student paninis is very confusing. Amo i panini, ma non amo il "paninis." I have no idea what a paninis is, but maybe that is just how I pronounce it: pan-in-nis. That is all for now.

Cinq

Hi. I'd just like to say that Pnin (crazy Nabokov novel I have to read for AP Lit) and/or paninis are forever ruined for me.

Anyways, it's 1:26 am EST and I have to get up in 5 hours for the first day of school. BOO

I also agree with Najah! MIT12 chat is so crazy and fun (see above panini reference) and you really are a great bunch of people :) I can't wait for CPW!

I'm not really sure if the stuff I talk about in here has to be MIT-related? Oh well. Earlier we had a discussion about CPW versus prom, and what Sham said is true, it kind of is like old friends versus new friends. Which is a difficult concept for me to grasp, because even though I complain about Ohio being boring a lot, I have really had some amazing times with my friends and I'm rather sad that we're all going off to different places next year. A lot of people here actually go to the same college as their friends (University of Toledo, Ohio State University), but I'm practically the only person from my town that even applied to MIT (another really good friend of mine from the other school in my town is applying RD, I hope he gets in! ... Ironically their school is called Northview and ours is called Southview, funny right?? lol) But anyways, meeting all these new people in the MIT12 chat really makes me look forward to the future and college, which is supposedly the most exciting time of our lives.

I forgot where I was going with this. Oh right, I just think that we should always treasure the times we've shared with our friends, but create new memories for the future! ... that came out really cheesy-sounding. Oh well.

Ahaha. It is now 1:40 am EST. Really time for me to be going to sleep. Bye all!

(Btw, for those of you not cool enough to take French, "cinq" is French for 5. Hehe.)

Number 4. I think.

Hello world!

I <3 all the MIT12 Chat people. Why? Because everyone is nice and we have fun. I sound like a little kid I know but that's how I see the world sometimes. Being in the chat really makes me look forward to the fall and CPW.

The post below me is really funny. Read it.

I'm going to stop wasting space now.

Goodbye and come again!

MIT Being Itself

Ohh MIT. Below is a really funny exchange between a prospective MIT student and MIT from a while back. It's a good thing MIT has changed their recruiting tactics since then. On the other hand, who said there was anything wrong with arrogance?


April 18, 1994
Mr. John T. Mongan
123 Main Street
Smalltown, California 94123-4567

Dear John:

You've got the grades. You've certainly got the PSAT scores. And now you've got a letter from MIT. Maybe you're surprised. Most students would be.

But you're not most students. And that's exactly why I urge you to consider carefully one of the most selective universities in America.

The level of potential reflected in your performance is a powerful indicator that you might well be an excellent candidate for MIT. It certainly got my attention!

Engineering's not for you? No problem. It may surprise you to learn we offer more than 40 major fields of study, from architecture to brain and cognitive sciences, from economics (perhaps the best program in the country) to writing.

What? Of course, you don't want to be bored. Who does? Life here is tough and demanding, but it's also fun. MIT students are imaginative and creative - inside and outside the classroom.

You're interested in athletics? Great! MIT has more varsity teams - 39 - than almost any other university, and a tremendous intramural program so everybody can participate.

You think we're too expensive? Don't be too sure. We've got surprises for you there, too.

Why not send the enclosed Information Request to find out more about this unique institution? Why not do it right now?

Sincerely,

Michael C. Benhke

Director of Admissions

P.S. If you'd like a copy of a fun-filled, fact-filled brochure, "Insight," just check the appropriate box on the form.




And here is his awesome reply!


May 5, 1994
Michael C. Behnke
MIT Director of Admissions
Office of Admissions, Room 3-108
Cambridge MA 02139-4307

Dear Michael:

You've got the reputation. You've certainly got the pomposity. And now you've got a letter from John Mongan. Maybe you're surprised. Most universities would be.

But you're not most universities. And that's exactly why I urge you to carefully consider one of the most selective students in America, so selective that he will choose only one of the thousands of accredited universities in the country.

The level of pomposity and lack of tact reflected in your letter is a powerful indicator that your august institution might well be a possibility for John Mongan's future education. It certainly got my attention!

Don't want Bio-Chem students? No problem. It may surprise you to learn that my interests cover over 400 fields of study, from semantics to limnology, from object-oriented programming (perhaps one of the youngest professionals in the country) to classical piano.

What? Of course you don't want egotistical jerks. Who does? I am self indulgent and over confident, but I'm also amusing. John Mongan is funny and amusing - whether you're laughing with him or at him.

You're interested in athletes? Great! John Mongan has played more sports - 47 - than almost any other student, including oddball favorites such as Orienteering.

You think I can pay for your school? Don't be too sure. I've got surprises for you there, too.

Why not send a guaranteed admission and full scholarship to increase your chance of being selected by John Mongan? Why not do it right now?

Sincerely,

John Mongan

P.S. If you'd like a copy of a fun-filled, fact-filled brochure, "John Mongan: What a Guy!" just ask.

Second Post?! Yeah.

Shoot, Will totally took the "First Post" post and ran with it. I was going to do that, but it's too late now, unless I change the time of this entry to an hour before Will's. But that's cheating. Like in Ocean's Thirteen when Brad Pitt puts in the correct secret sequence of tokens to make the slot machine spew its massive progressive jackpot with the next token. On the casino's opening night. That's cold. I guess it's okay, though, because America loves seeing casinos lose.

But instead of making a random dumpy woman's pupils dilate out of excitement, this kind of cheating would just make Will look down upon me, and he'd probably shake his head out of disappointment. And all of this before we even meet in person; now, that's something that deserves being looked down upon and having a head shook at.

I was going to write an entry about something totally random and not related to MIT, like how I hate tangerines but love clementines and mandarin oranges. (It's because of the seeds! The number of seeds is inversely proportional to how good the citrus fruit is.) But I might save that for my other, more appropriately-themed blog. Or maybe not, since within that parenthetical, I basically revealed the entirety of the reasons behind my fruit preferences.

Anyway, in recent MIT-related news, I tried making a rainstick with my MIT tube. Putting a handful of rice grains in a tube gave me far more utils (Stop now and say that aloud. It's pronounced "yoodles". How awesome is that?) than either could alone. It failed miserably, however, since the rice grains and the tube were far too disproportionate in size. To quote something I heard in the boys' locker room one time, "it was like throwing a hot dog down a hallway."

But I doubt he was talking about rainsticks.

First post?!

Fellow Bloggers, hackers, and readers we have brought you the most random? the most awesome?....err we really don't know. It will be a blog, with links to things we deem worth, possibly chat overviews, and maybe a window into our lives or thoughts. If we annoy you, they didn't plan on it. If I annoy you, it's because I am crazy.

Thanks for reading and good night.